“In Your Guts, You Know She’s Nuts”

For those not catching the reference, my subject line is an updated-for-gender version of the line used by Lyndon Johnson’s supporters during the 1964 presidential campaign.  It was their retort to those Barry Goldwater fans who declared, “in your heart you know he’s right.” Goldwater, among other things, made veiled threats of launching a nuclear attack on the Soviets. American voters, in turn, handed Johnson the biggest landslide in U.S. presidential election history.

Driving down to Foxboro last night for the New England Revolution-Chivas USA match, I heard NPR lead off its 6:30pm coverage with the story that in her interview with ABC News, Sarah Palin threatened war with Russia if Russia invaded another country.

I nearly drove off the road, and started yelling at my radio.

Oddly (as in, not oddly at all), the U.S. news is underplaying this story. Canada’s Globe and Mail, on the other hand, reports the story thusly this morning: 

WASHINGTON — The first time a reporter interviewed Sarah Palin on foreign policy, she threatened war with Russia.

In an interview yesterday with ABC News, the newly minted Republican vice-presidential candidate made it clear that she believes Georgia and Ukraine should be brought into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and protected against any future acts of Russian aggression.

“Those democratic nations, I believe, deserve to be in NATO,” the Alaska Governor told interviewer Charles Gibson.

When he asked whether, under the NATO treaty, the United States would have to go to war to protect Georgia if it were attacked again, Ms. Palin replied: “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 …”

…”We have got to make sure that that is the group that can be counted upon to defend one another in a very dangerous world today,” she added, according to a transcript provided by ABC News.

Her bellicosity toward Russia was the biggest chunk in a stew of red-meat foreign policy assertions, which included granting Israel carte blanche to attack Iran if it felt itself under existential threat from that country’s nuclear weapons program…

So, Governor Palin, I have to ask… which U.S. cities are you planning on sacrificing? New York or Washington? Boston, Atlanta, or Chicago? Los Angeles, San Francisco, or Seattle?

Anchorage?

The Globe and Mail continues…

“Although Republican presidential nominee John McCain’s running mate is new to issues of global security, she has been extensively briefed in recent days by Mr. McCain’s advisers. Not everything, apparently, got covered.

Ms. Palin did not appear to understand what the Bush Doctrine is. It is generally understood to be the assertion, put forward by President George W. Bush after the Sept. 11 attacks, of the right of the United States to take pre-emptive military action against states that pose a threat to U.S. national security.

 

When Mr. Gibson explained the doctrine to her, Ms. Palin gave it her full support. She also defended the right of U.S. forces to carry the fight against terrorists into Pakistan, even without the consent of the Pakistani government.

I should point out that the Bush Doctrine, in sanctioning pre-emptive war, violates international law.

“Under Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, an attack on any one member of NATO “shall be considered an attack against them all.”

As members of NATO, the United States, Canada and most European nations would be expected to render military assistance if Georgia or Ukraine were attacked after being accepted into the alliance.

Such a confrontation would bring about the one situation that the United States and the former Soviet Union most feared, and managed to avoid, throughout the Cold War: a direct military confrontation between the two nuclear powers.

According to the ABC News transcript, Ms. Palin went on to assure viewers that “it doesn’t have to lead to war.” Instead, “economic sanctions, diplomatic pressure … counting on our allies to help us,” might be sufficient to deter Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s “desire to control and to control much more than smaller democratic countries.”

Oh good, she’s heard of NATO. Yes, I would expect the NATO alliance to come to the aid of any member that came under attack.

I also think for all the many, many flaws of the Putin regime, he and his advisors have in fact read the NATO treaty. Putin is many things… foolish is not one of them. 

Even accounting for bluster, I have this set of questions for Governor Palin: how do you plan to solve the Iranian nuclear question without Russia’s cooperation? Or the energy crisis, given Russia’s status as a rising energy superpower? 

Over the last 15 years, the U.S. has moved dramatically to enter traditional Russian zones of influence, from the Baltics to the Balkans, even incorporating former Soviet republics into NATO & the EU, and opening military bases in former Soviet bases in the Central Asian republics. If anything, it’s amazing it has taken this long for the Russians to poke back. 

I have no interest in encouraging Russian re-expansion. But of all the complex challenges facing the U.S. and the world more generally, I’m at a loss to point out which of those challenges will be resolved by threatening nuclear war.

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Tags: 2008 u.s. presidential election, barry goldwater, georgia (republic of), lyndon johnson, nato, russia, sarah palin, vladimir putin

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