GEORGIA AND NATO….From Charlie Gibson’s interview with Sarah Palin:
The governor advocated for the admittance of Georgia and Ukraine into NATO.
When Gibson said if under the NATO treaty, the United States would have to go to war if Russia again invaded Georgia, Palin responded: “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.”
This is not a gaffe of any kind. Nor is it something that Palin blurted out due to inexperience. John McCain’s official position on NATO expansion is that we should include Georgia and Ukraine posthaste. This means that if either of those countries gets into a border skirmish — or worse — with Russia, the United States may be obligated to go to war on their behalf.
However, unless I’m mistaken, this is also Barack Obama’s official position. So I wouldn’t expect a whole lot of pushback on this from his camp. Which is too bad, since the American public really ought to think long and seriously about whether we should be reponsible for defending distant countries that have long histories of ethnic strife and unstable borders. Maybe we should. Maybe they really are that important. But it would be nice to give it a good, hard think before we dive in.
