Posted on 09/24/2003 10:43:43 AM PDT by fight_truth_decay
"I don't know if I would have or not," the Times quotes. "I've said it both ways, because when you get into this, what happens is you have to put yourself in a position. On balance, I probably would have voted for it."
As the interview on the plane proceeded, he called on his press secretary, who was in the front of the plane. "Mary, help!"
Mary to the rescue: "You said you would have voted for the resolution as leverage for a U.N.-based solution."
Clark:"Right. Exactly."
No, he IGNORED the case for war with Iraq, just as all the Democrats (other than Lieberman), and the mainstream media did.
The great divide in the Presidential race is this: those who GET IT, and those who DON'T, vis-a-vis the War on Terror. Let's forget left vs. right, as if we actually have the luxury of playing an ideological parlor game. The philosophical debates about the nature and limits of government, the nature of man, issues of liberty versus tyranny, are age-old, and important debates. Such debates will always be with us. But, for example, after Pearl Harbor, the principal issue wasn’t the creeping socialism of the New Deal, but whether Western Civilization could defeat German fascism and Japanese militarism. After World War II, the ideological debates were rejoined. We’re in a similar situation today.
It would be nice if George W. Bush were the second coming of Russell Kirk. He clearly isn’t. But this little fact is largely irrelevant. The War on Terror is still the biggest issue, and George W. Bush is really the only candidate in the Presidential race who GETS IT. The UN doesn't get it; the European Union doesn't get it; the media doesn't get it; the Democrats (with perhaps Lieberman as the sole exception) don't get it either, and especially Wesley Clark -- for a military man, to not GET the War on Terror and the importance of dethroning Saddam, is a major blindspot.
That's the great divide in America right now. I have faith that the American people still get it. And what they will “get” is that when it’s time to pull the lever, touch the screen, or punch the chad in November 2004, they will conclude that the world is too dangerous a place to allow the Democrats back in power. This isn’t a “left-vs.-right” consideration. This is a consideration much lower on the Maslow hierarchy of political need. It’s civilization versus the savages. And most people “get it.” Wesley Clark doesn't, and that's why his candidacy is doomed.
WESLEY CLARK EXCHANGES HATS WITH CONVICTED BOSNIAN WAR CRIMINAL
On August 27, 1994, Clark, then director of strategy, plans and policy for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, went to Banja Luka - and met with Ratko Mladic, the bloodstained military leader of the Bosnian Serbs. (My note: everybody apparently forgets that before Serbia's the aggression in Bosnia the same Ratko Mladic was military commander of the Serbian army ("Yugoslav Peoples Army") in Croatia and conducted large scale massacres of Croatian civillians there, especially in the ethnically "cleansed of Croatian population "Krajina", another Serb-proclaimed "republic"). The State Departement had advised against the meeting, on account of Mladic's well-documented war crimes in Gorazde, Srebrenica and Sarajevo. Still, Clark and Mladic had a jolly time. Mladic gave Clark some plum brandy and a pistol with a Cyrillic inscription, and the two merrily swapped military hats.
Here's a clue :) Next time you get a chance, try googling the words Wesley Clark, Iraq, quagmire. Last time I checked, I got 3500 hits.
Well to be fair, you have to admit it's a bit hard to know exactly what the case is/was as it has changed several times since May and none of the original arguments have yet to be completely proven (WMDs, ties to 9/11, Al Qaeda). Or have been outright refuted by the same administration that used them to whip up their supporters for war
Jack Kelly of the Washington Times: He is opportunistic and lacks integrity"... "After a Serb surrender had been negotiated with the help of the Russians, Gen. Clark ordered British Lt. Gen. Michael Jackson to parachute troops onto the airport at the Kosovar capital of Pristina, so NATO would hold it before Russian peacekeepers arrived. Gen. Jackson refused. 'I'm not going to start the Third World War for you,' he told Gen. Clark, according to accounts in British newspapers". Rumor has it that this incident weighed heavily in Bill Cohen's decision to fire Clark.
A picture of Wes Clark's "ammo". All duds.
"Breaking Right"
Coming to a "gun show" bumper sticker near you...
Why doesn't Wesley run for the Baath party, they love him. As an American General, he is pitifully weak in the history department, or his political advisors are. Wars are won and then the REAL work begins; changing a regime doesn't happen over night, it doesn't happen in months. But eventually, the good done will over shadow the murderous past and this is the part that the Iraqi people must adopt and they are, slowly and steadily with the help of the coalition military. Those soldiers are the paste that is holding the wound together until it can heal by itself. The democrats and the French want instant change only because they don't want the Bush administration to have any success. What about the people of Iraq, don't they have a say so? Listening to the Socialist Democrats you would think that we could just walk away from helping further - well they are wrong.
What most of this bad press boils down to is propaganda, spin and political rhetoric. Some reporters are beginning to report the truth - if you can 'hear' it over the Clinton, Clark, and the other 7 dwarfs shouting and wailing; they would have lost Iraq for Iraqis at the get go - they are simply not cut out to go the distance, it takes up too much of their time from other pursuits like raising taxes and very much how they treat the American people - just as soon as they are elected, they leave those who supported them and it's back to business as usual, politics and Washington,D.C.
America, Our Guys got Uday and Qusaylets not forget that monumental success! The left would rather you forget such enormous success the Iraqi people surely have not!
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