Clark's guarantee: Editorial Blasts Wesley Clark for guarantee against future attacks if elected

Concord Monitor ^ | Jan 9, 2004

[nwrep]

# Can even a four-star general promise to prevent all attacks?

Just as former governor Howard Dean seeks safer ground, Gen. Wesley Clark is marching in the opposite direction.

Clark said yesterday the United States has nothing to fear from biological or nuclear weapons as long as the country remains united and takes the correct approach to security. He characterized as big lies the conventional wisdom that the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks could not have been prevented and that another major terrorist strike is inevitable.

"If I'm president of the United States, I'm going to take care of the American people," Clark said. "We are not going to have one of these incidents."

To now, it has been Dean who showed a propensity for bold assertions. He spent several weeks defending his statement that Americans are no safer with Saddam Hussein deposed and in custody than they were with him in power. Then, in a response to a Monitor editorial board question, he seemed more concerned with Osama bin Laden's Miranda rights than with his evil deeds.

This week, a chastened Dean said that from this point forward, he will be minding his tongue. He also began to prepare the ground for espousing middle-class tax cuts after saying throughout his campaign that as president he would repeal all of President Bush's tax cuts, including those for the middle class. So much for straight talk.

Clark's comments yesterday also came during an editorial board meeting with the Monitor. Implicit in what he said was the contention that Americans are being pushed to fear things they needn't fear. He was critical of the USA Patriot Act as usurping civil rights. He said that if the government did its job properly, as it would if he were president, it could protect the public from biological and nuclear threats as well as future acts of terrorism.

Clark admits that when he was asked about the Iraq war shortly after declaring his candidacy, he fumbled the answer. But he has been consistent since then in saying that Bush was wrong to abandon the hunt for Osama bin Laden and to invade Iraq. Clark has been especially critical of putting U.S. soldiers in harm's way in a nearly unilateral preemptive war against an enemy that posed no security threat to the United States.

That position is little different from Dean's, but Dean got there first. Antiwar anger fueled his early success in public opinion polls and in fundraising.

With yesterday's remarks, however, Clark may have out-Deaned Dean. We suspect he will spend the next few days in damage control as the national press pushes him to clarify his positions and put them in a larger context.

After substantial study, former U.S. senators Warren Rudman and Gary Hart exposed U.S. vulnerability to a major terrorist attack before 9/11. Last year, during his brief flirtation with a presidential run, Hart told the Monitor another attack was certain.

Former U.S. senator Sam Nunn has been touring the country with other bigwigs to warn the public of the dangers of nuclear, chemical and biological attacks on the United States. The chief worry stems from dangerously stored and poorly guarded nuclear material at several sites in the former Soviet Union. In Manchester yesterday for a college convention, Nunn stressed the risk of a biological attack. Clark suggested yesterday he could eliminate both risks.

Clark is a man of strong convictions, but his confidence on this issue is stunning given the national security reasoning of highly regarded experts from both parties. It remains to be seen whether even a general running for president can get away with that.

[nwrep]

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[Drango]

Clark appears to be bipolar.

[Always A Marine]

Wesley Clark is a fool. A pariah among his fellow senior officers, he is now displaying the outrageous behavior that got him fired from European Command. A true legend in his own mind...

[sinkspur]

Clark is nuts, and a very dangerous man.

America can't afford a lunatic general at the helm.

[Az Joe]

Bombing Christians on Easter Sunday '99 wasn't good enough for Clark. Friggin' moron.

[Guillermo]

Oh, I'm so happy Clark is going to "take care of me."

Now I can sleep well at night.

[woodyinscc]

He is a megalomaniac, being controlled by the biggest one of all. You are right, America cannot ever let this man get to the helm, or Dean for that matter. The Clinton's, in their quest to regain power, are destroying the dim party, and the election of 2004 will cause an upheaval in the party of huge proportions.

[Lawgvr1955]

Do you think Wesley "General Jack D. Ripper" Clark can protect out precious bodily fluids??

"I can no longer sit back and allow communist infiltration, communist indoctrination, communist subversion, and the international communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids."

[MJY1288]

If you want to read something interesting, read Wesley Clark's testimony in the Hague a few weeks ago against Slobodan Milosevic. I'm no Attorney, but a deaf mute could tell he wasn't telling the truth. Slobo made a fool out of him in cross examination.

HERE is a link to an article about his testimony

[Choose Ye This Day]

As ScrappleFace so ably reported:

(2004-01-10) -- Former General Wesley Clark said today that when he is president he will protect America from all terror attacks, and will also "read her bedtime stories."

Yesterday, Mr. Clark told the Concord Monitor, "...if I'm president of the United States, I'm going to take care of the American people. We are not going to have one of these [terror] incidents."

"America is scared," said Mr. Clark. "She's a 'fraidy-cat. So, I will snuggle America in my massive arms and guard her from the bad guys. And I will hug her, and sing to her and read Madonna's book The English Roses to America at bedtime each night."

[Servant of the 9]

Gen. Jack D. Ripper demands your vote.

So9

[Choose Ye This Day]

How about a link to an article that isn't from a pro-Slobo fan site?

Clark's an idiot, but Milosevic is slime, and I feel dirty just being at that site.

[Guillermo]

Ha..I was about to say "And he can tuck me in at night too!"

[MJY1288]

Sorry, I just grabbed the first one I could find off of Google, I'll see if I can find a better one.

be back in a few

[mystery-ak]

Dean scares me, Clark scares me even more...they are both certifiable....God helps us if either ever gets elected...to anything!

[MJY1288]

Here is a link to an article posted here on FR

Clark testifies

[Choose Ye This Day]

Hmm... I guess the Western media is keeping the transcript under wraps until it can be screened for U.S. "national security" concerns first. That may be why the only source that has any detail on Clark looking like a Twinkie are from the go-go-Slobo website.

Of course, if Clark got absolutely hammered, he may try to keep it under wraps until after November.

[MJY1288]

here is another take on his testimony

Wash Post Clark Testimony