Noli Irritare Leones

brownfemipower is blogging at elle, phd, where she has a moving personal post, Tu, solo tu…

Starting today, it is now Hispanic Heritage Month, according to the Librarians Index to the Internet.

Another abortion/Roe v. Wade guest post at Balkinization: Trimmers.

California State Parks: Fall Colors. (Yes, fall colors can actually be found in California, though, as with our snow, you may have to drive to reach them.)

From Human Rights Watch: UN: Five Countries Responsible for All Executions of Juvenile Offenders Since 2005.

New Book: Schneier on Security. Also, Identity Farming (Schneier says he’s posing this question for serious, rather than movie plot, purposes, but I like the movie plot vampire use potential).

Cultural shaping of delusions.

Ransom or Satisfaction?

The Groaning of Creation 4: There’s wideness in God’s mercy.

Gender and Baby Boys Clothes.

FactCheck.org.

Nate Silver talks some sense.

Science Questions for Would Be Presidents.

SNL Cast Performs as Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton.

Looking at Sarah, Somehow Seeing Condi.

Even Condi Rice Is Crying Herself to Sleep. Beyond the obvious, Palin doesn’t know about foreign relations stuff, this post points out some things about the nature of NATO which, while our leaders and would be leaders should know them, may not be known to all of the rest of us.

But what appalled me about Palin’s remarks was her casual “perhaps so”—not in answer to a question formulated as, “Would we have to assist Georgia” if Georgia joined NATO or even, “Would we have to defend Georgia,” as you generously reformulated it, but to a question about whether we would “have to go to war” with Russia.

Legally, the NATO treaty doesn’t require us to “go to war”—it just doesn’t. If a fellow NATO member is attacked—in a manner satisfying the treaty terms—the treaty obligates parties to “assist the Party … so attacked by taking forthwith … such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.” In international law terms, “such action as it deems necessary” means, basically, diddly squat. Thus to say that including Georgia in NATO means that we might “perhaps” “have to go to war” with Russia if Russia “went into Georgia” is just plain incorrect as a statement about our treaty obligation….

… Because no one in the mainstream of either the Democratic or Republican Party thinks that we should “perhaps” get into an actual “war” with nuclear Russia over Georgia’s borders. And for that reason, no one ever, ever says that “perhaps” we’ll have to go to war with Russia—because there is just no “perhaps” about this. We’re not going to do this.

It would be—to bring back a phrase from not so long ago—mutually assured destruction. And we actually do not want to return to that era, which was far more dangerous than the current era. No one wants that. That’s why there is some evidence that the Bush Administration quietly warned Saakashvili not to provoke the Russians over South Ossetia. Yeah, we like democratic Georgia—but not enough to risk nuclear war….

How would a pro have handled that question? Even the famously hot-tempered McCain easily could have handled it: “Charlie, for 60 years NATO has helped prevent and resolve conflicts in Europe, and that’s what’s going to continue to do when Georgia and Ukraine are members. We’re not restarting the Cold War, much less a hot war. We want Russia to play the constructive role we know it can play—but we’re also going to continue to work with our allies inside and outside NATO to make it clear to Russia that the territorial intergrity of sovereign states must be respected. We’re going to stand by our friends, and send a crystal clear message to Russia that if it wants to prosper politically and economically, it needs to abandon this kind of inexcusable aggressiion. Specifically, we’re looking at a range of mechanisms for sending that strong message…

Related (in the sense of being about Georgia and Russia, not in the sense of being about the election): CSIS on the Russia-Georgia Conflict.

Thailand: Samak out, but protests continue.

700 Ton Robots Coming to Kill Me.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 15th, 2008 at 6:16 am and is filed under Blogwatch. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.