John McCain released a statement Monday laying out the stakes for Americans in the burgeoning conflict between Georgia and Russia.
"Russia is using violence against Georgia, in part, to intimidate other neighbors such as Ukraine for choosing to associate with the West and adhering to Western political and economic values," McCain said. "As such, the fate of Georgia should be of grave concern to Americans and all people who welcomed the end of a divided of Europe, and the independence of former Soviet republics."
McCain called for a United Nations Security Council resolution condemning Russian aggression and calling for the withdrawal of Russian forces from Georgian territory. He also proposed an emergency NATO session and a peacekeeping force in Georgia.
McCain began his statement acknowledging that Americans may wish to spend their August vacationing, perhaps a thinly veiled shot at his Democratic opponent, Barack Obama, who is spending this week on vacation in Hawaii.
Read McCain's entire statement below.
"Americans wishing to spend August vacationing with their families or watching the Olympics may wonder why their newspapers and television screens are filled with images of war in the small country of Georgia. Concerns about what occurs there might seem distant and unrelated to the many other interests America has around the world. And yet Russian aggression against Georgia is both a matter of urgent moral and strategic importance to the United States of America.
A top diplomat in the Russian Foreign Ministry dismissed John McCain's threat to exclude the county from the Group of Eight for failing to live of to democratic standards, saying Tuesday that Russia is simply "not interested" in what Republican presidential candidate says during the course the campaign.
"We're not interested in what McCain has to say," the diplomat said. "Let him first become the U.S. president, and then we will listen attentively to him."
"We want the American electorate to answer for the choice it will make," the diplomat said, adding that the U.S. is "on the verge of an existential crisis."
The diplomat made the remarks during a news briefing in Moscow on the condition of anonymity, according to wirereports.
McCain has repeatedly suggested that Russia not attend future G8 meetings because of what Arizona senator calls the country's failure to produce "free and open economies, free and open societies, and free and fair elections."
"We need to improve their behavior," McCain said, defending his stance in an interview Sunday on ABC. "And I will do what I can to see that they reverse many of the behaviour patterns which have really been very unhelpful to peace in the world."
Barack Obama has said he opposes excluding Russia from future G8 meetings, saying the move would be "a mistake."
As conservative rumbling continues about Barack Obama's canceled visit with wounded U.S. troops while in Germany, John McCain jumped this weekend with an ad blasting Obama and furthered his criticism Sunday on ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos."
"Well, I know this: those troops would have loved to have seen him. And I know of no Pentagon regulation that would have prevented him from going there without the media and the press and all of the associated people. Nothing that I know of would have kept him from visiting those wounded troops," McCain said when Stephanopoulos asked him about the flap.
Obama has taken some heat for canceling a visit to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center during his trip abroad. Obama said the Pentagon warned him that he could not bring campaign staff or media with him--as the Pentagon would prohibit a campaign-related event at the facility--but that he was welcome to visit the wounded troops in his capacity as U.S. senator. That, Obama said, sparked concerns that a visit would be viewed as politicking, and the campaign scrapped the visit for fear of controversy.
Some, however, have suggested that egos got in the way: NBC's Mark Murray reported that Obama foreign policy adviser and retired military man Maj. Gen. Scott Gration (Ret.) "got torqued" at being told he couldn't go, implying Gration's bristling led the campaign to cancel the visit.
"If I had been told by the Pentagon that I couldn't visit those troops, and I was there and wanted to be there, I guarantee you, there would have been a seismic event," McCain told Stephanopoulos.
"I think people make a judgment by what we do and what we don't do," McCain added. "He certainly found time to do other things."
Barack Obama says he is "disappointed" that rival John McCain claimed he would rather "lose the war" in than lose his presidential campaign, calling the comment "unfortunate."
"John McCain and I disagree on policy. You know, we disagreed on going into the war in Iraq. We disagreed, until recently, about the need to get more troops into Afghanistan," Obama said during an interview on NBC that will air Thursday night.
"But I've never questioned that he wants to make America safer. And for him to suggest that I don't- for him to suggest that somehow I'm less concerned about the safety of my wife and daughter than he is I think was-- was unfortunate," Obama said.
Barack Obama says his visit to Afghanistan during his trip abroad helped him realize the "daunting" effort needed to stabilize Afghanistan, believing that in the long term Afghanistan will be a "tougher job" than Iraq.
"Looking at the landscape and the extraordinary poverty involved, makes you realize what a daunting task our efforts there are going to be," Obama told Time in an interview.
"It redoubles my belief, or deepens my belief, that if we're going to get that done we're going to have put in more resources. Both issues [Iraq and Afghanistan] are very difficult. Both situations are very difficult, but it is not clear to me that in the long term Afghanistan isn't a tougher job than Iraq is."
With an international audience closely watching Barack Obama's first major appearance on the world stage, the Illinois senator known for his brilliant speaking ability made a minor error during a press conference in Amman, Jordan.
"Let me be absolutely clear," Obama said. "Israel is a strong friend of Israel's. It will be a strong friend of Israel's under a McCain government -- administration. It will be a strong friend of Israel's under an Obama administration. So that policy is not going to change."
Though Obama's foreign policy slip comes at a bad time, given the pressure and spotlight of this trip abroad, it is unlikely the John McCain campaign will be able to capitalize on the slip.
McCain has made several foreign policy misstatements, most notably confusing Iraq's Shia and Sunni Arabs. On Monday, McCain added to the list by incorrectly stating that Iraq and Pakistan share a border.
In the hypothetical situation that Barack Obama could go back in time knowing what he knows now, he would still oppose the so-called "surge" of U.S. forces in Iraq.
Asked by ABC Monday if he would support the surge if he could "do it all over again," Obama said "no," adding "these kinds of hypotheticals are very difficult."
"Hindsight is 20/20. But I think that, what I'm absolutely convinced of, is that at that time we had to change the political debate because the view of the Bush administration at that time was one that I just disagreed with," Obama said.
John McCain has consistently characterized the surge as a "success," saying ahead of Obama's visit to Iraq that the Illinois senator will "see the success of the surge."
"It is a success. This is the same strategy that he voted against, railed against," McCain said.
John McCain incorrectly stated Monday morning that Iraq shares a border with Pakistan.
Asked if the situation in Afghanistan is "precarious and urgent" on ABC's Good Morning America, McCain said, "it's a serious situation, but there's a lot of things we need to do."
"We have a lot of work to do and I'm afraid it's a very hard struggle, particularly given the situation on the Iraq/Pakistan border."
McCain did not catch or correct himself later in the interview.
This is second high profile geographical error McCain has made in as many weeks. Last week, McCain made repeated reference to the country of Czechoslovakia, which split into two separate countries in 1993.
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