Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Red meat: Sarah Palin on foreign policy
The most accessible candidate on any national ticket imagines the crises that Joe Biden was warning us to prepare for. Not bad stuff. While I agree with FP Passport that Palin's worry that Russia might invade the Ukraine in the near future is probably misplaced, it is bizarrely comforting to see old-fashioned Bear-baiting make a comeback. Makes me feel as though we are back in familiar territory.
Anyway, enjoy.
7 Comments:
By 
D.E. Cloutier, at
Wed Oct 22, 10:40:00 PM:
Excellent video.
Meanwhile, Democrat Kirsten Powers takes Joe Biden and the news media down a couple of pegs. Kirsten in the NY Post:
"Biden's Bungles: A Blatant Bias"
http://www.nypost.com/seven/10222008/postopinion/opedcolumnists/bidens_bungles__a_blatant_bias_134700.htm
By 
, at
Wed Oct 22, 11:17:00 PM:
To echo dec, I would say that the Ukraine thing is nothing to Biden's fantasy life in foreign policy.
But we know how that goes.
By davod, at
Thu Oct 23, 03:08:00 AM:
After the Mini-Cold War, a Mini-Detente?
"The meeting was arranged (Between Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and his opposite number from Russia, Gen. Nikolai Makarov.) with great secrecy... The two spoke by telephone multiple times during the brief war in August between Russia and Georgia over two breakaway provinces, which worsened relations between Moscow and Washington."
What was Mullins doing talking with the Russians during the aggression in Georgia. Reassuring them the US would not encroach on their turf? I hope there was at least a modicum of coordination between the White House, State Department and Defense (Unlike what appears to be the norm these days).
By Catchy Pseudonym, at
Thu Oct 23, 12:16:00 PM:
It's good to know that with McCain as president, every country will be nice to us and never test us.
Of course if they do, we can watch him over-react like he did during the financial crises he had just ignored for days and then ended up lacking the influence to help fix. Much confidence building there.
Obama saw the intricacies of the Georgian situation. Such as Georgia invading a city that didn't want to be invaded. Georgia overplaying its hand. McCain just reactively spewed out the crap he thought people wanted to hear. Like a true Republican he doesn't like to hear the world isn't black and white. George Bush doesn't either, that's why he's got a 20+ approval rating.
And to follow Palin's own line, I want a president who isn't old and could die and leave this pathetic lady in charge. That would be the mother of all crises.
By Dawnfire82, at
Thu Oct 23, 02:16:00 PM:
Fascinating. I had no idea that a sovereign power required city council permission to move its own forces into it to quell violence.
'Invading.' Hah.
It makes me cringe that you may be representative of liberals' understanding of international affairs and moral compass. You've managed to justify the *actual* invasion of a small democracy by a blatantly imperialistic and authoritarian power because they were mean and had it coming to them. (i.e. they tried to enforce their sovereignty in their own city)
By Gary Rosen, at
Fri Oct 24, 04:03:00 AM:
Catchy is echoing the Pat Buchanan's current line that WWII began because the Czechs and Poles were asking for it. It's like blaming Megan's Law on Megan.
By Trochilus, at
Fri Oct 24, 05:50:00 PM:
The question of whether Russia would invade the Ukraine if they thought they could get away with it, is not "probably misplaced" as you have suggested. Not only does the Ukraine have a sizeable minority population of "ethnic Russians" who would provide a convenient excuse for them taking such action (as well as a "handy" fifth column); and, not only is the Ukraine far more strategically placed in terms of the gas pipeline, which most realistic observers believe was the real reason they went into Georgia; but the Ukraine is also still a significant breadbasket of Eastern Europe, as it was throughout the Soviet Era. The Russians covet such necessities.
One only needs to read a few pages of Robert Conquests's "Harvest of Sorrow" to understand what really minor "justifications" could quickly fill the heads of the Russians with a sense of entitlement, regardless of how obvious such "justifications" could lead them to commit the most horrendous of crimes.
Just remember old Uncle Joe Stalin's "final" analysis: "Who are the kulaks? They are those who oppose us!"
The Soviets willfully starved the Ukranian nation, killing millions and millions of people in the process, simply by stealing their grain, and taking it for themselves.
