Reply #22: A General In Politics

[Tom Rinaldo]

I think Clark is the antidote to, not a continuation of, the problem of military influence in America. Clark through his carefully reasoned statements, embrace of public debate and the importance of dissent, advocacy of a model of international cooperation over international domination, stress on the critical role of diplomacy in resolving international disputes, and passionate repeated emphasis that force should only, only, only be used as a last resort, reorients the aura associated with the military that jingoist propaganda attempts to capitalize on. There is nothing that more thoroughly discredits civilian chickenhawk efforts to glorify War as a means to pursue imperialistic policies than a thoughtful well spoken General contradicting each and every one of their carefully rehearsed arguments.

Clark is the man best able to put the military back into the role first established for it by George Washington. In that way he is like an Eisenhower for the current times. The fear articulated is the General Douglas MacArthur path not taken. I hear that fear and respect that fear, but it was MacArthur's peer, Dwight Eisenhower, who restored the militarys proper civic role in the publics perception, and Ike was invaluable to our Democracy in having been able to do that for us all. But there is another maybe even more critical role that Wes Clark is playing for our Democracy right now. He is powerfully challenging what had increasingly been becoming "conventional wisdom", that the military is linked to the Republican Party. That linkage was not accidental, nor is it a side event in the American political struggle that is shaping this new century.

The Republican Party has done everything in its considerable power to link itself to the military, and the military to itself. That, I hold, is a threat to our Democracy. Americas military has historically been non partisan. If the public is ever successfully sold a bill of goods that says support for the Republican Party is equivalent to support for our Military, then our Republic will be in grave danger. General Clark has provided a strong Democrat Party persona to challenge the Military equals Republican equation. He does so at a critical time when George Bush is running around the country using the American military as his personal stage prop. Wes Clark is helping restore an essential equilibrium to our political system at a critical time.