Gen. Clark: Saddam Not a Criminal

NewsMax.com ^ | 9/21/03 | Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff

[kattracks]

In a little noticed interview with Fortune Magazine last week, presidential frontrunner Gen. Wesley Clark defended Saddam Hussein against charges that he was engaged in crimes against his own people at the time the Iraq war started, contending instead that the Iraqi dictator should have gotten a pass because his atrocities took place ten years ago.

Asked why it was right for President Clinton to use military force to halt Slobodan Milosevic's crimes against humanity in Kosovo, but not for President Bush to do the same thing against Saddam, Clark said that in Iraq, "The imminence of stopping a guy from committing a crime in progress - it wasn't there."

"In Kosovo you had ethnic cleansing actually unfolding, and we had intervened to stop it," the ex-NATO commander insisted, without commenting on the torture chambers, rape rooms and mass graves discovered in Iraq by coalition forces.

Instead, the Democratic frontrunner suggested that the Iraqi dictator deserved a pass by outlining what Fortune described as Clark's "Statute of Limitations for Genocidal Thugs."

"It was ten years ago that Saddam brutalized the Shiite Muslims in the south," he argued. "And he used chemical weapons 15 years ago."

Instead, said the retired military man, Saddam brutality was really no worse than crimes committed by leaders in China more than a decade ago, telling Fortune:

"We still deal with communist China, right? During the Cultural Revolution they had cannibalism in China. And the same guys that ran over the students in Tiananmen, they're still there."

Fortune writer Bill Powell pointed out, however, that while China is still a police state, "the recently departed General Secretary Jiang Zemin, to take but one example, was promoted from mayor of Shanghai to succeed Deng Xiaoping in part because he avoided bloodshed during Tiananmen. . . . Have you ever heard of Saddam promoting someone because he avoided killing somebody?"

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:

2004 Elections
Saddam Hussein/Iraq

[Polybius]

Does it bother anyone when an american shills for a deposed socialist dictator ?

It doesn't bother me when a single American does it nearly much as the fact that tens of millions of American Democrats do it every day.

[mtbopfuyn]

And to think he's being, um, groomed for the presidency. Get your handbaskets packed, folks.

[exDemMom]

My understanding of Kosovo was that the "ethnic cleansing" was vastly overstated for the purpose of having an excuse for Klintoon to show off his incomparable skills as commander-in-chief. Never once did I hear a compelling reason for us to interfere in the civil unrest taking place in Bosnia or Kosovo. Does Wesley Clark really expect us to accept the illogic that Klintoon's military actions were absolutely necessary because he's a DemocRAT, and that nothing President Bush does is justifiable because he's a Republican?

[palmer]

Your understanding is correct. There was an exodus of Kosovars after we started bombing, at least partly in response to the bombing itself. Clark and the other perps then turned around and pointed to that as their justification for bombing.

[Destro]

Be afraid---be very afraid. Is Clark running for anti-Christ?

[SSN558]

Would he also say that Janet Reno and Webster Hubbell are not criminals because the Waco massacre occured 10 years ago ? The evidence is out there that Westly Clark has severely flawed character and seeks only power, like his new mentor.

[Howie]

And I got this one for the Waco gassing/slaughter.

[Paulus Invictus]

Had Hitler survived the war for a few years, Clark might have given him a "statute of limitations" pass too. RATS are scum!

[SSN558]

From another thread:

Wesley "Queeg" Clark was involved in some troublesome events during the Clinton years. It was his good buddy Bill Clinton who set aside the Posse Comitatus Act, allowing Clark to "loan" armor and service personnel to be used against the Branch Davidians at Waco.

[headsonpikes]

I'm waiting for Clark's position paper on 'precious bodily fluids'.

[freeangel]

What is needed are witnesses to his recent atrocities and a media that is willing to make this information known to the naive public.

[steplock]

I still haven't see ETHNIC CLEANSING by the side that CLARK & CLINTON MURDERED!

[InterceptPoint]

They don't call him General Weasely Clark for nothing do they?

His views on this will evolve to something much more acceptable to the American people over time. He will need and get the full cooperation of the NYT, WP, LAT, the Alphabet Networks and other members of the left wing media who have never met a brutal dictatorships they didn't love.

[BlessedBeGod]

Had Hitler survived the war for a few years, Clark might have given him a "statute of limitations" pass too.

I was about to post exactly the same thing. This guy is scum.

Does he advocate letting criminals out of jail if 10 years have passed since they committed their crimes, too?

[Timesink]

Call Roto-Rooter,
That's the name
And away go campaigns
Down the drain!

[kattracks]

I still haven't see ETHNIC CLEANSING by the side that CLARK & CLINTON MURDERED!

You'd think that after this many years have gone by they'd have found some evidence.

Meanwhile, the Dims and the media (same thing) clamor for evidence of WMD after only a few months in Iraq.

[Timesink]

How quickly he has attained this title!!

Don't worry, he's going to lose it almost as fast.

Well, hopefully he'll retain it for a LITTLE while ... this is what, his fifth major gaffe in the last 48 hours? The longer he's in the race as a frontrunner, the more peoples' eyes will be opened to how corrupt the Democratic Party has become.

[floriduh voter]

His 4th star was provided after pleading with bubba. How'd he earn that?

[bethelgrad]

This guy is a nut! Let him keep talking. Dems think having a general in the primaries will be a plus? Not when he sounds like a frickin' traitor. Let him keep talking, and let us provide him the bullhorn.

[bethelgrad]

Ever wonder what good the Posse Comitatus Act is when it can be put aside for convienence sake?