Reckless
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“I don’t take this elite foreign policy view that only this anointed class knows everything about the world,” he [Kagan] said. “I’m not generally impressed that they are better judges of American foreign policy experience than those who have Palin’s experience.” ~The Politico
On the anniversary of the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history, Gov. Sarah Palin took a hard-line approach on national security and said that war with Russia may be necessary if that nation invades another country [bold mine-DL]. ~ABC News
To the extent that you have the likes of Kagan in the foreign policy elite and they also hold insane views with respect to confronting Russia over anything and everything, Kagan may be right that Palin’s judgement is no worse than theirs, since his judgement on relations with Russia is atrocious and so is hers. Of course, her horrendous view is almost certainly a direct result of listening to McCain advisors, including Kagan, who probably forgot to mention that threatening WWIII is not a good way to start reassuring voters that Palin is ready to be President.
P.S. Palin gets hegemonist bonus points for this:
The Governor advocated the accession of Georgia and Ukraine into NATO.
With respect to Dr. Trifkovic, I think his hope that ”The Weekly Standard cabal and their ilk will be hard-pressed to make President Palin obey a bunch of Manhattanite intellectual pseuds, let alone to internalize their foreign policy schemes that are evil, stupid, and harmful to our troops’ safety” was misplaced. She has already embraced these schemes, and I see no reason why she would reject them were she one day to become President.
Update: Palin also said, “We will not repeat a Cold War,” but seems to have no clue that she is proposing to do just that. To be fair, I should add that her statement about a war with Russia was tied to NATO membership for these countries, so her remarks are no worse than the standard McCain view that these countries should be incorporated into NATO, but that still makes them quite awful.
Filed under: foreign policy, politics
There is no intellectual honesty left in the GOP leadership. Kagan’s statement translates to “Diplomacy is for pussies. Americans kick ass!”
The GOP is now an island of misguided teenagers, and foreign policy consists of “kill the beast! kill the beast! kill the beast!”. Imply that Piggy == The Constitution and you’ve got the beginnings of a solid analogy. I guess the MSM is the conch? Whoever is holding it can say whatever they want to.
Just as I thought: Whatever cultural resonance dissident conservatives feel for Gov. Palin, she has been completely assimilated by the Weekly Standard/AEI/AIPAC/Borg collective in what, 2 weeks?
One thing I’m curious about, and I’m hoping any and all could provide feedback: does Palin’s son who is deploying with the Army today, and McCain’s son who has already done an Iraq tour as a Marine, innoculate them against charges of foreign policy recklessness come November? I don’t recall the last time a potential POTUS or VPOTUS had children in combat, so I have no idea how that would pan out….
I’m not sure why it should inoculate them, but it probably will. They will be able to claim a personal stake in the conflict in a way that only Biden can do indirectly on the other side (his son will serve as a JAG for the Del. Army National Guard in Iraq), which will give them a certain protection against criticism that they are not pursuing policies that are in the interests of our military. I believe you’re correct that there is no comparable case of Pres. and VP candidates having children deployed to foreign wars. Probably the only time it could have happened before would have been during the 1944 election when the draft was in full swing, and I don’t think it happened then, either.
No Cold War, indeed; the governor seems to be proposing a hot war. Ah, the time-tested “let’s attack and pick up a Risk card every turn” platform.
Political benefits aside, children of high officials in combat are potential targets. In fact, the No. Vietnamese tried to exploit that with McCain. The Brits sent the Prince home from Afghanistan.
It’s not surprising, though disheartening, that at this stage Palin is putty in the hands of maniacs. One can hold on to the faint hope that if elected, with time for study and reflection (a benefit of the VP job, though not of motherhood), she moderates her views.
At the risk of being pilloried for an uncouth remark, one can also hope that pigs will fly.
It’s absolutely true prudence is important, but `war with Russia may be necessary if they invade another country’ is just a statement of fact, assuming we honor our NATO obligations. Right? It might be a true statement that will unnecessarily agitate the Russians, but that’s something different.
Note: I would not be surprised if Palin is unfit to be VP. But I think people are jumping the gun–wait and see. If she opens herself up to the press, the truth will come out. If not, that is strong evidence that she is hiding something. But have patience!
My patience wains when she goes just short of naming Russia as part of the “Axis of Evil.” We are doing so well in Iraq AND Afghanistan that we might as well march North right?
I even thought I heard someone (maybe a link off of Daniel’s earlier blog) say that she was fit for office because of Alaska’s proximity to Russia was good for Russia-American foreign policy. By proximity, maybe they mean “in the sights of her moose rifle” and by “good for foreign policy” meant, “really bad for foreign policy.”
I’m still suprised that libertarian-leaning conservatives ever ventured to hope that Palin wouldn’t be a total sellout. I can’t think of anything more predictable. She’s a water-carrier now, and must be. Even if she has some initial resistance to neocon bloodthirst, the saturation of that singular point of view will have an effect.
She seems like Bush more and more every day. Easily manipulated by the royal viziers.
Damn these End-Timers, they’re going to kill us all.
The trouble is that she wants to expand NATO’s obligations and make security guarantees that we are not realistically going to honor. If we bring Georgia into NATO, absolutely nothing will have changed in terms of our vital interests in the Caucasus (we still won’t have any), but we will be obliged to defend the sovereignty of a country with separatist zones, a powerful neighbor and a political system with a strong streak of irredentist nationalism in it. Ukraine is actually even less desirable as a member, since there is a large Russian minority and the question of the Black Sea Fleet and Russian ability to use the base at Sevastopol. How crazy is it to set ourselves up to fight a second Crimean War? Realism will dictate not having WWIII over Georgia or Ukraine, even if they are let into NATO, and our NATO pledges will then be rendered meaningless, or we have WWIII for no justifiable reason. That’s simply crazy, just as it has been since talk of bringing these countries in started a few years ago.
Regarding the NATO propaganda, I think it’s a case of the ideologues drinking their own kool-aid. They still think Russia will expand Communism to take over the world. They can’t adapt their thinking to changing conditions. It’s still 1950, the world is made up of Good Democracies versus Evil Empires, and Georgia is the new front line in the eternal battle. Pragmatism or reality-based politics is utterly beyond them.
She didn’t say anything that the other three didn’t say. ABC hyped this up a bit.
On the underlying question of NATO membership for Georgia and Ukraine, of course, all four are dreadfully mistaken, for the reasons Daniel gives in his comment. My next question, is, “Hasn’t NATO outlived its usefulness?”
her horrendous view is almost certainly a direct result of listening to McCain advisors, including Kagan, who probably forgot to mention that threatening WWIII is not a good way to start reassuring voters that Palin is ready to be President.
In fairness to Kagan, he only omitted mentioning that because he thinks we’re already fighting WW IV.
This exact same point was made by Matthew Yglesias.
With more wit. http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2008/09/kagan_knowledge_is_elitist.php
Yglesias was speaking broadly about neocons as a whole and wasn’t relating it to any specific policy. They’re related points, but they’re not the same.
As for wit, I guess I’d rather know something about the places I’m talking about than be able to say something pithy about them.