Wes Clark was prescient (again) with his 6/28/05 comments on Faux

[FrenchieCat]

This was Clark's first appearance on Hannity and Colmes, in where he responded to Bush's "speech".
Here's the link to the speech response:
http://www.dembloggers.com/story/2005/6/28/193046/998

saying that Bush didn't answer a lot of questions that needed to be answered, that he didn't explain why car bombings have gone up, noting that there is no connection between 9/11 and Iraq, that this was an elective war that Bush chose to fight, that more and better trained terrorists are moving out of Iraq and into Europe and are plotting other attacks
http://www.commongroundcommonsense.org/forums/lofiversi...

[BrklynLiberal]

1. He is smart, has some common sense and has been in the military.

All things that Bush and most of his advisors lack.

[FrenchieCat]

2. That's true!

and he's done this time and time again!

Our late Paul Wellstone said this on the floor of the senate....
http://www.wellstone.org/news/news_detail.aspx?itemID=2...

But as General Wes Clark, former Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Europe has recently noted, a premature go-it-alone invasion of Iraq "would super-charge recruiting for Al Qaida."

[Nikki Stone 1]

14. God bless Paul Wellstone.

RIP

[autorank]

26. I second that. A major "truth teller" and a very fine human being!

[burythehatchet]

27. Which is why he had to be murdered

Killing his family was a special Cheney touch

[Tom Rinaldo]

3. I knew Clark was dead serious when he said that

so I was not at all surprised this morning by the news. If you still have it Frenchie, you might want to post the link to that thread you had with all the other things Clark predicted. It makes me want to pay very close attention to what he says tonight.

[FrenchieCat]

4. Which one was that?

You mean the one, where the Slate guy was naysaying Wes.....and then one, by one, Wes was proven correct. That one?

[Tom Rinaldo]

6. Yes. That one. n/t

[FrenchieCat]

10. advance search "off" for now.....

Thought I had saved that somewhere else.

[Clark2008]

22. Here it is:

http://slate.msn.com/id/2093825 /

Bush was "warned" about 9/11? "President Bush didn't do his job as commander in chief in the early months of his administration. He was warned that the greatest threat to the United States of America was Osama Bin Laden, yet on the 11th of September in 2001, the United States had no plan for dealing with the threat posed by Osama Bin Laden. The ship of state was on autopilot. There were good CIA officers and FBI officers and everybody doing what they'd been taught to do, but the essential leadership process of putting focus on the resources of the United States, and giving these agencies a real target and a mission, it wasn't done. At least, I think that's what the evidence will show if we ever get the results of this presidential commission, and if they've asked the right questions." (Jan. 6, McKelvie Middle School, Bedford.)

Bush "never intended" to get Osama Bin Laden? "We bombed Afghanistan, we missed Osama Bin Laden, partly because the president never intended to put the resources in to get Osama Bin Laden. All along, right after 9/11, they'd made their mind up, I guess, that we were going to go after Saddam Hussein. That's what people in the Pentagon told me. And they capped the resources, stopped the commitment to Afghanistan, and started shifting to prepare to go after Saddam Hussein." (Jan. 6, McKelvie Middle School, Bedford.)

There wasn't a single terrorist in Iraq before the war? "The president was not and has not been held accountable yet for misleading the American people. He is continuing to associate Saddam, Iraq, and the problem of terrorism. Yet the only terrorists that are in Iraq are the people that have come there to attack us." (Jan. 7, Town House, Peterborough.)

Fifty-five million voters are "ill-informed" dupes of the Christian right? "Now, there's one party in America that's made the United Nations the enemy. And I don't know how many of you have ever read that series of books that's published by the Christian right that's called the "Left Behind" series? Probably nobody's read it up here. But don't feel bad, I'm not recommending it to you. I'm just telling you that according to the book cover that I saw in the airport, 55 million copies have been printed. And in it, the Antichrist is the United Nations. And so there's this huge, ill-informed body of sentiment out there that's just grinding away against the United Nations." (Jan. 7, Fuller Elementary School, Keene.)

Does Islam need an Enlightenment or just Match.com? "Young men in an Islamic culture cannot get married until they can support a family. No job, no marriage. No marriage, unhappy young men. They get real angry, they feel real frustrated, they feel real powerless. And a certain number of them are being exploited in the mosques by this recruiting network." (Jan. 8, Havenwoods Heritage Heights senior center, Concord.)

President Bush doesn't even want to find Bin Laden? "Newsweek magazine says he's in the mountains of western Pakistan. And I guess if Newsweek could find him there, we could, too, if we wanted to." (Jan. 8, Havenwoods Heritage Heights senior center, Concord.)

I wrote the author about six months ago and pointed out how correct Clark was (and, apparently, capable of reading into the future) and challenged the author to update this pap.

Never heard back from him, of course.

[autorank]

5. Are courage, intelligence and leadership enough. I say yes--Clark 08

We are in such a mess. When the dust settles, the Europeans will start talking about how the 'surplus' terrorists from Iraq or the recently trained, will be migrating to Europe just as Clark says.

What a f'ing mess. 08 is not soon enough.

Impreach Bush, Replace him with Clark Immediately

[Donna Zen]

7. Biden will say it..

he just won't credit Clark.

Sorry,

this is too serious

for me to get down on Biden.

But you know I speak the truth.

Really sorry.

[FrenchieCat]

11. Yeah, please don't mention that guy.....

who will be whistling the British National Anthem, if he sees that a camera is around!

[Totally Committed]

8. Yeah!

What autorank said!

autorank, you rock, my friend!

TC

[autorank]

25. Thanks Totally

too!!!

[Totally Committed]

35. Thanks!

Your posts always manage to make me smile!

TC

[Hissyspit]

9. A lot of intelligent people have been prescient about a lot of bad things

that have happened in the past five years or so. They are the ones who have been told to shut up and sit down. They are not the ones in charge of things. Our country is being run by shitheads!

[tk2kewl]

12. How did he not get the nod for '04?

[FrenchieCat]

13. Friend....

You've got to ask our Democrats.....

For 2008, watch the same dumb shit happen. It will probably be the election of 1992 again....with Warner (who doesn't know shit about NS/FP), Hillary (ok, she's been to Iraq ) and Biden (I don't know that much either, but I can fake it), and Edwards (the poor, the poor, and nothing but the poor)vying for the top spot, while Clark is ignored....as he continues to tell everyone what is about to happen.

Have one of those candidates and one well timed Osama Bin Laden tape, and the GOP is guaranteed 4 more years!

[tk2kewl]

15. Am I delusional or would he have been able to simply say

the emperor has no cloths and the world would have responded, "hey, you're right"

[FrenchieCat]

16. that's why they blacked him out...when they weren't attacking him

and promoted others instead.

Why do you think that Biden gets to go on the Sunday talk shows every Sundays?

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

19. The fact that Wes Clark isn't President suggests that we still have

some pretty nasty karma to work off. Maybe we don't deserve him -- I guess having Bush for a pResident forces us to do penance for all the bad shit in our history, or something. We could have nominated this guy... damn!

[Tom Rinaldo]

17. That's why I asked Frenchie to look for her earlier thread

Clark said exactly that, and her thread documents it, but much of the media laughed at him over that at the time. Most of the rest ignored him except for the part of the Republican noise machine that was making up lies about Clark.

[FrenchieCat]

20. Tom, I found it!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

Excerpt from the OP...
According to reporters, these following statements made Wes clearly not ready for primetime!

Wes Clark deemed a flake because of the following statements:
http://slate.msn.com/id/2093825 /
Bush was "warned" about 9/11: "President Bush didn't do his job as commander in chief in the early months of his administration. He was warned that the greatest threat to the United States of America was Osama Bin Laden, yet on the 11th of September in 2001, the United States had no plan for dealing with the threat posed by Osama Bin Laden. The ship of state was on autopilot.
(More to this statement in the article)
(Jan. 6, McKelvie Middle School, Bedford.)

Bush "never intended" to get Osama Bin Laden: "We bombed Afghanistan, we missed Osama Bin Laden, partly because the president never intended to put the resources in to get Osama Bin Laden. All along, right after 9/11, they'd made their mind up, I guess, that we were going to go after Saddam Hussein. That's what people in the Pentagon told me. And they capped the resources, stopped the commitment to Afghanistan, and started shifting to prepare to go after Saddam Hussein." (Jan. 6, McKelvie Middle School, Bedford.)

President Bush doesn't even want to find Bin Laden "Newsweek magazine says he's in the mountains of western Pakistan. And I guess if Newsweek could find him there, we could, too, if we wanted to." (Jan. 8, Havenwoods Heritage Heights senior center, Concord.)

There wasn't a single terrorist in Iraq before the war "The president was not and has not been held accountable yet for misleading the American people. He is continuing to associate Saddam, Iraq, and the problem of terrorism. Yet the only terrorists that are in Iraq are the people that have come there to attack us." (Jan. 7, Town House, Peterborough.)

Fifty-five million voters are "ill-informed" dupes of the Christian right "Now, there's one party in America that's made the United Nations the enemy. And I don't know how many of you have ever read that series of books that's published by the Christian right that's called the "Left Behind" series? Probably nobody's read it up here. But don't feel bad, I'm not recommending it to you. I'm just telling you that according to the book cover that I saw in the airport, 55 million copies have been printed. And in it, the Antichrist is the United Nations. And so there's this huge, ill-informed body of sentiment out there that's just grinding away against the United Nations." (Jan. 7, Fuller Elementary School, Keene.)

One of the reasons for Islam's problem "Young men in an Islamic culture cannot get married until they can support a family. No job, no marriage. No marriage, unhappy young men. They get real angry, they feel real frustrated, they feel real powerless. And a certain number of them are being exploited in the mosques by this recruiting network." (Jan. 8, Havenwoods Heritage Heights senior center, Concord.)

And in another article, same author justifies why he wrote the article....


The point of the piece, which was admittedly not clear, was to suggest that Clark may not be the "electable Dean" that his supporters believe he is. Both candidates have a propensity to make statements that range from impolitic to provocative to simply inaccurate. If you like Clark or Dean, you're predisposed to excuse these statements or to see them as courageous truth-telling. If you don't like them, you have a different reaction. I wanted to highlight this similarity between the two candidates, which belies the consensus that Clark is supported by careful centrists and Dean by angry liberals. I wish I had been more precise.
http://slate.msn.com/id/2093956 /

[Tom Rinaldo]

21. The problem with that thread

is that it constantly needs to be updated.

[FrenchieCat]

24. No Shit!

It is outdated already. Damn!

I'm gonna bookmark it this time, and one day, I will post a new thread updated with the OTHER prescient things that Clark is currently saying. Too bad we've got to wait till he's proven right before some believe what he says.

It's kinda of like playing catch up all of the damn time.

A lot like walking "up" an escalator that's going the down.

We should be turning around....and walking in the same damn direction to actually get somewhere....

but instead, we breathlessly stay walking in the wrong direction going nowhere, all the while scratching our asses trying to figure out why.

[Sparkly]

28. That's amazing!!

Those were supposedly gaffes?!?

Then again, they said he "gaffed" in saying Michael Moore has a right to freedom of speech, and when he put on a sweater during winter in New Hampshire.

[ticapnews]

29. This seems familiar...

One of the reasons for Islam's problem "Young men in an Islamic culture cannot get married until they can support a family. No job, no marriage. No marriage, unhappy young men. They get real angry, they feel real frustrated, they feel real powerless. And a certain number of them are being exploited in the mosques by this recruiting network."

Hm. Kids who have lousy financial prospects being exploited by recruiters to go off and fight and die. Why does this sound so familiar....

[Sanity Claws]

37. Clark did not have much of a campaign

I live in Seattle. His campaign had zero presence out here. He didn't even have a local rep at the caucauses to talk him up. I understand he really didn't do much with any of the western states.
Part of the reason undoubtedly was due to his relatively late start in the campaign.

[AlCzervik]

18. My Brother-in-law went to army war college with him

"Smartest guy in the room"

[Justice]

23. Lucky brother in law.

lucky room!

[RUMPLEMINTZ]

30. Apparently Britian is looking at

Moroccan terrorists as the guilty parties here. Even though I agree that Iraq is a mess it doesn't look like Iraq has anything to do with this. At least not yet.

http://www.forum-europe.com/index.html?http://www.forum...

[tblue37]

32. I actually

suggested Moroccan terrorists to my son today. But I still think that the invasion of Iraq is their reason for the bombings, regardless of where they are from. Muslims all over the world are seething with rage over the invasion, and terrorists can be recruited from any country because of it.

[1932]

31. In Clark's book, Winning Modern Wars, Clark's argument, as I understand it

is that the invasion operated smoothly and efficiently and he has very few criticisms of the military part of the action. He disagrees with the post-invasion actions. He says the military is not the appropriate body for nation-building and that the US needs to get the State Department and the UN involved in that stage.

He also thinks that the military would be making a huge mistake if it invaded all of the seven other countries the US has on its shit list. I believe that it's almost a direct quote to say that Clark believes that we need to use police tactics and cooperation to drive islamist terrorists out of five of the countries on the watch list (which he doesn't name) and get them into two of those countries (one of which is presumbably Iran, since Clark has some very harsh words for Iran) and that it would be appropriate to use the miltary solution for those two countries.

For other peopel who have read this book, would you say that is an accurate reading of his argument?

[FrenchieCat]

33. Key operating words...."As you understand it".....

and I find your understanding to be full of your own thoughts...not Clark's.

I've read the book....and I have the book on my lap, as I type. Why don't you site the pages where you are finding those things that you are "interpretating" and deducing to your findings?

Page 148-
Within the United States, the case for war sold nevertheless through a combination of skilled public commmunication, fear, patriotism, and trust in the commander in chief. The Bush administration was on message, consistently delivering warnings and dropping hints. Sec. of State Colin Powell, who carried the enormous credibility both at home and abroad was the real arbiter. His authority silenced most of the retired military, like the retired General Norman Schwarzkopf and other moderates. There was trust in the President, too, as many Americans assumed that the administration simply knew more than it was sharing with congress and with the public. And there was pressure directed against the doubters by an administration quick to identify and threaten critics.

page 183-184
2001 marked a profound departure in U.S. Foreign policy. Coming to power in a disputed election, the Bush administration acted unambiguously to put a more unilateralist, balance-of-the power stamp on U.S. foreign policy. The United States withdrew from international efforts to address global warming, the Kyoto Treaty. The administration made clear that it would proceed with national missile defense regardless of the U.S.-Soviet Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, the South Korea-North Korea dialogue was essentially rejected, and a new proposal to focus the UN on tightening up sanctions against Iraq was dropped. Even before 9/11 it was clear that the U.S. foreign policy had changed tack.

Responding to events of 9/11, the Bush administration abandoned its "more humble foreign policy" (as described above). Overnight, U.S. foreign policy became not only unilateralist but moralistic, intensely patriotic, and assertive, planning military action against Iraq and perhaps other states in the Middle East, and intimating the New American Empire.

Page 200
We don't need the New American Empire. Indeed, the very idea of classic empire is obsolete. An interdependent world will no longer accept discriminatory dominance by one nation over others.

The RNC did what you are doing to Clark....during the primaries.

It stinks no matter which direction it comes from.

[Totally Committed]

34. A mindset in which one is predisposed and prejudiced in a

certain direction would make a reader look at a passage like the one you just gave, and see what he/she is predisposed to see. I know from experience because I, too, come with my own prejudices about certain people in the political arena. So, I know how strongly and vehemently you feel anti-Wes. This would make you see what you just claimed you saw in that passage.

I also understand why, sometimes, this feeling can make you feel like you just have to say aomething in response to what you are reading or your head will explode. Believe me, I understand, and have done the same thing, even though I try with all my heart to avoid doing so.

I understand.

So, to answer the question you posed: "For other peopel (sic) who have read this book, would you say that is an accurate reading of his argument?" -- No, not to my point of view, at least not all of it. But, you would only argue with my point of view (most of it), feeling as you do about General Clark, so I will just say that your predisposition to see him and his views have skewed your "reading of the argument", so those reading here should know that. It's a very human reaction, and I sympathize with you when you just can't help yourself. On occasion... I do the same.

Try to look at it from that point of view, 1932.

TC

[Sanity Claws]

36. Prescient or actual knowledge?

Clark knows insiders in the Pentagon and elsewhere. He's getting inside information. Call me a tin foil hat wearer, but the insiders know because they're involved in committing it or letting at least some of it happen.

[kevsand]

39. "Call me a tin foil hat wearer..."

I took a pledge a while back to try not to be such a smart ass, so I'm officially (and yes, smugly) passing on this most obvious of all straight lines. (Believe me, it's killing me to do so...)

Instead, I will take the opportunity to point out that sometimes one can be privy to intelligence without being directly or even indirectly responsible for the acts being spied upon. And sometimes, a lifetime of experience can help one to foresee obvious developments even without access to any specific intelligence sources.

The scientific method teaches that the simplest explanation, the one with the fewest contortions and assumptions, is usually the closest to the truth. There are any number of reasons why foresight should not automatically imply complicity.

[Hidden Stillness]

38. More Impressive All the Time

Wow, this is really impressive, yet again. I just read this thread belatedly, tonight, after skimming it over a little last night. I like Clark more and more all the time--now just get a little more educated on women's issues and poverty, and Clark will be a potentially truly great President, and after this asshole we have now, it will be seldom more appreciated. I especially like the part about how Bush never intended to find bin Laden; this is my opinion, too.

I think if bin Laden were caught, you would get so much documented information on corporate-criminal ties between the Bush family and bin Laden, and if bin Laden were killed, countless "lieutenants" no doubt have orders to release thousands of documents showing Bush family-bin Laden ties, to websites, to the media, etc., etc. The last thing in the world that treasonous "capitalist" wants is for the business associate bin Laden to be caught, and angry. I even wondered if the attacks on Sept. 11th, 2001, were actually a personal message from bin Laden to Bush, "double-cross me after all our dealings?" kind of thing, which we will never know. Remember, Republicans always prevented Clinton from finally capturing bin Laden, too.