“And it’s not just this part of the world, but Senator McCain has been to so many exotic places like Waziristan and South Ossetia, and he’s very comfortable with these issues. He knows what he thinks. He’s been in contact with the leaders involved in these places for many, many years. So it’s really sort of a perfect thing for him.”<\/p>\n
“This is McCain’s advantage here, advantage McCain. This is right in his sweet spot in foreign policy national security. He has known the current Georgian president, Saakashvili, since 1997. He met him when he was here in this country studying. And he knows all of the players in Georgia.”<\/p>\n
\u201cShuster: We are back with more of the politics fix. John Heilemann, I want to ask you about this issue with Russia and the significance with Georgia. Is it a bit of a mixed message for John McCain when he tries to say this is so important, this is grave and then you look up and there\u2018s President Bush at the Olympic Games hanging out with the volleyball players? <\/p>\n
Heilemann: Yes, I think it\u2018s a pretty significant mixed message. I thought it was interesting earlier on the program, you have someone who is I think Frank Gaffney was accusing Barack Obama of having foreign policy that was closer to George Bush\u2018s than John McCain\u2018s. I think, look, anything that puts distance between George Bush and John McCain is, I guess, good for John McCain.\u201d<\/p>\n
“I think McCain benefits from this in three ways. First of all, he separates himself from President Bush, something he needs to do in general. He does have real policy differences with Bush. He has been a skeptic of Putin. It also allows him to talk tough on foreign policy, something that he, when he’s comfortable doing it, on an issue he cares about, he sounds better than he does at other times. And, then, finally, as was just said by Ed Henry, this is an issue where Americans look to McCain more than Obama, someone they trust to be president. So, I think, in general, although it’s a substantive problem for the current administration, this is good politically for John McCain.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Sonali Kolhatkar:<\/em> Some news media clips talking about how the Russia-Georgia conflict is good for John McCain. Special thanks to alternet.org for providing this. Richard Falk, you have been studying this issue very closely as well. What do you make of all of these statements?<\/p>\nRichard Falk:<\/em> Well, I think they ought to be taken seriously in the way that Robert Scheer has suggested to you. I think one should add, though, that it also suggests this terrible vulnerability of American society to the wrong kind of security policy, because the reason it helps McCain is that he is associated with the same kind of failed foreign policy that George Bush has given the American people, and yet the American people seem overwhelmingly to trust that kind of failed leadership more than seeking a more moderate, more intelligent, diplomatically oriented leadership that Obama, I think, would provide, and one that is less oriented toward this kind of militarism that has proven such a disaster for U.S. foreign policy ever since Vietnam.<\/p>\nSonali Kolhatkar:<\/em> Robert Scheer, now, John McCain is certainly capitalizing very openly on this issue, making very, very strong statements about Russia. What does this conflict and McCain\u2019s response bode for future U.S.- Russia relations? I mean this is not to be taken lightly.<\/p>\nRobert Scheer:<\/em> Well, first of all, you know, Putin is not some communist and he is a free-market guy, he established his reputation by being a reformer in the former Leningrad and he is not going, any more than the Chinese, he is not going to play the Cold War game. He is not going to give them what they want. And in addition there are very important economic restraints on the American position now; and also on the countries around Russia. I mean, they do have their resources and they are big players there and I think the other Europeans don\u2019t want to return to the Cold War, so it sort of goes against main trend of history now, which is to deal with economics and trade and so forth. I also think if this had happened in October, it probably would have thrown the election, but coming now\u2026<\/p>\nSonali Kolhatkar:<\/em> In what direction?<\/p>\nRobert Scheer:<\/em> \u2026towards McCain, but I don\u2019t think it will work now, because there is some time. And first of all I think the Georgian public will not think this is such a wonderful thing. After all they lost, and they lost by an adventurous policy by a leader who thought the U.S. would back him uncritically, and they didn\u2019t. And to the degree that we learn more about McCain\u2019s reliance on these neoconservatives who brought us the Iraq war. After all, his key foreign policy guy was the head of the Iraq liberation thing. He was the director of the Project for the New American Century, so it is pretty difficult to disassociate yourself from the worst of Bush and his failure in Iraq when you embrace the very people who were the architects of that policy, and if the news media would stop the aimed babbling that you just played before and actually look at the record who are these people, where is McCain getting his information, you know, what drives him, and Obama has the courage to raise any of these issues, I think he could wrap this around McCain and show him to be what he is, basically a warmonger.<\/p>\nSonali Kolhatkar:<\/em> And speaking of media\u2019s failure, Richard Falk, you have said that you are astounded by the mainstream media\u2019s failure to take proper note of the pipeline geopolitics that are involved. Can you explain for our listeners what exactly is involved and how the media has covered it if at all?<\/p>\nRichard Falk:<\/em> Well, I think the media overlooked the whole context of the conflict in the early days. And it failed to mention the oil dimension which is really at the core of the geopolitical stakes of this conflict. And what the U.S. has been pushing for is a pipeline that goes through Georgia, which is firmly oriented towards the U.S. and the West, and avoids both Russia and Iran, which are alternate economically preferable routes for the oil pipeline. So, this whole sense that the future of energy independence depends on who controls the Caspian oil reserve – that is being played out here in a very significant geopolitical aspect of this conflict. It is not the only dimension. It\u2019s a complex situation with a whole series of different issues that are at play, but it is one of the important ones. And you could look at American main stream media, including the New York Times, and not find a word about these aspects of the conflict in the first two or three days. Now, today for instance, there is some reporting at least on the oil dimension.<\/p>\nSonali Kolhatkar:<\/em> Robert Scheer, also the media doesn\u2019t seem to have done a very good job at looking at McCain\u2019s comments that Russia should have taken this whole matter to the UN. I believe Russia did take it to the UN.<\/p>\nRobert Scheer:<\/em> Yes, let me just comment on what Professor Falk just said, because I think it is exactly correct. I think there are basically two ways to look at the world. One is Bush I, his father, who believed in trade, he believed in a multi-polar world, he believed in doing business there, and then you have his son, who basically was captured by these neoconservative ideologues and has a very old-fashioned, imperial view of how you protect your interests; basically conquest and having to guard the pipelines and so forth. And I think these two views are diametrically opposed. And I think that if Obama is smart, he will embrace Bush I. Bush I cut the military by 30%, or at least that was his intention, he didn\u2019t get it done. He knew the Cold War was over. It was his father\u2019s views that were being reflected by the second Bush when he said he looked into Putin\u2019s eyes and could see his soul and so forth. The reality is that we have to get along with Russia, we have to get along with China, and if our President doesn\u2019t know that, the leaders of other industrial nations will inform him of that fact. And I think that\u2019s the modern force and I think if Obama associates with that, he will get a lot of support. I don\u2019t think the American people want to revisit the Cold War and they certainly don\u2019t see conquering Iraq, which was the second biggest pool of oil, and yet oil prices went up fivefold, they don\u2019t see that as a success. And the question is whether the Democrats have the courage to advance a more enlightened view. That\u2019s really the issue here.<\/p>\nSonali Kolhatkar:<\/em> And what about the UN question, also? And how the media has not even covered that and given of course the U.S.\u2019s own reluctance, if you will, to put it mildly, to not really go to the UN when it wants to do\u2026<\/p>\nRobert Scheer:<\/em> I mean, of course, come on, the U.S. invaded Iraq when UN inspectors were on the ground and they invaded because UN inspectors were not finding weapons of mass destruction. There is also this enormous contradiction between bombing Serbia for [inaudible] and then McCain saying modern nations don\u2019t invade other nations. I mean the whole thing is nuts. I mean, if the Russians are wrong in Georgia, then we were wrong in the old Yugoslavia. I mean, there is lots of things. This idiocy of the media talking about how the Russians conquered Eastern Europe, well that was done by a Georgian. Nobody even mentions that. Nobody mentions that the Russian leader, the Soviet leader who conquered, was Stalin. And there is a statue to him in Gori, there is a museum to him. The Stalin Plaza was bombed by Russian planes two days ago. So this whole ignorance of history and simplistic babbling, really, is what is going on, I think will be exposed in the days to come. That\u2019s where I think it\u2019s going to be. The reason I say this is because it\u2019s still August. There is time for reassessment. And just as you had in Serbia, there is a reassessment of the hard line and we lost more than we gained, I think in Georgia, there is going to be a reassessment \u2013 wait a minute, what was the great thing here? What did we gain?<\/p>\nSonali Kolhatkar:<\/em> Finally, Robert Scheer, what about Barack Obama\u2019s position on this? I mean he is being looked at as weak with respect to foreign policy. That\u2019s been one of the major strategies from the McCain department, and of course McCain is using this conflict, as we have talked about, to appear strong. What would be the reasonable thing that Obama should be, in your opinion, saying about this conflict?<\/p>\nRobert Scheer:<\/em> I think what he has to do is challenge this drive back to the Cold War. Just today, Poland is now going to accept a missile shield and in return we are going to guarantee Poland against any attack on the first day. What are we trying to do here? We don\u2019t need this missile shield. Here we were talking about cooperating with Russia on controlling their nukes, I mean, better safeguards, maybe going back to the Reagan-Gorbachev promise of getting rid of these things. Instead now we are giving the Russian military a reason to demand more nuclear weapons, and better ones, and better delivery systems. And let\u2019s not forget here that Russia has some power in terms of their military force. They have these nuclear weapons and I think this will not be lost on the rest of the world. What are you doing trying to distort the Russian experiment at this point, take their mind of peaceful development and bringing them back to being a militarized power without communism? I don\u2019t know, what is the logic of that? So if Obama would just make this point, what are we trying to do here? Why do we want to go back to the old days, and don\u2019t we bear any responsibility for encircling Russia here and playing to their worst tendency? I think he could be very effective if he challenged that. But that would require a great deal of political courage.<\/p>\nSonali Kolhatkar:<\/em> Well, on that note, I want to thank the two of you very much for joining us today. <\/p>\nRichard Falk:<\/em> Thank you.<\/p>\nRobert Scheer:<\/em> Thanks for having us.
\n
\nSpecial Thanks to Claudia Greyeyes for transcribing this interview<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"| the entire program President Bush this morning announced that Russia must withdraw all its troops from Georgian territory immediately. He denounced Russia’s actions as “bullying and intimidation” and vowed to stand with Georgia. While the war between Russia and Georgia continues to escalate and the casualties continue to mount, the US media is blithely […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-program","category-transcripts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2991\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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President Bush this morning announced that Russia must withdraw all its troops from Georgian territory immediately. He denounced Russia’s actions as “bullying and intimidation” and vowed to stand with Georgia. While the war between Russia and Georgia continues to escalate and the casualties continue to mount, the US media is blithely commenting on how the conflict benefits Republican presidential hopeful John McCain. One week ago today, the former Soviet state began an offensive aimed at retaking the secessionist and pro-Russian region of South Ossetia, provoking a military intervention by Russia. By Monday Russian forces were in full control of the region and were pushing into Georgia. Russian troops are now in the strategic town of Gori, with conflicting reports about whether they will withdraw or not. The conflict has sparked a war of words between Russia and the US. Washington has accused Moscow of sabotaging Georgian military infrastructure and on Wednesday announced a US military airlift of humanitarian supplies to the region. <\/p>\n