Ah kijk: Palin doet alvast wat ´buitenland ervaring´ op?: Palin says war with Russia could be NATO option

[Henk Elegeert]

REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl

http://euobserver.com/9/26734/?rk=1
"
Palin says war with Russia could be NATO option

VALENTINA POP
Today @ 09:29 CET

US Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin has backed Georgia's NATO
membership in a television interview, while leaving open the option of war with
Russia if it were to attack a NATO ally.

In an interview with ABC News, Ms Palin was asked whether the United
States would
have to go to war with Russia if it invaded Georgia, and the country was part of
NATO, Ms Palin said: "Perhaps so."

"I mean, that is the agreement when you are a NATO ally - if another
country is attacked,
you're going to be expected to be called upon and help," she explained
in her first television
interview since becoming Republican John McCain's running mate two weeks ago.

Ms Palin, currently governor of Alaska, said she supported NATO
membership for Ukraine and
Georgia - a move Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin strongly opposes. It was
America's responsibility to be "vigilant" against a larger power
invading smaller democracies,
she said, while stressing: "We will not repeat a Cold War."

NATO-Georgia Commission on Monday

Georgia is currently a NATO partner, but was not granted a Membership
Action Plan
(MAP) - as official membership candidate status is termed - at this year's NATO
summit in Bucharest.

However, following the Russian invasion, NATO decided on 19 August to
establish a
new NATO-Georgia Commission, which will inaugurate its work in Tbilisi on
Monday with NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer and ambassadors from
the 26 Alliance's member states.

"We won't supply arms to the Georgians, but we will help them develop their own
military potential," NATO spokesperson James Appathurai said, Gazeta Wyborcza
reports, adding that the ambassadors will fly there using a Polish
government plane.

Russian threats against Europe

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin warned on Thursday (11 September) in Sochi that
tensions between Russia and the EU may well worsen if the planned US missile
defense shield is deployed in Poland, threatening yet once more to point Russian
missiles at European targets.

On the same day, foreign minister Sergei Lavrov met his Polish counterpart in
Warsaw, saying that "Poland is not a threat to Russia, but we can't
ignore the fact it's
an integral part of the US strategic system."

Mr Putin fiercely defended Russia's invasion of Georgia, accusing the West of
"anti-Russian hysteria" and saying that if this military operation had
not been carried
out, it would have been like Russia "getting a bloody nose and hanging its head
down."

Russia wanted a constructive relationship with the European Union, but
only if the
new "realities" were taken into account, he said.

Mr Putin accused the Bush administration of "not doing anything about
stopping the
conflict," a feeling he got when speaking to the US president at the
Olympic Games in
China and which prompted him to send tanks into Georgia.

In Beijing, he had already raised the question of Russia recognising
Abkhazia and
South Ossetia as independent territories with the Chinese government, and told
them Russia did not expect Chinese support, which suggests Moscow was already
planning to recognise the two enclaves, the BBC reports.

Putin also made clear that Russia could easily have occupied the
Georgian capital
and toppled its president, Mikhail Saakashvili, despite earlier claims
of the Russian
army being close to the Georgian capital as an exaggeration in the
Western media.

"Our forces were 15 kilometres from Tbilisi. It would have taken four hours to
capture Tbilisi. We didn't have that goal," he said.
"

Valt hier e.e.a. dan al niet onder de noemer: ´Cold War´?
Waarom gaat ze niet ´onschuldig´ een dagje naar Berlijn?

Henk Elegeert

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