Palin's Russian Roulette

In light of Sarah Palin's most recent statements about the possibility of war with Russia in order to "defend" Georgia, I thought I would take a second to look at some of our most recent history antagonizing Moscow.



Mrs. Palin said in regards to Russia defending South Ossetia, “We’ve got to keep an eye on Russia. For Russia to have exerted such pressure in terms of invading a smaller democratic country, unprovoked, is unacceptable.”

Now keep in mind that it was Georgia that attacked South Ossetia, a breakaway region of Georgia that has been successfully asserting its independence since 1992 and has been recognized as an independent nation by Russia and Nicaragua, along with Abkhazia and Transnistria (two other de facto independent republics). There is also the issue of the Russian citizenry in South Ossetia when Georgia attacked. It is important to note that Russia made no pre-emptive strike like the US did in Iraq. They responded to Georgian aggression toward S. Ossetia. Also, Russia was responding to the attack on a bordering nation not half way around the world (again like Iraq).

Some important points to consider are that during the previous months before Georgia attacked S. Ossetia, American troops were training Georgian troops in combat exercises. Some have opined that either the US put Georgia up to this or that Georgia felt that the guaranteed Russian military retaliation and defense would draw American military support.

Also Condi Rice has just signed a missile defense pact with Russia's neighbor Poland that may cause further destabilization of the area.

To top it all off, there is further animosity coming from Russia regarding the impending acceptance of Georgia as a member of NATO.

There are other such actions that the US has done to cause tension with Russia in the past couple of decades like bombing Serbs in 1995 who are allies with Russia. A friend of mine who was in the military at that time responded to my questions about the US recognizing Kosovar independence in a recent e mail...

"Foreign policy blunder, absolutely! Though foreign Muslim fighters flooded Bosnia and Albania to commit terrorist acts against Serbs in an effort to maintain an Islamic state in Bosnia and create an Islamic state in Kosovo, we took military action against the Serbs when the Muslims were loosing (though Croatians were as much into eliminating Bosnian Muslims from their section of Bosnia as the Serbs were theirs) and stood by while Albanians were assassinating Serbian Officials and exterminating Serbs from the Kosovo area. And for what purpose? I believe that our misguided administrations were trying to show the Muslim world that we were their friends. Also, Serbia has always been allied with Russia, and Greece, because of their common Eastern Orthodox faith. It is as if we would do anything to weaken Russia at the expense of Christian persecution and the cutting off our political nose to spite our face. I have had more than one Greek to accost me over the fact that we seem to always support the Muslims over Christians, though we are supposed to be a Christian nation."


All of this to say that Sarah Palin has gone the extra mile to prove that she can toe the ol' party line with the best of 'em. She could have come out strong against Iran or maybe North Korea and proven a loyal neo-con, but to make such aggressive statements about a nation like Russia frankly makes me think that Palin may be the perfect sidekick for a man like John McCain.