Palin's Dangerous Saber Rattling on Russia
Sarah Palin said something very very dangerous today during her interview with Charlie Gibson.
PALIN: Well, you know, the Rose Revolution, the Orange Revolution, those actions have showed us that those democratic nations, I believe, deserve to be in NATO. Putin thinks otherwise. Obviously, he thinks otherwise, but...
GIBSON: And under the NATO treaty, wouldn't we then have to go to war if Russia went into Georgia?
PALIN: Perhaps so. I mean, that is the agreement when you are a NATO ally, is if another country is attacked, you're going to be expected to be called upon and help.
There are numerous problems with this statement. The most important element is that it sends a very dangerous and extreme signal to the world -- especially other nuclear powers. This type of dangerous talk reinforces the militaristic saber-rattling of the McCain campaign. From joking about bombing Iran, to talking about invading Iraq, Iran and Syria weeks after 9/11 to the misguided "we are all Georgians now," the McCain campaign is sending all kinds of horrifying signals to the world about the types of wars it would fight. Leaders in other capitals are paying attention and words matter.
Technically, if Georgia and Ukraine were to become part of NATO under Article Five, we would be obligated to protect them and even Obama-Biden support bringing them into NATO. But here's the thing...
No sane American or European leader would ever ever ever give an answer like that. You do not get into hypotheticals about nuclear war. You just don't. Palin references the Cold War. The only reason the Cold War stayed cold is because our leaders understood the stakes of getting things wrong and saying things that could lead to catastrophic nuclear war. During the Cuban Missile Crisis every word, every public statement, and any message that the Kennedy administration sent to the Soviets was checked, double checked, and triple checked to make sure it was sending precisely the right signal. This is what you are forced to do when you have thousands of nuclear weapons and so does your opponent. The stakes are simply too high. And yet there is a nominee for the vice presidency of the United States who may one day have her hand on the button and she is casually talking about potential catastrophic nuclear war.
Barack Obama would never give that answer. Joe Biden would never give that answer. They would say that we don't discuss those types of hypotheticals. That might sound like a cop out, but think of the Palin alternative and what kind of alarm bells that sets off in Moscow. Prescisely the type of alarm bells that could one day lead to mushroom clouds.
Saber rattling matters. Words matter. We've learned that from the past eight years. When George Bush said "With us or against us" it mattered. When he referred to a "crusade" it mattered. When McCain jokes about war with Iran, calls our allies "vaccous and posturing", says that Iraq is building a weapons assembly line for al Qaeda, it matters.
And when Sarah Palin, a first term Governor with no national security experience or expertise, talks about hypothetical nuclear war it really matters. It reflects badly on her and her readiness. It reflects even worse on John McCain who thought that she was qualified to be Commander in Chief.
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First of all Russia did not invade Georgia. Georgia went to South Ossetia. Ossetia is protected by Russia as Isreal is backed by the US. Russia went to South Ossetia to protect. They have politics that is hard for us to understand. Someone that doesn't REALLY understand foreign affairs [Russian Affairs] like Sara Palin should not comment on such until she really knows what is happening. There are enough little countries that would love us [Russia and US] to blow each other apart without someone like her rattling her whatevers. .
It is interesting that an executive in charge of a piece of land larger than all but 18 nations and 23 miles from Russia is seen as less experienced than a Chicago elitist who never seems to have had a job or a Delaware politician who has managed to unaccomplished after 36 years in Congress. The downward spiral of the Obama/Biden ticket is in part a reaction to this sort of uninformed and mindless reactionary posture. It hurts an already damaged campaign with more detritus.
AND, as is the case, people who get their information from Fox & Limbauch are VERY UNINFORMED and don't even know that McCain and Republicans prey on them because they say these supporters are stupid and believe everything they tell them.
And they're equally stupid if they're not millionaires, but support Republicans and vote against their own well being.
We're so glad the intelligent ladies on "The View" confronted McCain on his lies.
McCain is a serial liar to match Bush, and one of his big lies is that Palin is capable of being VP or, God forbid, President. Palin comes across as an OVER CONFIDENT BRAGGER, parroting what she is told to say.
I have one of the largest pieces of land in my community and I live 23 miles from Canada. So now I have experience?
I have studied the Byzantine minutiae of this region going back to Heraclitus and I don't know where to stand on this issue but a hockey mom with a six-year B.A. in sportscasting doesn't blink when she says the US should risk nuclear annihilation on a principled stand in quicksand.
"Unprovoked" says Palin
Most of the blogs and comments say that Sarah Palin is a good student; but is she a good student? I would say that she was well trained. But it was also apparent in her interview with Charles Gibson that her tutors from the McCain campaign did not complete their task. Palin did not understand Gibson’s question about “the Bush doctrine,” but she did stay close to the Bush-McCain position in her answers to most of the questions. Her answer to Gibson’s question concerning Georgia was revealing. She said that the Russian invasion of Georgia was “unprovoke
Lorenrf
Russia would love nothing so much as to score a prestige-enhancing TKO on your exhausted and over-extended military after making you pay for the plane fare to deal with them in their own back-alley in a mixed-style melee they have been immersed in for thousands of years and of which Americans are woefully ignorant.
It is always interesting when people who should know better, don't, or when a lack of moral courage yields to bluster and chest beating. Mr. Goldenberg's views are an anachronism, more at home in the huff and puff of Sputnick and the thrashing of the Hungarians or Czechs by the tanks and boots of a rotted Soviet Union. The "new" Russian imperial urge is of the same mentality, however. Mr. Putin is no Kruschev to be sure, but he may well be the modern invocation of Beria; blunt force and terror work for Mr. Putin as it did for Beria and both are KGB alumni after all. The only problem for Mr. Goldenberg is that he fails to understand that the Soviet of 1956 had rotted and the Russia of Mr. Putin is less than up to major action. If Mr. Goldenberg allowed his "fears" of offending Russia at home, he would have noticed the miserable, very old tanks and less than adequate air power of the Russian action against tiny Georgia. Mr. Putin's grasp at Rissian immortality will surely be a Czarist like implosion as the economic crunches eat at an already debilitated Russian economy especially with a plumetting decline in oil and gas prices. One wonders if Mr. Goldenberg will take notice or if rhetoric is more important.
Obviously you are still back in 1956. You might look up some circa 2008 statistics. Russia has a balanced economy for instance, and they have better tanks, missiles. and aircraft than we do. Russia is improving it's military almost daily, isn't fighting 2 wars with inufficient troops and equipment, halfway around the world, and with just their current output of oil, natural gas etc., they rank right up there with Iraq. Then there is the fact that Russia and China are getting closer in more than just geograpical proximity.
The McCain/Palin saber rattling poses the very real danger of escalating a military cooperation pact between Russia and China in self defence. The US would be unable to take them on separately with our vastly overstretched military. What happens if they join forces???
BTW, Russia responded to an invasion of S. Ossetia by Georgia. Bush told Georgia NOT to attack S. Ossetia. Why then was SAAKASHVILI so upset because we didn't aid them militarily and why was most of his ire directed at his dear friend and daily confidant, John McCain??? (The only American who made it clear that he felt we should have.) Who on earth gave them assurances we would?
Excellent and thoughtful post.
Everything you have just stated is true. They are so much further ahead than most Americans know. The Scary thing is if McCain/Palin make it in we are in big trouble. People just don't know. They seem like the type to do something stupid so they won't be wrong.
Georgia drew firstblood. Russia did respond not invade. Russia is not the big bad wolf in this. Georgia is playing that part against a much smaller country.
DOES SHE HAVE THE INTELLECT TO HAVE HER FINGER ON THE NUCLEAR BUTTON?
YOUR LIFE MIGHT DEPEND ON YOUR CHOICE!
There is always the Magic Eight Ball to seek for guidance in those types of situations.
Palin said she favors admitting Georgia and Ukraine to NATO. Asked by Gibson if the United States would have to go to war if Russia again invaded Georgia when it was a NATO member, ....Palin said, "Perhaps so. I mean, that is the agreement when you are a NATO ally, is if another country is attacked, you're going to be expected to be called upon by NATO and to help
do not write a blank check for belligerence to banty new regimes who want to carve out some 'cred' on your tab.
Palin said she favors admitting Georgia and Ukraine to NATO. Asked by Gibson if the United States would have to go to war if Russia again invaded Georgia when it was a NATO member, ....Palin said, "Perhaps so? I mean, that is the agreement when you are a NATO ally, is if another country is attacked, you're going to be expected to be called upon by NATO and to help...NOT SABER RATTLING!
I am not a republican
Palin said she favors admitting Georgia and Ukraine to NATO. Asked by Gibson if the United States would have to go to war if Russia again invaded Georgia when it was a NATO member, ....Palin said, "Perhaps so. I mean, that is the agreement when you are a NATO ally, is if another country is attacked, you're going to be expected to be called upon by NATO and to help. She did NOT say yahoo we're goin to war......, but this guy is making it sound like she is saber rattling..
you obviously have no undestanding of the concept 'sabre-rattling'. also no understanding of the concept of 'playing your cards close to your vest'. Could I interest you in a friendly game of poker? you don't play Russian roulette with every single chamber filled
Move over "Mushroom Cloud Rice" Sarah wants your title. This was breathtaking stupidity. Putting this woman in charge of ANYTHING is asking for extreme trouble. McCain is just as bad a dickhead for letting himself be pressured into taking her. It was a cheap politcal stunt, while Obama used time and actual THOUGHT to choose his VP.
I agree with Sarah that Russia needs to be confronted over their invasion of Georgia. Also if the world gets destroyed in a nuclear holocaust then so be it. There are some things that the USA should never back away from. Think about how all those people from Atlanta, Macon, Augusta and Savannah felt about getting invaded by Russia. How horrible. I can honestly say' like McCain that "I am a now a Georgian".
Wait -- Sarah was not talking about our Georgia but another one somewhere in Asia? WTF?
Are you sure she wasn't talking about our Georgia? Does she even know that Russia isn't threatening our Georgia? She doesn't seem to know what NATO is or that the people of Iraq were not the ones responsible for the 9-11 attacks on New York and Washington
yes, the arcane constitutional composition of semi-autonomous and quasi-autonomous sovereignties is an issue that the American people ponder every day and know in their hearts is worth ending human civilisation over.
Everyone here has pretty much "said it all" about Palin's naivety and downright ignorance. I've just got to add, trivial though it may be, that she says "nuke-u-lar" just like good ol' George W. Drives me crazy!
Good Lord! When do the War Bonds go on sale?
The Russians are not laughing either. We Americans regularly ignore world opinion, and at least in the last eight years, at our peril. If we do this in this election and elect McCain, we will live to regret it. There is a real danger that Moscow wants to go back to the cold war era when they were respected by many nations including America. If we elect the McCain-Palin ticket, we will be putting back into offices George Bush's gang of neo-con advisers waiting in the wings, we will live to regret that day. There wont even be a change of civil servants. And with Russia, all bets will be off. At least GW had the charisma to relate to Putin, the only reason why there is not yet an all out cold war. But that is going to change with McCain and Palin with their bellicosity.
Actually,that is why I watch the news from overseas on my world-wide satellite TV nightly. I've given up being amazed at what we are fed as news while the rest of the world is passing us by.
message from a friend: there is a real possibility that one more absurd attack at such vast distances from home will result in your supply lines being broken by every nation along your path. the World is crystallising opinion around the dread certainty that the US is rabid and self-preservation may dictate a swarming.
Sarah Palin should never have been put into a position on the world wide stage. She is a cheap political device to maintain conservative control of the Executive branch that may, due to the ignorance of the electorate, work. McCain is the ultimate hypocrit when he says he places the country above politics.
You are absolutely right. That conservatives, the true base of the R party, support her steadfastly
gives her leeway to spout her uninformed responses. If she really was gutsy, and not so arrogant, she would withdraw. But that won't happen. If McCain really cared about the consequences of her big mouth and arrogance he would force her to withdraw. But that won't happen. We're stuck with both of them and with the fear that, once again, the narrow-minded and ignorant will prevail.
Give the American electorate a brake. Most people will see through republican bs. The republicans have not won yet. I actually happen to believe that they are losing, notwithstanding the erroneous poll numbers of "likely voters" assembled from the 2006 election that has no basis in 2008.
With record amount of voter registrations (at least 14 million) this cycle, and the expected record turn out of young voters who are fed up with the mistakes of their parents, Obama is standing taller and nearer the finish line ahead. Chin up!
Thank you for that! I was getting depressed with all the Palin hoopla and poll numbers being reported. I am going to keep the faith. Obama '08.
Armageddon, the apocalypse and the rapture all rolled into one. What a bargain America will get with McCain/Palin.
this is a truly absurd polarisation over an issue vaguely-discernible against a power that is not ideologica
There are numerous problems with this statement; I will argue about two points.
It is obvious that Sarah Palin has no national security experience or expertise, moreover, as the author point, the interview highlight Palin’s lack of understanding of national security issues.
The logic of Palin’s argument is cyclical and problematic: Georgia and Ukraine are democratic nations, thus according to Palin, they deserve to be in NATO. Once they are a NATO ally, the US will have to go to war if Russia went into Georgia.
But why should NATO accept Georgia and Ukraine with this implicit obligation? Being a democracy is not a sufficient reason. India and Israel for example, are at least as democratic as Georgia and according to Palin’s doctrine should be members of NATO. What exactly will the US do in case of another war between India and Pakistan say over Kashmir, or to help Israel against the Palestinians or Hamas or Hezbollah?
Note that in spite of the US pressure, the major European countries opposed the entry of Georgia and Ukraine into NATO. They understand the danger and they don’t want the risk of fighting Russia for a local crisis, certainly one triggered by a small country emboldened by its NATO membership.
I think that this is an example of US policy bumping up against reality. First, we instigated democratic elections in the newly independent states. In Georgia, we built a pipeline to carry oil from the Persian Gulf to Europe without going through Russia. We sought to include Georgia, Ukraine, etc. in NATO. And we put ballistic missiles in Russia's backyard in Poland and the Czech Republic. What plans did we have for the inevitable push-back by Russia? In what way does this policy we have pursued through 2 administrations further US national interests, especially now that we get the push-back?
The aspect of this that disturbs me the most is the way the American people are left out of the equation. It's like we just write a blank check to our representatives and say do whatever you want to do. That is not democracy. Politicians (most recently McCain and Palin) then misrepresent the reality to frame the problem in ways that suit their objectives. What the hell is that? It's not democracy.
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