Security

Palin: U.S. Must Be Prepared to Fight Russia (Updated)

Last week sacked Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne said the U.S. should have deployed troops, drones and F-22s to deter, and if necessary fight, Russia over South Ossetia. Now Republican veep nominee Sarah Palin weighs in with her own World War III-baiting rhetoric, in an interview with ABC News’ Charlie Gibson. Palin says NATO should expand to […]

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Last week sacked Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne said the U.S. should have deployed troops, drones and F-22s to deter, and if necessary fight, Russia over South Ossetia. Now Republican veep nominee Sarah Palin weighs in with her own World War III-baiting rhetoric, in an interview with* ABC News' *Charlie Gibson. Palin says NATO should expand to include Georgia:

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 ...

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.

Ukraine also should be part of the Alliance, Palin said. Of course, Russia perceives NATO's steady eastern expansion as a direct threat. Adding Ukraine as a defensive measure might actually make Europe less safe by provoking the very Russian antagonism that Palin seems to believe NATO should be mitigating. [Besides, given the Ukraine's sizable Russian minority, it's doubtful any democratic vote for NATO inclusion there would pass -- ed.]

UPDATE: Noah here. Honestly, the Russia comments were some of Palin's least incendiary of the day. The really questionable stuff came when she "linked the war in Iraq with the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, telling an Iraq-bound brigade of soldiers that included her son that they would 'defend the innocent from the enemies who planned and carried out and rejoiced in the death of thousands of Americans.'"

The idea that the Iraqi government under Saddam Hussein helped al-Qaeda plan the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, a view once promoted by Bush administration officials, has since been rejected even by the president himself. But it is widely agreed that militants allied with al-Qaeda have taken root in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion.

(Photo: via Navoine.ru)

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