Tell it to Estonia

From AP-

HEILIGENDAMM, Germany - President Bush on Wednesday discounted Vladimir Putin's threat to retarget missiles on Europe, saying "Russia is not going to attack Europe."

Bush, in an interview with The Associated Press and other reporters, said no U.S. military response was required after Putin warned that Russia would take steps in response to a U.S. missile shield that would be deployed in Poland and the Czech Republic.

"Russia is not an enemy," Bush said, seeking not to inflame a heated exchange of rhetoric between Washington and Moscow. "There needs to be no military response because we're not at war with Russia. Russia is not a threat."

Russia certainly is a threat to some of its neighbors. Did President Bush forget this news?

TALLINN, Estonia: When the Estonian authorities began removing a bronze statue of a World War II-era Soviet soldier from a park in this Baltic seaport last month, they expected violent street protests by Estonians of Russian descent.

They also knew from experience that "if there are fights on the street, there are going to be fights on the Internet," said Hillar Aarelaid, the director of Estonia's Computer Emergency Response Team. After all, for people here the Internet is almost as vital as running water, used routinely to vote, file their taxes, and, with their cellphones, to shop or pay for parking.

What followed was what some here describe as the first war in cyberspace, a three-week battle that forced the Estonian authorities to defend their small country from a data flood they say was set off by orders from Russia or ethnic Russian sources in retaliation for the removal of the statue. There are still minor disruptions.

"This may well turn out to be a watershed in terms of widespread awareness of the vulnerability of modern society," said Linton Wells 2nd, the principal U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense for networks and information integration at the Pentagon. "It has gotten the attention of a lot of people."

The Estonians note that an Internet address involved in the attacks belonged to an official who works in the administration of Russia's president, Vladimir Putin.

The Russian government has denied any involvement in the attacks, which came close to shutting down the country's digital infrastructure, clogging the Web sites of the president, the prime minister, Parliament and other government agencies, staggering the biggest Estonian bank and overwhelming the sites of several daily newspapers.

If you need a reminder of the Estonia war monument controversy, click here. Coddling that psychopath Putin is not going to get him to change his behavior. He is going to be a threat to any nation that becomes cross with him, that includes the United States unless some nation is prepared to stand up to him.

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