‘That Was Amateur Night’

 
 
 

Email To A Friend

Please fill in the following information and we'll email this link.

Separate multiple addresses with commas

 

I was going to ask what you found that surprised you.
If there's one big surprise I've had since taking this job, I haven't found a single country that didn't want a stronger, better relationship with the United States and that did not think the U.S. was still the key player. I've probably traveled to 50 countries now. Not one—Indonesia, India, China, Russia, the Middle East. Places where I kind of expected to get beat up, places where, when I traveled when I was DCI [director of Central Intelligence], in some ways there was a more negative attitude toward the United States then than now. For all of the criticisms, all of the mistakes that we've made, we're just kind of there. To a considerable extent we are still the only multidimensional superpower—political, military, economic, cultural. I mean, American culture? Even those who hate us the most wear American college sweatshirts and want to go to American colleges and universities.

So you don ' t see the damage to America ' s prestige in the world from Abu Ghraib, Guant á namo and so on as permanent?
One of great strengths of America is that, maybe more than any other country, we have the ability to correct course when we go too far in one direction.

Are we locked on a collision course with Iran?
I have not by any means given up on the possibility that the Iranians can be pressured into arrangements that salve their national pride but provide a verifiable way of demonstrating that they don't have a nuclear-weapons capability and are not building one. I mean, that's got to be the objective. Whether it's an enrichment bank in Russia that they rent [uranium] from—whatever. I think the international community, including the United States—if Iran were willing to forswear nuclear weapons—would probably be pretty forthcoming in trying to figure out an arrangement that would let them do what they say they want to do, which is to have a civil nuclear program.

And if they do insist on pursuing a nuclear-weapons program?
One of the many concerns about Iran getting nuclear weapons or having a nuclear-weapons capability is that some of their neighbors may decide they just can't stand it. I think that North Korea and Iran are particular problems—beyond the immediate military danger their having nuclear weapons may pose—in the incentive they provide for others to go ahead and develop their own nuclear weapons. And the credibility of our deterrent is really going to be put to the test, it seems to me, if we can't do something about both of those programs.

How do you respond to those who say the United States should take the lead against nuclear proliferation by drastically reducing its own arsenal?
The reality is that there are probably two dozen, perhaps 30, countries out there that would seriously consider their own nuclear deterrent if they couldn't rely on ours. And this is something that I think a lot of people overlook in terms of the importance of keeping our own nuclear deterrent modern, keeping it reliable, keeping it safe.

Could you hope to maintain stability in a world with more nuclear powers?
One of the things that I had thought was so important about the strategic arms negotiations with the Soviets was not that we ever really limited arms. It was a quarter-century seminar for both countries in how each thought about nuclear weapons, nuclear war and each other. And I think it really played a big part in preventing misunderstandings and miscalculations. That's why I proposed a "strategic dialogue" with China at the end of last year. I've been surprised how quickly it has got started … It's still rudimentary. But in terms of getting comfortable talking about these things I would say it's moving at a significantly faster clip than was the case with the old Soviet Union.

The last remaining cornerstone agreement with the old Soviet Union the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) is due to expire next year
I'm not sure that's going to happen. I will put this in terms of my wants. I would like to see us table a post-START agreement with the Russians—in some ways just to set the parameters. But with a new administration, whoever it is, I think—based on the campaign statements of both candidates—there will be a new agreement. And if there isn't a new agreement, I think there will be agreement to extend the current agreement by a year so they can negotiate a new one. I actually don't think they will let it lapse.

Discuss

Sponsored by

Member Comments

  • Posted By: Krohn @ 11/02/2008 11:10:39 PM

    The Wall Street crisis was planned the night of Obama's meeting at Bill Ayres home to put Obama in The White House. Together they put a beautiful plan into place.

    This Strategy was first elucidated in the 1966 issue of 'The Nation' Magazine by a pair of radical Socialist Columbia University professors, Richard Andrew Cloward and Frances Fox Piven.

    David Horowitz summarizes it as:

    "The strategy of forcing political change through an orchestrated crisis. The "Cloward-Piven Strategy" seeks to hasten the fall of Capitalism by overloading the Government bureaucracy with a flood of impossible demands, thus pushing society into crisis and economic collapse.
    unquote

    Obama begin with ACORN by funneling millions into their organization. He then trained ACORN to stage protests in banks to force them to issue risky loans or they would be threatened to face racial charges. ACORN was trained to intimidate financial institutions into giving ???Ninja??? loans to people with NO assets, NO job and NO income, who couldn???t afford these loans.

    That caused the housing bubble two years ago it was by ACORN's actions they were able to destroy our credit system.

    As this played out, D-Barney Frank and D-Chris Dodd were able to cover up the millions of improvident loans to these bad risky house buyers. And Barney Frank and his chums successfully were able to block all of President Bush's attempts to put a rein on this problem.

    So Fannie & Freddie was forced to purchase all these failed subprime mortgages.

    Then both Frank and Dodd denied that there were any problems, and refused the Bush Admin. requests to set up a regulatory agency to watch over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and they were still pushing for these agencies to go even further in promoting sub-prime mortgage loans almost up to the 'minute they failed'.

    Democrats then blamed Bush saying it happened on his watch knowing it would hurt the Republican Party in the election setting it up that Barack Obama could use this to his advantage.

    Karl Marx once compared a Revolutionary struggle with the work of the mole, who sometimes burrows so far beneath the ground that he leaves no trace of his movement on the surface.

    Barack Obama is that Marxist mole !

  • Posted By: Concerned Canadian @ 11/01/2008 5:18:46 PM

    WELL SAID BILL COSBY !!

    'They're standing on the corner and they can't speak English.
    I can't even talk the way these people talk:
    Why you ain't,
    Where you is,
    What he drive,
    Where he stay,
    Where he work,
    Who you be...

    And I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk.

    And then I heard the father talk.

    Everybody knows it's important to speak English except these knuckleheads.
    You can't be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth.

    In fact you will never get any kind of job making a decent living.

    People marched and were hit in the face with rocks to get an Education, and now
    We've got these knuckleheads walking around.

    The lower economic people are not holding up their end in this deal.

    These people are not parenting. They are buying things for kids.

    $500 sneakers for what?

    And they won't spend $200 for Hooked on Phonics.

    I am talking about these people who cry when their son is standing there in an orange suit.

    Where were you when he was 2?

    Where were you when he was 12?

    Where were you when he was 18 and how come you didn't know that he had a pistol?

    And where is the father? Or who is his father?

    People putting their clothes on backward:
    Isn't that a sign of something gone wrong?

    People with their hats on backward, pants down around the crack, isn't that a sign of something?

    Isn't it a sign of something when she has her dress all the way up and got all type of needles [piercing] going through her body?

    What part of Africa did this come from??

    We are not Africans. Those people are not Africans; they don't know a thing about Africa ...

    I say this all of the time. It would be like white people saying they are European-American. That is totally stupid.

    I was born here, and so were my parents and grand parents and, very likely my great grandparents. I don't have any connection to Africa, no more than white Americans have to Germany , Scotland , England , Ireland , or the Netherlands . The same applies to 99 percent of all the black Americans as regards to Africa . So stop, already! ! !

    With names like Shaniqua, Taliqua and Mohammed and all of that crap .....And all of them are in jail.

    Brown or black versus the Board of Education is no longer the white person's problem.

    We have got to take the neighborhood back.

    People used to be ashamed. Today a woman has eight children with eight different 'husbands' -- or men or whatever you call them now.

    We have millionaire football players who cannot read.

    We have million-dollar basketball players who can't write two paragraphs. We, as black folks have to do a better job.

    Someone working at Wal-Mart with seven kids, you are hurting us.

    We have to start holding each other to a higher standard.

    " We cannot blame the white people any longer."
    Dr. William Henry 'Bill' Cosby, Jr., Ed.D.

  • Posted By: Concerned Canadian @ 11/01/2008 2:00:24 PM

    Two central issues in the election Barack Obama is wrong and misleading:

    1) No tax increases to those earning $250,000 or less promised by Obama, then he
    lowered this figure to $200,000, then the "Gift that keeps on Giving" Joe Biden says
    the number is $150,000 and just yesterday Gov. Bill Richardson says the figure is
    $120,000 ...and now a videotape is disclosed where it shows Obama recently stated
    that in the interest of fairness with taxes is around $80,000.00!!
    Sounds like good old fashion Democratic ???reverse auction ???tax policy they implement
    after they break their campaign promise to the American people.

    2) On national security ...Obama???s own VP running mate Joe Biden ... ???mark my words,
    this guy Obama is going to be tested by a generated international crisis within 6
    months of his Presidency..I guarantee it??? Obama will meet with USA's enemies with
    no pre-conditions!
    John McCain???s surge strategy in Iraq is working and its saving the lives of young
    American men and women in uniform serving there...Obama won't admit to this day
    the surge is working and he voted to cut funding for these military forces !!

    John McCain is Commander-In-Chief material ....Obama is just a cardboard "cut-out"
    candidate of the DNC.

Reply

Report Abuse

Enter comments if any for reporting abuse

 

Up and Coming Newsweek Stories on Digg

Discover more Newsweek content on Digg