Keywords: Joe Biden, Sarah Palin, vice-presidential debate, Darfur, Sudan, vice president, election 08, John McCain, Barack Obama
While much of last night's vice-presidential debate was predictable, one aspect wasn't, and that was Democratic vice-presidential nominee Sen. Joe Biden's call for American intervention to stop the genocide in Darfur.
Debate moderator Gwen Ifill posed a question about the situation.
Ifill asked: "Senator, you have quite a record, this is the next question here, of being an interventionist. You argued for intervention in Bosnia and Kosovo, initially in Iraq and Pakistan and now in Darfur, putting U.S. troops on the ground. Boots on the ground. Is this something the American public has the stomach for?"
Biden said, "Yes."
He added: "I don't have the stomach for genocide when it comes to Darfur. We can now impose a no-fly zone. It's within our capacity. We can lead NATO if we're willing to take a hard stand. We can; I've been in those camps in Chad. I've seen the suffering, thousands and tens of thousands have died and are dying. We should rally the world to act and demonstrate it by our own movement to provide the helicopters to get the 21,000 forces of the African Union in there now to stop this genocide."
In response, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin initially tried to change the subject to the war in Iraq and paint herself as a Washington outsider, but she eventually addressed the posed question briefly before returning to another unrelated topic.
"But as for as Darfur, we can agree on that also, the support of the no-fly zone, making sure that all options are on the table there also," Palin said. "America is in a position to help. What I've done in my position to help, as the governor of a state that's pretty rich in natural resources, we have a $40-billion investment fund, a savings fund called the Alaska Permanent Fund.
"When I and others in the legislature found out we had some millions of dollars in Sudan, we called for divestment through legislation of those dollars to make sure we weren't doing anything that would be seen as condoning the activities there in Darfur. That legislation hasn't passed yet but it needs to because all of us, as individuals, and as humanitarians and as elected officials should do all we can to end those atrocities in that region of the world," she said.
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