Palin flubs.

[Dan the Roman]

The derangement of some of the posters here in their massive misunderstanding of Putin, Russian military capabilities, and the very laws of physics is truly absurd.

Any US President would retaliate against a country that attacked US soil or face impeachment. In fact, not even that. They would be removed by their own Cabinet within minutes. Anyone who thinks Obama would not respond is so far out in right field that they are not worth engaging.

That said Russia has no interest in Alaska. It would be impossible to hold due to supply issues already mentioned made much worse by US air superiority, and it is not even an efficient source of energy. There is no good place to sell Alaska's oil except the US, Canada, and Japan, none of which would buy from the Russians assuming the pipeline was intact which it wouldn't be.

For the Russians, if they really wanted oil, it would make vastly more sense to invade Kazakhstan which would geographically make sense and face little resistance.

Anyway how would the Russians invade. By sea? Their Navy is rusting in port and would be taken out in hours. By air? We would have absolute air superiority and they would run out of supplies quick if they managed to get anyone down. This is an absurd hypothetical. Why don't we talk about a Martian invasion? Thats  a problem that is far more likely to afflict the next President.

[Dan the Roman]

Quite frankly the most insane people in international relations are the Scheumans and Kagans who surround McCain. They know nothing of Putin, Russia, China, or of any other country's politics. They frankly don't care. Their sole knowledge base is military and it is based in the case of the Kagans on studying the Peloponnese wars and in Scheumann's case on the War of the Roses. In life, none of them have seen combat. All they know comes from reading the schematics of weapon systems and military strategy. As such, all they understand is military, and therefore all they suggest to deal with any problem is military. I had a conversation with Fred Kagan who is McCain's major military advisory. He had no clue who was running against Ahmadinejad next year, had no knowledge of recent events in Tehren, yet was advising McCain on Iran on the basis of simply studying their army. I have never seen a more poorly qualified group of advisers. At least Bush had competent people like Powell, Rice, and Hadley on a good day, around him. Rumsfeld was simply incompetent, not stupid or insane which are the two words to describe the bunch of testosterone-prone teenagers running his foreign policy shop.

In Obama's case his advisers favor diplomacy and have some knowledge about those they deal with. I think David Ross, his Middle East man is hopelessly naive about Iran but at least he knows something about the country. And Susan Rice handled Africa stuff under Clinton which is probably the most demanding portfolio in terms of the people you have to deal with, and it is a strong recommendation for her as National Security Adviser.

I fear for the survival of America as I have never feared before in the event of a McCain Presidency.  I was actually pleased with Palin's performance on some of the questions in her interview since it seems she is at least not listening to the idiots who McCain sent to lecture on this stuff and it now looks like Bush is flying in some of his people to keep her safe from their odious influence. The survival of our country may hinge on an early departure from the scene for McCain.