Given the increasingly heated rhetoric between India and Pakistan, two questions come to mind, one obvious, the other not so much. Will this spiral out of control and lead to war, including perhaps a nuclear exchange? And what will China do? Specifically, what happens if China comes in on Pakistan’s side?
Remember that the First World War began when a small group of Serbian nationalists committed an act of terrorism on Austrian soil (or at least Austrian-controlled soil). But things didn’t get out of hand until Russia came in on Serbia’s side and Germany did the same in the case of Austria-Hungary.
If I were President-elect Obama, I’d get Hillary on a plane now, preferably on a joint mission with The Condi. We can’t wait until January 20th to allow this thing to get completely out of control. Because the current crisis is no more about terrorism than it was in 1914.
So I’m back in DC, after a long, arduous drive back from Sarasota. I have lots I want to talk about (including the Hillary boomlet), but not tonight, okay? For having just taken a vacation, I’m pretty wiped out, especially given the fact that I’ve driven something like 2,500 miles over the past 10 days (don’t ask — it seemed like a good idea at the time).
I want to thank Midwest McGarry for his intrepid blogging during my brief time away and to welcome him as a periodic contributor. I also would like to remind him that I have photos of him that are far more incriminating than he has of me.
(What MMG didn’t mention is that shortly before this photo was taken, while out in the park, I was standing on top of the same van when an elephant started to charge. The driver, not realizing that I was standing on top of the van, took off. Only the quick thinking of Midwest and John Johnson (who you can see to the left in the photo MMG posted) kept me from flying off the back of the damn vehicle.)
I also would like to thank the Russian Federation for not invading any more countries while I was gone, which is what happened the last time I tried to take a few days off. (And before you write me, yes I know that there’s new evidence that Georgia started the war and that Russia merely responded blah blah blah blah — at the moment I’m too tired to care.)
One last thing: a big thanks to those of you who have alerted us to the problem with the feed. Right now Feedburner ranks somewhere between aggressive drivers with McCain bumper stickers and pond scum, but I hope to figure out what the hell is the problem. We’re working on it, but as of now, still no resolution. If we don’t get it fixed soon, we may have to ask you to resubscribe with a different feed address. I hope to have this resolved by Monday, but you’ll know when I know.
Via Jedreport. I had thought this story was dead and buried, but it looks like there’s more to it than initially.
There’s a difference between secessionists and terrorists. Really. Honest. Just ask those gosh-darn Russians about Checnya! They’re secessionists terrorists secessionists terrorists!
Twenty questions I would like to see asked at the debate tonight:
1. Are we at war with Pakistan? Senator Obama, given your pledge to go into Pakistan, if necessary, to take out Osama bin Laden, do you support President Bush’s current counter-insurgency efforts along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border? And Senator McCain, when Senator Obama made those comments, you accused him of being reckless. Do you now think President Bush is being reckless?
2. Numerous reports have indicated that the State Department is woefully underfunded and understaffed. Secretary Gates, among others, has urged Congress and the President to take steps to address these concerns. Congress has largely been unsympathetic. What would you do, as President to make the State Department more effective, and to give it the resources it needs to succeed?
3. Do you support making USAID a cabinet-level agency? Given the current financial crisis, can the United States afford to continue its foreign assistance programs? Do you support reestablishing the US Information Agency or a similar construct to coordinate and strengthen our public diplomacy?
4. Is the United States more or less safe and secure than it was on September 12, 2001? Why or why not?
5. Senator McCain, can you please tell me what the difference is between Russian incursions into Georgia and American incursions into Pakistan? Don’t both involve a large power moving into territory controlled by a democratic ally of the United States?
6. Some have argued that the American century is over and that China will soon be the world’s dominant economic and political power. Do you think that is accurate? Why or why not? Would it matter if the United States wasn’t the biggest dog in the yard anymore?
7. Senator McCain, five former Secretaries of State, including two who have endorsed you, have called for dialogue with Iran without preconditions. You have stated your opposition, and your candidate for Vice President has suggested that such views are naive. Yet when it came time for you to choose someone to brief Sarah Palin on foreign policy, you asked Henry Kissinger, one of those five, to do it. Do you still believe that it is not possible for the United States not to talk to Iran?
8. Senator Obama, are there any situations where you think it would be necessary to set conditions before meeting with a foreign leader? In other words, is there anything that any leader can do that would make it impossible for you to meet with him or her?
9. Senator McCain, your running mate has suggested that the United States should not second-guess Israel should it decide to attack Iran. Is that your view as well? Senator Obama, do you agree or disagree?
10. Both of you have called on the Bush Administration to close Guantanamo and to end the practice of torture. There is growing evidence that Bush Administration officials may have violated U.S. law as well as treaties to which the U.S. is a signatory. Would you favor the investigation of such allegations and the prosecution of those, up to an including President Bush and Vice President Cheney, found to have broken American laws including statutes against war crimes?
11. What can the United States do to strenghten the United Nations?
12. Should the United States ratify the International Criminal Court treaty?
13. What can the United States do to prevent genocide? Would you favor military intervention by U.S. forces if it could help prevent a genocide? Would you have intervened in Rwanda? What are you going to do in Sudan?
14. What is the one foreign policy issue that you think is currently under the radar but will have an impact on your administration?
15. Most of the world has come to regard the United States as part of the problem rather than part of the solution. What steps would you take to reverse that?
16. Have we “lost” Latin America? What steps would you take to reverse growing anti-Americanism in the region?
17. When this campaign started, no issue was bigger than Iraq. Now it appears to be an almost forgotten issue. Senator McCain, given Prime Minister Maliki’s outspoken desire to see American troops leave, why do you continue to oppose a phased withdrawal from Iraq? Senator Obama, is there any situation where you can see American troops remaining in Iraq beyond the timetable you outlined?
18. Is the war in Afghanistan lost? Would you favor a surge there along the lines of what happened in Iraq?
19. Senator McCain, how can we afford to stay in Iraq and deal with the financial crisis at home? Senator Obama, you have suggested moving troops in Iraq to deal with the growing crisis in Afghanistan. Can we afford to do that as well?
20. Given the fact that Russo-American relations have cooled considerably since Russia’s invasion of Georgia, what steps would you take to ensure continued Russian-American cooperation on anti-proliferation measures, including not only implementation of Nunn-Lugar, but also the situations in Iran and North Korea?
As I mentioned last night, I was phone banking for Obama, so I didn’t get to watch Katie interview the Sarahnator until around midnight.
My first response: she has the same strained look on her face that Bush did Wednesday night. She knows she’s in trouble and doesn’t know what to do about it. It’s not pretty to watch. Nor is it humorous.
The total meltdown is the Russia-Alaska-Canada answer. “They are in the state I am the executive of”? “If Putin rears his head and comes into the airspace of the United States of America, where do they go”? Huh? She just completely falls apart and keeps digging deeper and deeper and deeper.
The rest isn’t much better. In fact, it’s shocking. How is handing over decisionmaking on foreign policy to a foreign country okay? How is it in any way not ten times worse than Obama saying he’d meet with world leaders without preconditions? Imagine if she had said that we should never question Poland and do whatever they say. Wouldn’t people think she was mad?
I know that we constantly complain about politicians who speak in sound bites, who never go off message, who avoid questions or answer the question they wanted to answer instead of the one asked. I know that we keep saying we want someone genuine and real. I’m all for that too. But genuine and real doesn’t mean clueless. She was completely out of her depth — and Couric wasn’t even that hard on her.
I haven’t been a fan of Palin since was nominated and especially since she went after Obama so viciously at the convention. And at times, I’ve succumbed to the temptation to mock her or her views on certain issues. But this is deadly serious now. She is not prepared to lead, nor is she able to learn in the time frame left before the election.
The tragedy here is, ideology aside, Sarah Palin could have, with more time, evolved into a more capable and astute politician. I’m not saying that I wanted that to happen. But I do think that it’s not unlike a ballclub that brings up a rookie too soon and shatters his confidence. McCain has destroyed her, as surely as if he had dropped her off a cliff. Despite her devoted following, she will never be regarded as credible again — even if they win.
We can’t let that happen. I can’t put it anymore strongly than this: McCain-Palin must be defeated if the United States is ever to recover from the mess we’re in. They would not just be as disastrous as Bush, they would be worse.
Those are words that I never thought I would have to say.
In today’s Washington Postdated, former Bush flack-hack and occasional thoughtful conservative Michael Gerson goes off the rails again, suggesting that Obama has made three mistakes during his campaign that just might prove to be fatal.
1. Obama made the mistake of choosing in Joe Biden a thoughtful, experienced, and capable running mate instead of a crazy, inexperienced, and frequently vicious unknown.
He could have reinforced a message of change and moderation with a Democratic governor who wins in a Republican state, or reached for history by selecting Hillary Clinton. But his choice came soon after Russia invaded Georgia, and the conventional wisdom demanded an old hand who knew his way around Tbilisi. When the Georgia crisis faded, Obama was left with a partisan, undisciplined, congressional liberal at his side.
Apparently it is better to score easy points by creating a celebrity while sating your red (moose) meat base than it is to think about what is necessary to govern a large and complex nation.
2. Obama made the mistake of turning his convention speech into a thoughtful discussion of the issues that matter to the American people instead of a rehash of his inspirational stumps:
In his Denver speech, it seemed that every American home was on the auction block, every car stalled for lack of gasoline, every credit card bill past due, every worker treated like a Russian serf. And John McCain? He was out of touch, with flawed “judgment.” His life devoted to serving oil companies and big corporations. And, by the way, he didn’t have the courage to follow Osama bin Laden “to the cave where he lives.”
Apparently it is better to speak blandishments than talk about the real problems facing this country. The irony, of course, is that much of the commentariat before the speech — including Republicans — could not stop talking about how Obama needed to talk policy. After the speech every commentator — even Pat Buchanan, for crying out loud — called the speech one of the finest of his career and an extraordinary challenge to McCain. All that was forgotten by Gerson and other folks, largely because the next day, John McCain opened up that big ol’ can of crazy known as the Sarahnator.
3. Obama is now making the mistake of getting tough on McCain for being such a lying liar who lies about his giant sack of lies.
Who is hurt most by this race to the bottom? McCain, by the evidence of his own convention, wants to be a viewed as a fighter — which a fight does little to undermine. Obama was introduced to America as a different and better kind of politician — an image now in tatters.
That’s right — it’s Obama’s fault for challenging the lies, because it makes him look like a typical politician. Forget the fact that McCain has sullied his honor. It’s far more relevant that Obama chose to fight back, thus hurting his reputation as a change agent.
If Michael Gerson wants to put on a pair of beer goggles when he looks at John McCain, that’s his prerogative. But he shouldn’t expect the rest of us to believe him.
In case you missed it yesterday, the Sarahnator and her tannin’ bed are heading to New York City to visit Dr. Joel Fleischman to meet with strange people who talk funny (no, not other Alaskans):
Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin will meet with foreign leaders next week at the United Nations, a move to boost her foreign-policy credentials, a Republican strategist said. Republican candidate John McCain plans to introduce the Alaska governor to heads of state at the opening of the U.N. General Assembly, although specific names weren’t yet firmed up. “The meetings will give her some exposure and experience with foreign leaders,” the strategist said. “It’s a great idea.”
Oh yeah, a great idea. Just stu-freaking-pendous. Maybe McCain advisor John Bolton can take her up in a helicopter and they can try to shoot the top ten stories off the UN building.
Nothing like using foreign governments to score a few political points. And hey, if Obama can go to Berlin, why can’t Palin go to Turtle Bay?
Uh, because she doesn’t know what the hell she’s talking about?
I can see it now.
Hi Vladimir and Dmitri, my name is Sarah. Vlad, you gotta come to Alaska where we can go huntin’ together. Shootin’ moose is a lot more fun than that little kitty you killed a few weeks ago. And have I mentioned that I can see you guys from my house?
Oh, and if you ever mess with Georgia again, this lipstick-wearin’ pitbull is gonna bomb the living crap out of ya. If you thought messin’ with Texas was a pain, just wait ’til you have a snowshoe shoved where the sun don’t shine.
One of the tragedies of the current campaign is that the two candidates have not yet had a serious debate about America’s role in the world. Both McCain and Obama have laid out very different visions — to oversimplify, McCain’s robust nationalism versus Obama’s effective internationalism. But instead of debating the future of American foreign policy, the campaign has degenerated into discussions about such salient topics as lipstick, pigs, celebrities, and bridges.
Jeffrey Goldberg over at The Atlantic suggests that this isn’t a coincidence — McCain is pursuing a vicious campaign because he knows his worldview won’t get him elected.
Like many people who have covered John McCain, I think of him as a deeply serious man, preoccupied with America’s defense and its position in the world. So I’ve been confused for the past few days, trying to figure out why he’s allowing his campaign to make a circus of this election, leveling unserious and dishonest accusations about Barack Obama’s positions on sex education and Sarah Palin.
Then it came to me: The answer can be found in. . .John McCain’s philosophy of war, and in particular with the doctrine of preemption, which McCain still endorses. . . . McCain knows that preemption isn’t the easiest sell these days: “It’s very hard to run for president on this idea right now,” he told me.
So, what do you do when one of your core ideas is out of sync with the predispositions of the American public? You spend your days talking about lipstick on pigs. This might win him the election, but I’d rather see him debate preemption.
I think this is largely true. Thanks to the Bush Administration, preemption isn’t exactly a popular concept right now. It’s not merely intellectually bankrupt, it’s also despised by the rest of the world. What McCain, Bush, Cheney, and I presume, Palin (once they explain everything to her) view as America asserting its interests is viewed in the rest of the world as exceptionalism and even imperialism.
Four more years of such a policy may destroy what’s left of American power and credibility in the world. Right now, Russia is asserting itself, and they’re doing it by using the Bush playbook. While no one is paying attention, Venezuela is quite effectively building a new anti-American bloc in Latin America (more on this in a future post). Erstwhile American allies are beginning to reevaluate whether it makes sense to continue to make friendship with a weakened, angry, and often bellicose United States a priority in their foreign policy. And perhaps most troubling of all, a strong and assertive China is confidently asserting itself — not merely by hosting the Olympics, but in a number of other ways, most notably through massive foreign assistance projects that just happen to give China access to the natural resources it needs to continue to grow.
Let’s be blunt: nobody is really that impressed with us anymore. We’ve become the annoying guest who insists on dominating the conversation but who has little of value to contribute to the conversation. We’re on the verge of becoming the kid who was a star athlete in high school but who never reaches similar heights in adulthood.
It’s not only that we’re despised. It’s that we’re increasingly a laughingstock. If McCain is elected, it could be a tipping point. Russia, China, Venezuela, Iran, and a number of lesser states will see no reason not to organize in opposition to our interests. We will find it harder to assert ourselves, or even to be heard.
To be clear, I’m not interested in appeasing or even appealing to such states. But I’m also not interested in poking all of them in the eye with a sharp stick, especially when we do it constantly and frequently simultaneously. McCain doesn’t seem to understand that there are a finite number of states you can anger before people start seeing you as the problem — even when you’re in the right.
It’s almost as if McCain wants to go it alone. After all, that’s what has worked for him in campaigns. Why not turn it into a foreign policy?
So “The View” of all places goes where no media outlet has dared go and busts McCain for the sex ed and lipstick on a pig controversies:
I don’t know if I agree with Sullivan that this interview “just destroyed McCain’s candidacy,” but the momentum clearly has reversed, with the media starting to hit back — and call what he said, as Joy Behar did here, lies. Add into that Palin’s performance last night, and the fact that Obama has started to punch back, and you’ve got some serious problems for the campaign.
People aren’t taking him at face value anymore. That means that when the McCain campaign hits back — and you can be assured that they will hit back soon in order to try to reassert control over the news cycle — people are going to be less credulous then they were before everyone started talking about pigs, lipstick, sex ed, and wars with Russia. That’s going to make it all the harder for the next negative ad to stick — not only will the media and the public wonder whether it’s true, but another harshly negative ad will reinforce the emerging meme that McCain will do anything to win.
Last but not least, how lame was McCain’s defense? “[Obama] chooses his words carefully.” As if that’s a bad thing? As if someone who just pops off is what we want in a President? And did you hear the contempt in his voice?
Good for Behar, and for Barbara Walters, who, just for a moment, reminded people that she used to be a pretty good journalist in her own right.
So between this and the Gibson interview, how long will it take for the McCain campaign to start whining about how ABC doesn’t show proper respect towards the ticket?
Check this out: In one of the Republican debates earlier this year, McCain implies that Mayors and Governors don’t have the experience to be President. Oh, and he states flat out that he needs no “on-the-job training.” Say, I don’t know, like Sarah “Bombs Away” Palin?
New Obama ad: show Sarah Palin promising to go to war with Russia and not knowing what the Bush Doctrine is, then show this. Then say that John McCain doesn’t has the judgment to be President. Oh, and point out that he wasn’t emphasizing change back then, he was bragging about 26 years in Washington. So much for the outsider gambit.
Framing, framing, framing.
It’s right in front of your face, guys.
If anyone has the link to the full debate, please put it in the comments below.
Steve Schmidt and the other soulless Rovians running the McCain campaign understand something that neither the Obama campaign nor the mainstream media do: that if you utter a lie, no matter how outrageous, the lie will be repeated, even if it the other side is criticizing or refuting it. When Obama calls the McCain sex ad perverse, people hear Obama is perverse. When the media mockingly refers to the straight talk express, people hear that McCain is a straight talker. And when the media, in the name of balance, don’t call what McCain is doing a flat-out lie, people only hear the original message.
This is framing 101. The problem is that the McCain campaign adheres to the gospel of Frank Luntz, the Republican framing guru, and the Obama campaign doesn’t listen to his George Lakoff, his Democratic counterpart. Luntz and Lakoff both argue variations on the same theme: that people connect emotionally not intellectually, and trying to convince them with intellectual arguments only reinforces their existing perceptions.
This isn’t about the media taking sides. It’s about the media not falling into traps set by either side, where they mindlessly repeat what the campaigns say, even when doing so just reinforces the existing frame. In addition, the media have to stop inserting their assumptions into analysis: “McCain is too honorable to have done that,” or “Obama doesn’t get angry.”
What does this mean for the Obama campaign? I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: they need to go on the offensive and they need to do it now. Last night, Sarah Palin gave them a huge gift: she said that she was willing to go to war with Russia over Georgia. The Obama campaign needs to beat that drum and beat it repeatedly for the next twenty-four hours: “McCain-Palin want to get American involved in another senseless war — except this time with a country that could strike back.”
I just watched the Palin interview again. If you haven’t seen it, here it is in its entirety. For the purposes of this post, please pay particular attention to the section on Russia, which begins at 3:25 and ends at 4:50:
Here’s the key part:
GIBSON: Would you favor putting Georgia and Ukraine in NATO?
PALIN: Ukraine, definitely, yes. Yes, and Georgia.
GIBSON: Because Putin has said he would not tolerate NATO incursion into the Caucasus.
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.
But NATO, I think, should include Ukraine, definitely, at this point and I think that we need to — especially with new leadership coming in on January 20, being sworn on, on either ticket, we have got to make sure that we strengthen our allies, our ties with each one of those NATO members.
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.
GIBSON: And you think it would be worth it to the United States, Georgia is worth it to the United States to go to war if Russia were to invade.
PALIN: What I think is that smaller democratic countries that are invaded by a larger power is something for us to be vigilant against. We have got to be cognizant of what the consequences are if a larger power is able to take over smaller democratic countries.
And we have got to be vigilant. We have got to show the support, in this case, for Georgia. The support that we can show is economic sanctions perhaps against Russia, if this is what it leads to.
It doesn’t have to lead to war and it doesn’t have to lead, as I said, to a Cold War, but economic sanctions, diplomatic pressure, again, counting on our allies to help us do that in this mission of keeping our eye on Russia and Putin and some of his desire to control and to control much more than smaller democratic countries.
If I and everyone else heard/read her correctly, she just suggested that a) Georgia should be part of NATO, and b) were Russia to invade again, other NATO members should go to war with Russia.
To say that those comments are staggeringly naive and dangerous would be a vast understatement.
First of all, let’s put her comments into historical perspective. Here is a list of countries that the Soviet Union and its primary successor, Russia, have invaded since 1920, excluding the “Great Patriotic War” (Russia’s name for World War II between the June 1941 German invasion and 1945):
Poland (1920)
Poland (1939)
Finland (1939)
Estonia (1940)
Latvia (1940)
Lithuania (1940)
Hungary (1956)
Czechoslovakia (1968)
Afghanistan (1979)
Georgia (2008)
In addition, the Soviet Union annexed parts of a number of countries during or after World War II:
Moldova (from Romania)
Eastern Poland (first taken in 1939 and then ratified at Yalta as part of the decision to shift Poland westwards)
Subcarpathian Ruthenia (Czechoslovakia)
Konigsberg (Germany — later renamed Kaliningrad Oblast)
After the Second World War, Soviet troops occupied a number of countries, most of which became part of the Comintern and later Warsaw Pact. The exceptions were northern Iran, Austria, and (after 1948) Yugoslavia.
Now here’s a list of American Presidents who threatened war with the Soviet Union and/or Russia as a result of these invasions, all of which violated international law.
There aren’t any.
Not Roosevelt or Truman.
Not JFK during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Not Reagan.
Not even Dubya.
Palin has moved into territory that no President or Presidential candidate (not even Goldwater in 1964) has ever ventured. The only time anyone has said something this bad is in 1968, when Curtis LeMay, upon being named George Wallace’s VP candidate, said that he would not hesitate to use nuclear weapons.
I don’t think that comparisons to “Bombs Away” LeMay — who was the model for Gen. Jack D. Ripper in Dr. Strangelove — were what John McCain was hoping for in selecting the Sarahnator.
Let’s draw a flowchart showing where Sarah Palin’s policy could lead us.
Georgia joins NATO → Russia attacks Georgia → Article 5 of the NATO treaty, which says an attack on one NATO member is an attack on all NATO members → NATO declares war on Russia → nuclear war.
Ilan Goldenberg over at Democracy Arsenal highlights just how dangerous this kind of talk is:
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.
To be fair, both Obama and McCain believe that Georgia should join NATO. But neither of them — not even John McCain — has ever said, suggested, or even hinted that the United States would go to war with Russia over Georgia.
Let me be clear here. The problem isn’t that Sarah Palin is crazy. She’s not. The problem is that she is in no way prepared to answer basic questions on foreign policy in a way that doesn’t make her look crazy. And that means she is not prepared to be Vice President or President. She might be someday, but not right now.
To put this all in perspective, let me contrast the process the McCain campaign used to prepare Sarah Palin for these interviews and the process used by the State Department to prepare its officials for Congressional testimony.
Assistant Secretaries of State are usually people who have spent years (if not decades) becoming experts on the particular area or subject matter that they now oversee on behalf of the State Department. They usually know their stuff. But when they go to testify before Congress on one small part of their portfolio, they get a two inch-thick briefing book with every possible question they might get, along with answers consistent with U.S. Government policy. Those answers have been vetted by everyone in the building who plays a role in determining policy. The Assistant Secretaries also spend hours in what are known as “murder boards,” where their staffmembers pepper them with the questions and then critique their answers until they get it right.
Assistant Secretaries of State: weeks and hours of intensive, hands-on preparation for a narrow topic, undertaken by someone who already is an expert on a topic.
Sarah Palin: At most two weeks of probably not very intensive preparation (given all the speeches and appearances since she was announced, it didn’t leave much study time) to prepare answers to every possible question on every possible subject under the sun, by someone with little or no foreign policy experience. She was expected to come out of this less-than-rigorous process prepared to provide short, simple answers to easy questions on topics about which she had never thought.
And people wonder why she did so badly?
It turned out that Charlie Gibson, the McCain’s first choice for a first interview, wasn’t prepared to roll over like they expected. So when Gibson pursued a line of questioning in any depth, Palin ran out of sound bites. When that happened, she had to improvise. She had to make stuff up when she doesn’t have the experience or background to do so knowledgeably.
A more experienced politician would have had the wisdom in such a situation to avoid talking about war. But Palin is not experienced. She doesn’t understand the consequences of straying from the playbook. As a result, she committed a McCain Administration to a course that could lead directly to nuclear war. And chances are, given the McCain campaign’s recent refusal to backtrack on anything, it’s highly unlikely that the Senator would do the smart thing, which would be to issue a clarification.
In the end, however, we should judge not Sarah Palin, but John McCain. His choice of her was thoughtless, reckless, and fundamentally unwise. Such lapses in judgment demonstrate his manifest unsuitability to be President.
I’m still trying to get my mind around Palin’s comments on Russia, Georgia, NATO and war. I promise more in the morning, but right now I’m too fried to think straight.
A few weeks back, Dubya sent a ship to visit Georgia. The Russians were outraged. Now we have their response:
Two Russian strategic bombers landed in Venezuela on Wednesday as part of military maneuvers, the government said, announcing an unprecedented deployment to the territory of a new ally at a time of increasingly tense relations with the U.S.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said the two Tu-160 bombers flew to Venezuela on a training mission. It said in a statement carried by the Russian news wires that the planes will conduct training flights over neutral waters over the next few days before heading back to Russia. . . . In Moscow, Defense Ministry spokesman Alexander Drobyshevsky refused to say how long the Venezuela deployment will last or say whether the planes carried any weapons. . . .
Earlier this week, Russia said it will send a naval squadron and long-range patrol planes to Venezuela in November for a joint military exercise in the Caribbean.
Everyone keeps saying it isn’t a new Cold War. I certainly hope that’s true. But let’s look at the evidence:
The U.S. and Russia are no longer cooperating on reducing nuclear arsenals.
Cheney just spent the past week running around Europe and warning against Russia (more on this later).
The EU is looking into ways to reduce its dependence on Russian gas and oil.
Russia is developing close relations with a Latin American neighbor of the United States, and has potentially sent strategic assets within striking range of the continental U.S.
Both the Bush Administration and the McCain campaign no longer talk of Russia as an ally, but as a rival.
Russia and China have become more and more friendly since Putin came to power.
Russia has supported the establishment of two nascent organizations, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan), and the Collective Security Treaty Organization (Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan), either of which could evolve into a rival to the United States/EU/NATO.
Further proof of the absolute inability of this Administration — and its allies in Congress — to think through the consequences of its actions:
NASA is about out of options for keeping U.S. astronauts in space after 2011. Unless President George Bush intervenes, or whoever succeeds him in January immediately steps into the space arena, the dismantling of the space shuttle program will be too far along to reverse course. . . .
The three-ship fleet is scheduled for retirement in 2010. NASA wants to use the shuttle’s budget for developing replacement ships that can go to the moon as well as to the International Space Station. The new vehicle, called Orion, won’t be ready until 2015 — five years after the shuttle stops flying.
NASA had counted on buying Russian Soyuz capsules to transport crews to the space station during the gap. But in recent interviews, NASA administrator Michael Griffin said he has no hope Congress will pass the legislation needed for NASA to keep the Soyuz assembly lines running. . . . “My guess is that there is going to be a lengthy period with no U.S. crew on (the space station) after 2011,” Griffin wrote in an email to top NASA managers that was posted on the Orlando Sentinel’s Web site.
The agency cannot purchase Russian rockets unless it receives an exemption from a trade sanction Congress levied in 2005 after Russia reportedly helped Iran develop nuclear weapons technology. Griffin has said the exemption to the Iran, North Korea and Syria Nonproliferation Act, needs to be in place by early 2009 to keep U.S. and partner astronauts in orbit. U.S. outrage over Russia’s handling of a dispute with neighboring Georgia has pretty much nixed any chance Congress will lift the trade ban again, Griffin said.
“Exactly as I predicted, events have unfolded in a way that makes it clear how unwise it was for the U.S. to adopt a policy of deliberate dependence upon another power for access to ISS,” Griffin wrote.
When I was growing up, there was nothing more exciting or romantic than the space program. John F. Kennedy’s challenge to land on the moon by the end of the decade was both a great achievement and a wonderful example of what we as a nation could do if we put our minds to it.
In contrast, our policy today, as Griffin notes, is “deliberate dependence.”
Here’s the thing. I think it would be cool for us to go back to the moon or to Mars. But I also think that there are other things that are more important and more worthy of funding if we have to make difficult choices. I’d love for us to do all the things we’d like to do, but those days are gone, at least for a while if not forever.
But if we are going to have a space program, is it too much to ask that it not be completely half-assed, utterly dependent on unreliable “third parties,” and hopelessly unrealistic about the gap between what we want to do and what’s possible with the money we plan to spend?
Ask not what the Bush Administration can do for you. Ask the Bush Administration whether they can screw things up any more than they already have.
Maybe we can beg the Chinese to let us hitch a ride.
The President intends to notify Congress that he has today rescinded his prior determination regarding the U.S.-Russia Agreement for Peaceful Nuclear Cooperation (the so-called ‘123’ Agreement). As a result, there is no basis for further consideration of the Agreement under the Atomic Energy Act at this time.
The U.S. nonproliferation goals contained in the proposed Agreement remain valid: to provide a sound basis for U.S.-Russian civil nuclear cooperation, create commercial opportunities, and enhance cooperation with Russia on important global nonproliferation issues.
We make this decision with regret. Unfortunately, given the current environment, the time is not right for this agreement.
We will reevaluate the situation at a later date as we follow developments closely.
For those not familiar with 123 agreements, they are named after Section 123 of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, which requires that the U.S. government negotiate and sign an agreement with a given country before commerce in nuclear materials can be established.
Although 123 agreements can be controversial in and of themselves (as is the case with the U.S.-India pact), they also offer a way to help promote nonproliferation and the reduction of nuclear stockpiles.
The era of U.S.-Russian cooperation on nukes may have just come to an end.
Hope Saakashvili is feeling more secure now — because something tells me that a few of those missiles are now pointed his way.
The Connect U.S. Fund has launched a new two-year initiative to help shape debate during the upcoming Presidential transition. As part of this effort, they’ve asked leading thinkers and advocates to talk about what should be the top two or three foreign policy priorities for the next President. They’ve also kindly allowed us to cross-post the responses here.
The series took a brief hiatus during the conventions, but it’s back and will continue from now until the election. Today, we’ll hear from Rube E. Brigety. Future posts in the series will appears every Thursday. You can find the previous posts here. Thanks again to Heather Hamilton and Eric Schwartz for making the cross-postings happen.
Regardless of who wins the Presidential election in November, America will face challenges around the world that are arguably unprecedented in their complexity and scope. The list of urgent issues is well known – two active wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the quest for peace between Israelis and Palestinians, the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran, resurgent powers in China and Russia, a weakened U.S. dollar, the need for energy independence, and the effects of climate change, just to name a few.
A common thread connecting all of these problems is that they cannot be solved with the approaches that have dominated U.S. foreign policy for the last eight years. For much of the last decade, particularly since 9/11, our government has resorted to unilateral methods to solve multilateral problems, and resorted to the use or threat of force to advance our interests abroad. Time and again, this has contributed to America’s declining popularity in the world even as it strains our military, marginalizes our alliances, and leaves crucial problems to fester. All of this can be traced to a zero-sum world view which does not tangibly link the security and prosperity of the United States with needs and aspirations of most of the world.
Our country needs more than new policies to confront the foreign policy challenges of the next decade. It needs a new worldview. It needs a framework for understanding the limits of unilateralism and military might, and the potential in cooperation and non-military methods of influence.
At the Center for American Progress, we have advanced an idea called “Sustainable Security.” An amalgamation of national security, collective security and human security, the Sustainable Security paradigm recognizes the importance of improving the lives of other people around the world as a critical security concerns for the United States. Rather than seeing foreign assistance as charity best relegated to the periphery of our statecraft, sustainable security emphasizes investing in social and economic development in countries around the world as a means of countering various threats – from the growth of radical extremism to the ravages of climate change. Furthermore, it posits that true “security” for the United States and other countries can only happen when development assistance is pursued in a cooperative manner with other countries and when it is closely coordinated with our other diplomatic and defense priorities. While there will always be a place for use of force, sustainable security argues that we have as much to gain from investing in the welfare of others as we do from investing in weapons systems to advance our nation’s security interests.
From this worldview, a few important foreign policy priorities follow. First, the United States should adopt a National Development Strategy. Despite the fact that we spend more on development assistance than any other country in the world, we do not have an articulated strategy to guide its distribution or to relate it to other aspects of American foreign policy. Promulgating a National Development Strategy from the White House that is applicable to every federal agency involved in delivering assistance would be a major statement of the important of foreign aid to our national security and provide crucial guidance for this important instrument of policy.
Second, we will have to reform the structures that deliver foreign assistance. The most important reforms should include the creation of a cabinet level development agency and a recapitalization our development infrastructure. Most of our allies that are major donors of development assistance have a cabinet agency to direct that activity. We are in the distinct minority in this regard. Elevating development assistance to a cabinet level status will not only show how important it is for us, but it will also ensure that development considerations are appropriately accounted for in our foreign policy. The next time we are forced to go to war with another country, we would be much more likely to take into account post-conflict considerations about economic reconstruction and rule of law if we have a powerful agency whose job it was to think about it and to perform the required tasks. Also, we cannot make development a major part of our foreign policy as long as there are more drummers in military bands than there are development professionals in the employ of our government. With less than one-thousand Foreign Service officers assigned to the U.S. Agency for International Development, our ability to do vital development projects, and to support our defense and diplomatic initiatives, is imperiled. This is a situation which must be reversed.
With great risk comes great opportunity, and this is particularly true for the next Presidential administration. Changing how we approach the problems of the world is vital to achieving durable solutions for ourselves and our allies. Let’s hope our next President take on the challenge.
Reuben E. Brigety, II is Director of the Sustainable Security Program at The Center for American Progress. Prior to joining CAP, he served as a Special Assistant in the Bureau for Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance at the U.S. Agency for International Development. Brigety is also an Assistant Professor of Government and Politics at George Mason University. He is the author of Ethics, Technology and the American Way of War (Routledge, 2007) and a variety of other articles and book chapters. Before entering academia, Brigety was a researcher with the Arms Division of Human Rights Watch. He served on HRW research missions in Afghanistan in March 2002 and in Iraq in April and May of 2003. He also served as HRW’s coordinator for crisis management during the Iraq war and as an HRW delegate to the Convention on Conventional Weapons negotiations in Geneva. Before joining HRW, Brigety was an active duty U.S. naval officer and held several staff positions in the Pentagon and in fleet support units.
The last two weeks have been nuts, what with the Clinton and Obama speeches, Hurricane Sarah, and all other things political. And things are unlikely to slow down anytime soon, given the fact that the election is only sixty days away.
While Americans focused on the conventions (and Hurricane Gustav), world events didn’t just grind to a halt. Over the past two weeks, there have been a number of important developments that are not only important in their own right but also may have a significant impact on the next President’s ability to govern.
Over the next few days, I’m going to try to highlight someJ of them. Let’s start with Russia-Georgia.
In the past two weeks, the Russia-Georgia conflict has increasingly turned into a proxy (cold) war between the United States and the Russian Federation. Russian President Medvedev has demonstrated a particular affection for Bushian bluster, making grandiose nationalistic statements about reestablishing a Russian sphere of influence that were meant as much for internal consumption as for global politics. Meanwhile, the Bush Administration has taken several steps to bind the United States even more closely to the fate of Georgia — including a pledge of more than $1 billion in new (non-military) foreign assistance and a visit by Vice President Dick Cheney.
John McCain’s protestations notwithstanding, most Americans still do not understand what is going on or why the conflict is relevant to their lives.
For all the jokes about Cheney being sent out of the country during the Convention, the reality is that his trip was deadly serious, designed to show the Russians that the United States would not be cowed in the face of its aggression. But it also showed Cheney’s unbelievably blinkered view of the world: in the end, the reason the U.S. is backing Georgia is because of the latter’s decision to send troops to Iraq.
The Administration’s actions are going to make it much harder for the next President to pursue a more rational, interests-based policy while at the same time defending Georgian sovereignty. Of course, if McCain is President, that will not be a problem.
The bottom line: this has become a game of low-intensity chicken, with both sides acting like 12-year-old boys. And neither side really cares to behave like adults. Georgia, which is largely (though not entirely) the victim here, is stuck in the middle, with little hope of serious support from the West or complete withdrawal of Russian forces. The real fear is that some further incident will cause one side or the other to ratchet up the rhetoric in a way that we’re suddenly looking at Bosnia 1914 all over again — except this time, it will be with thousands upon thousands of nukes on both sides.
For those interested in the specifics, you can find a straightforward report on the events of the past two weeks after the jump.
With all the focus on Sarah Palin and Hurricane Gustav, I think it’s a shame that we’ve all but ignored our favorite evil nemesis.
Since he’s winging off to the Republic of Georgia (and other not-so-tropical climes) today, there’s no time like the present to think about his corrosive influence over and impact on U.S. foreign policy.
Please remember to vote early and vote often! Vice President Cheney wants to make damn sure that we can fix this election too!
And if you don’t vote, the terrorists will win.
And remember — the evil he does, he does for us. You could say it’s selfless evil, altruistic evil, a kinder and gentler evil.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=0789c789-ece8-4cd3-9bea-4ed67d06a9d5)
Palin has moved into territory that no President or Presidential candidate (not even Goldwater in 1964) has ever ventured. The only time anyone has said something this bad is in 1968, when Curtis LeMay, upon being named George Wallace’s VP candidate, said that he would not hesitate to use nuclear weapons.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=3e16a142-faa3-498d-96e0-153fcf0e8397)