As the war debate heats up, whom can we believe?

Should you believe France or Russia? They are indeed crucial members of NATO and permanent veto-wielding members of the U.N. Security Council. But as we are now beginning to see, the moralistic stance of these countries is perhaps not so much a function of their enlightened attitudes towards humanity as a product of good, old-fashioned self-interest and greed. Russia, the state that extended the first words of solidarity to the Bush administration immediately following the Sept. 11 atrocities,