leader, not just the economy, by the way, but more important than that, the whole south this whole southern rim of russia is filled with 20 million sunni muslims. now, if he begins to attack sunnis, which is what he is doing, on behalf of shia, which is what he is doing, and protecting, he is building up an enormous amount of resentment among literally one-fifth of his population. do you think he is a he hasn t said it, but it feels as if he has taken sides in the sunni/shia 1,000-year-old conflict. i think he has taken sides and it is an incredibly risky, dangerous step, because what he is clearly trying to do i say clearly, nothing is that clear with putin, but what he appears to be doing right now is creating a coalition with putin
conceive an environment in which the u.s. can actually completely back off prior to the end of this operation? we re a member of nato, if nato is doing a mission in harm s way, we re going to be a part of it. so in a reduced, and less visible way. are you concerned at all that we might be stretched a bit too thin given iraq, afghanistan? well, i think that s one of the reasons the u.s. has made it clear that they don t want to be providing all the strike missions and all the huge chunk of the chain of command. i think that what we will dial back to will be sustainable. though, you know, it s going to be stressful on the navy and the air force, but we traditionally kept forces in the mediterranean. we ve got a lot of bases along the southern rim of europe. i think this is manageable and i agree with you, i don t think we can put a line in the dirt as to when this thing is going to be over. okay. general montgomery megs, great
we ll give you an idea of where this is and how high it is. 8500 feet is the top of this thing. let s zoom in quickly and show you the rim as well. the northern side of this is where they re going to come in from. that s where you re not allowed to hike or climb in this case. the climbing route is across the northern or the southern side. that would be so this guy would be protected somewhat because the winds are hitting the southern rim. but i think today they ll have a chance to get those helos up as the system clears out just a little bit. whether he survived the night i can t say for sure because it sounded like he took his gear off, was cooling off and then went down into the crater. we re certainly keeping hopes alive. you bring up a good point. patrick ottman is there and is joining us on the phone now, rob. patrick, you actually reported that possibly rescuers had heard