Gaffetastic.

“We face the threats from rising powers — China, India, others — that we have to always have sufficient force protection out there in the Pacific to make sure they know we’re never going anywhere,” Mr. Panetta said during a visit to a shipyard in Groton, Conn., where he toured a submarine, the Mississippi, in the final stages of construction.

India is an ally of the United States, assisting both in the war on terrorism and as part of an effort to counter China’s growing power in the region.

But even in an effort to do damage mitigation the secretary’s office had a curious position:

Pentagon spokesman Capt. John Kirby later sought to clarify Mr. Panetta’s comments. He said Mr. Panetta did not intend to suggest that India and China were military threats to the U.S. and that he believed it was important to forge closer military relations with both countries.

Again he puts India and China in the same category. He’s not sorry for suggesting India poses as much of a risk to the United States as China, he’s sorry for suggesting that either poses a threat to the United States. And he stresses that America should forge closer military ties with a nation (China) that regularly steals our military secrets, hacks into our computer networks, and is seeking to push America out of the sphere of influence in Asia. Amazing.