Robot Pirate Ninja

This is an interview with Wesley Clark regarding the recent happenings regarding Russia and Georgia.

Two things to notice here….what an absolute pathetic hack Cavuto is(1) and what a generally smart and strategic thinker Wes Clark is (to no one’s surprise). I’ll bold Cavuto’s propagandic statements and insane bias.

The fact that Fox News isn’t news isn’t news, so don’t focus too much on that.

In Clark’s statements I’ll highlight the substance of the interview…if you want to actually know more about the situation and read some good strategy for dealing with it, read that part.

If you want to see blatant b.s. read the Cavuto bolds…

Neil Cavuto: He [Bush] is sending his Secretary of State Condolezza Rice to Georgia to show his support. Reaction now from someone many say could be the next Se-Sec-Secretary of State in an Obama administration, former Democratic Presidential candidate, former Supreme Commander of NATO, General Wesley Clark. General, what do you think of this?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, I think it’s a very dangerous situation. I think Russia has clearly taken advantage and is pursuing strategic objectives. I don’t think we’ve seen the end of this yet. I think what we need to do right away in addition to the humanitarian airlift that’s going in is that we should get some observers in on the ground. They don’t have to be Americans. It’s better if they’re from the European Union. Let President Sarkozy put in a few teams and tell us the ground truth of what’s going on there so that we can use diplomatic leverage to force the Russians, the Russian military to abide by the directions given by its political leaders. What’s being done right now is a, it’s a game. The Russians played this game before. We saw it, I saw it personally. They played it against NATO in Kosova. They say at the political level, ‘We’ll stop,’ but at the military level they don’t stop. And without ground truth it’s difficult to go back and confront the political leadership and say, ‘You guys are lying to us! You tell them to stop and we mean it or else.’ And so, the first step is to get some neutral observers in there.

Neil Cavuto: Alright, General. Just to remind people at home here, in the lower right portion of your screen, that is a scene in Michigan. John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee is going to be talking to reporters about this. Of course, he has been very strong in his condemnation of the Russians r-really from the get-go when this first came out, which brings us to a point with you, General, as to whether Barack Obama was overly cautious. What do you make of that?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, I think he’s been very strong and very forthright in his statement. He’s called on the Russians to stop. He c-certainly would agree with the humanitarian airlift in there. He’s called for a deepening of the U.S. relationship with Georgia, the continuation of the membership action plan for NATO and so forth. But we should, we should be very clear with our viewers, the key to success here is to have unity between the United States and all of our European allies. This is not something the United States can handle alone. We’re not going to dispatch a brigade of the 82nd airborne in there. This has got to be done with a concerted diplomatic leverage against the Soviets to force those troops back. And then, whatever reassurances we can give to the Georgians, we should certainly do that as well. But we should be really working NATO and NATO unity in here, and I’m waiting to see a statement from either the European Union or NATO that shows the appropriate degree of resolve and, and, and determination to call on the Russians to pull back immediately.
Neil Cavuto: General, I didn’t see that-

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: They have no business in Georgia.
Neil Cavuto: I understand, Sir, but I didn’t see that kind of resolve in, in, in Barack Obama’s initial responses to this. It was cautious. It was very diplomatic, but it didn’t seem to have the, the, the sense of magnitude that John McCain’s did very early on saying the Russians and, and, and their bulldoggedness were, were a problem. It was a view that eventually the rest of the world came to share including the President of the United States and eventually Senator Obama himself (NOTE: This is not true). But do you think that on this first key foreign policy test as a candidate for President, Obama botched it?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, I think Senator Obama’s done, doing just fine on this. I don’t think there’s any issue. I think you have to, you have to watch carefully what you’re saying at this point. There’s- th-th-the very harsh anti-Russian rhetoric makes good domestic politics, but it doesn’t bring European unity into action. And what we’ve got to have is European unity. We’ve got to bring France, Germany, UK, Poland, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Greece, all of these countries have got to come together with the countries newly admitted to NATO in Eastern Europe and say to the Russians, ‘Stop! Stop now, and get your forces out and keep them out!’

8/13/08 – General Wesley Clark on Your World with Neil Cavuto | WesPAC.

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This is one of the problems with current mainstream “Republican” thought. There seems to be a sense that it’s o.k. to go it alone in international wars with super powers. Or pseudo-powers as it turned out in Iraq. It’s part of their weird and total commitment to Bush’s and now McCain’s policies that makes it impossible to look at things rationally.

In order to keep the illusion alive that their polices are working, they have to keep thinking their answers are the right ones for every situation.

When you have a flawed strategy, and a flawed understanding of what that strategy has wrought, you have a recipe for immense disaster.

More on this topic coming up. it’s been an interesting one to watch unfold.