Posted on 05/28/2015 6:34:55 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
As the various candidates made the media rounds this week, there was one interview which jumped out at me. It was Carly Fiorina sitting down with Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC and taking one of the tougher questions facing every White House aspirant… if elected, what do you plan to do about ISIS? The answers we frequently get are disappointing at best – if there’s an answer given at all – but this time the reporter almost seemed shocked to have somebody lay out numerous elements of a plan in plain, clear language.
Before we get to the specifics, check out the brief video and the transcript.
Andrea Mitchell: “What would you do now against ISIS?”
Carly Fiorina: “I would do very specific things. First, instead of having a Camp David conference to talk our Arab allies into a bad deal with Iran, I would have had a Camp David conference to talk with our Arab allies about how we can support them to fight ISIS. Let me give you very specific examples. The Kurds have been asking us to arm them for three years – we still have not. The Jordanians have been asking us to provide them with bombs and material. We know King Abdullah of Jordan – I’ve known him for many years – he took the appropriate leadership steps when a Jordanian pilot was burned alive. He was here in this country asking us for bombs and material. We haven’t provided him with any of them. He’s now looking to China for that. The Egyptian president, a very brave and pious Muslim, who has said there is a cancer in the heart of Islam, has asked us to share intelligence. We are not. The Turks have asked us to help them topple Bashar al-Assad. We are not. There are a whole set of things we’ve been asked to do by our allies who know this is their fight, and we’re not doing any of them. So I would hold a Summit and talk with them about that.”
There are two things to touch on relating to this exchange. First there is the obvious matter of what the plan is. Honestly, I had some questions about it myself as I heard Fiorina explaining it. From the 10,000 foot level there’s nothing wrong here. Getting the actors in the affected region more involved on the side of the good guys (or the least bad guys that can be found in this case) is a necessity. Offering requested aide to any marginally trustworthy leaders who are willing to take sides against ISIS is a win for us. But we also can’t afford to be unrealistic in terms of just how active Jordan and Egypt will be. Their plates are rather full of terrorist badness at the moment and they’re just not going to be sending huge ranks of troops into Syria or Iraq no matter who is leading the charge. But they can still provide some help, and if we have the resources they need it’s worth looking at. As for the Turks… well, I’ve given up on them for the time being in terms of helping anyone but themselves. The Kurds, on the other hand, are ready to fight. In fact, they are already fighting, and could probably do a lot more if we supported them more completely. I think Fiorina is on the right track there.
The second element of this interview, though, could serve as the next installment of our series on This Is How You Do It. Too many candidates – particularly Hillary Clinton – fail to answer this question in a concrete fashion. They’re happy to cast blame on those who came before and run down the ideas of their competitors, but they rarely lay out any concrete steps for fear of being criticized or proven wrong later. This doesn’t do much to inspire confidence. Whether you agree with her plan or not, at least Fiorina was willing to answer the question and demonstrate that she’s been considering the crisis and is forming a plan for how to deal with it. And if you disagree with her, well… isn’t that the point of having a primary? We’re supposed to be getting all the plans out there so the voters can decide which ones sound best and toss their support to the candidates they agree with.
I’m still not signing on as a committed supporter of Carly, or any other candidate for that matter. But watching the way she deals with both the media and Hillary Clinton, I do like the cut of her jib. A few more interviews such as this from the rest of the field – or candidates on the debate stage showing the intestinal fortitude to put their specific plans forward for consideration – could make for a more productive political atmosphere. More like this please.
ISIS is moderate? I don't think that we're watching the same beheadings.
We are. It’s just a matter of definitions. That is moderate in islam. It is also mainstream islam according to the Koran. The beheaders were called moderate by Obama, McCain and many others to sell the idea of arming them to fight ‘extremists’. then the ‘moderates’ came out of the closet, beheadings occurred and the coverup ensued.
Laying off excess workers is NOT causing damage. It is how capitalism works. Corporations are not there for philanthropic reasons. That objective belongs to religious institutions. Culling of dead wood and excess employees is how prosperity continues. Japan tried no-layoff policy for decades, and their economy is now suffering for multiple decades.
It takes guts to layoff people and it is never pleasant. But it has to be done if business conditions demand it. I had to do it myself a few times because we were in a cyclical business. In the long run, it benefits because the corporation survives instead of going bankrupt. Arguably HP avoided going bankrupt due to CEO Fiorina’s actions. I know first hand the debacle in NASDAQ stocks during the Fiorina era.
Exactly, but culling the herd is branded “destruction of company” by some. I sometimes wonder if they understand capitalism and if they even believe in free market economy.
I grew up in a neighborhood which was 50% Muslim. My best childhood friend was from a neighbor Muslim family. So yes, there definitely are moderate, educated, civil Muslims.
And strangely enough the muzzies were pretty moderate back then. Must be something to do with the K.C.C. treatment.
I worked and the world went with it. The nanosecond the world began treating a rabid dog as a family member, the dog attacked.
If a Muslim believes and follows his Koran, he is not moderate by definition. If a muslim does not believe and follow his Koran, he is apostate and thus not muslim to begin with. A moderate muslim is a logical impossibility if we accept that words mean things.
The definition of a moderate muzzie is a muzzie who has run out of bullets.
Ir bombs. Or knives... I really don’t know how far people will go to blind themselves to the muslims own words.
Their book spells it out in no wiggle room detail. Their history proves you cannot trust them. They sing in the streets everytime an infidel building joins the choir invisible with infidels in it and pass out candy to their children...who march with AK 47s screaming “DEATH TO THE INFIDEL!!!”
Some westerners want death. they want to die by muslim hands rather than admit the reality all around them. Hopefully they go first and give the rest of us time to load up and aim.
Great. What’s the alternative?
“She is full on GOPe having been part of the McCain team in 2008.”
Sarah Palin was #2 on that ticket. Does SHE strike you as GOPe? McCain was the nominee in a pro-democrat wave year. Fiorina was trying to help keep the dems out of the White House. In 2010, for a time she had Boxer neck-and-neck in communist California. I’m not seeing how taking the field in an extremely uphill battle situation is a negative.
BINGO!!!
She has the guts and intellect to know how to streamline an organization...and Fedzilla is waaaay to big to succeed.
Carly did this at HP and it saved HP - even the Intel CEO has noted her successful efforts was strategically important for HP's future.
“...Carly is being useful, a woman attacking Hilary, I’m not gonna castigate her for doing that, just the opposite. ...”
Same here. The Dems do it enough. Let’s not help them.
“First, don’t elect a person that nearly destroyed 2 companies.
Second, learn from history. You either kill muslims, conquer muslims or contain muslims. What you never do is align with them or arm them.
Now if you have a problem with the wisdom of that, then explain in detail how it is that we are in our current state and every time one of the three historic solutions was applied, there was not the state we live daily.”
I kinda agree with you on that.
I have always believed that the only way that the radical Muslims can be contained is for the moderate Muslims must do it. They are the only ones capable to identify and eliminate the threat ‘their’ way ( like, say, killing off all family members of terrorists).
Like you, I do not support giving them guns though. Instead, I would give them an ultimatum: capitulate or die.
Islam’s core if barbaric and anti-Christian. It will never change, so the Western world must wake up to a lot of killing in the future.
The board is the CEO's boss. CEOs don't get to just defy them and keep their job long. You are just being silly or don't understand business structure.
The merger was in process before she was at HP according to them.
“Sarah Palin was #2 on that ticket. Does SHE strike you as GOPe?”
I was wondering when someone would make that specious argument.
Congratulations!
She was a rock star at AT&T and Lucent which is why HP recruited her. She had the bad luck of being head of HP when the dot com bubble burst. There are a lot of companies no longer with us but HP is still here so I don’t think Carly was all that terrible. She shook things up at HP and shaking things up tends to piss people off.
The federal government killed Bell Labs when they broke up AT&T. AT&T “spun off” Bell Labs since Bell Labs was not a for profit organization it was a research group. Carly got it up and running as Lucent and profitable! The profitable is very important.
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