Clark on new torture rules: If you give up your own beliefs, you've lost

[Clarkie1]

the very weapons you need to fight the war.



October 3, 2006
By James Ricci | Times Staff Writer | Los Angeles Times

In an address at UCLA, the retired general lambastes the Bush administration for challenging the Geneva Convention.

Retired Gen. Wesley K. Clark, speaking to UCLA faculty and students Monday, said that observing the Geneva Convention is crucial to America's interests and its ability to mobilize other countries for collective efforts.

Clark — who was supreme commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization under President Clinton and led a coalition of nearly a score of countries to successfully end Serbian oppression of Kosovo's Albanians in 1999 — said the Bush administration's insistence on more leeway in applying Geneva Convention standards to the interrogation of terrorism detainees runs counter to America's history of observing international law.

"We were anti-colonial," he said. "We did not support the French re-conquest of Indochina. We helped force the Dutch out of the East Indies. We did not support the invasion of Suez by Britain and France in 1956. We were a nation that operated selflessly. People saw us as different because we followed international law."

Making his debut as a senior fellow at the Ronald W. Burkle Center for International Relations at the university's International Institute, Clark called law "the ultimate human construct — more important than bridges, more important than chips…. Law is sacred in the American system."

Clark's appearance was the first in what he said would probably be monthly visits to UCLA to speak with faculty, address graduate seminars and participate in academic conferences. A former Rhodes scholar with a master's degree in philosophy, politics and economics from Oxford University, he taught political science at the U.S. Military Academy for three years.

Recent congressional action authorizing the administration to try terrorism suspects before military tribunals and banning torture — while not prohibiting specific coercive techniques — will not silence the debate over the Geneva Convention, he said. The trials of the suspects will raise questions, he said: "What coercive tactics were used? How reliable was the information" thus obtained?

"It's going to bring everything back to the surface," Clark said.

Most important, he told the approximately 40 people who attended the breakfast roundtable, backtracking on the Geneva Convention represents a retreat from values America once promoted to the world.

"It was America that led to the creation of the Geneva Convention," he said, "and now we're walking away from it, from the very values we espoused?"

In an interview after the breakfast, Clark, who briefly contended for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004, characterized America's struggle with Islamic extremism as "a battle of belief systems and ideas. If you give up your own beliefs and ideas, you've lost the very weapons you need to fight the war."

He noted that although America is currently the world's only superpower, breakneck economic development in China and India, "with four or five times America's population," might well result in those nations attaining similar status. "Scale is one of the most important laws of economics, and they've got scale over us."

As those countries close the power gap with America, he said, "we have to have a set of rules of international behavior that work to our benefit and are accepted by other nations."

Clark said experience shows that coercive tactics against detainees tend to break only those who are undisciplined or uncommitted to their causes, and that such tactics often result in unreliable information given in the hope of stopping the abusive treatment. By contrast, he noted, prime Al Qaeda suspects tend to be "hard and tough."

The way to deal with them, he said, is not to apply coercion but to seek to change their minds. Yemeni authorities, he added, "actually bring imams in and try to deprogram them and challenge their interpretation of Islam. Eventually, they blurt out everything — and you can believe them."

Clark said the Bush administration's indifference to public opinion in other countries about U.S. violations of accepted international standards makes it difficult for leaders of those countries to collaborate with America.

"It's bad, bad policy for a legitimate state to mistreat people in its power," he said.

"If you can't move French public opinion, you can't expect their political leaders to sign on the bottom line. We have an international constituency, and that's what we've lost."

www.securingamerica.com

[Monkeyman]

1. K&R

[Bucky]

2. Chinese proverb: Choose your enemies wisely, for you shall become them

Not that I'm saying Bush is turning into the Bill of Rights, of course

[BattyDem]

3. I like this guy more and more everyday

I wasn't a big fan of his when he ran for president simply because I didn't know much about him, but he has been impressing the hell out of me recently! :toast:

[texpatriot2004]

4. K & R nm

[ddeclue]

5. He's definitely glossing over the subject of Vietnam

Where we definitely DID act on behalf of French Colonial interests and even picked up their war for them after they gave up.

Doug D.

[Donna Zen]

6. He's on record as saying

...that we did things during the "Cold War" that did not live up to our values. Since he took four bullets in Vietnam, we can assume that he is well aware of that war. He has called Vietnam a "war of choice."

[Tom Rinaldo]

7. Right. An "elective war", and Clark opposes "elective wars"...

That is his clearly stated position. Clark believes the United States should never go to war unless it is absolutely necessary and all other rational options are exhausted. But what Clark is doing with his statement is framing the issue of support for international institutions and law as patriotic, and consisitent with America's best traditions. That is part of how we will beat the Republican appeal that justifies throwing our honor and the Constitution overboard in order to "fight terror". Clark is reminding Americans that we are safest when we stand for what we believe in and defend the higher moral ground.

[ddeclue]

13. I understand that but I was just referring to the quote he made...

He more than most people should be careful about this since as you said he was there.

Doug D.

[1932]

14. and Hawaii and the Philippines, re colonialism

And Guatemala and Chile, and the entire foreign policy of the Eisenhower administration including Iran, and everything Kissinger did in government, for that matter, is also being glossed over.

In the introduction to the book below in my sig line, Kinzer writes about his inspiration for writing about Iran. He says that he attended a book party for an Iranian woman who wrote a biography that wasn't very political at all. When she was introduced to Kinzer she asked, Why did your country do what you did? We loved America. America ruined our country. Kinzer wanted to write about why this woman held a grudge against the US for something that happened 50 years ago.

Kinzer's argument in the book is that, by overthrowing Mossedegh, the US sowed such powerful seeds of hatred (betraying the principles of democracy our country is founded on) that nearly every subsequent ill experienced by the US in the middle east (and on 9.11) grew from those seeds.

So, you can SAY that the US has been so well respected (just because we didn't have colonies -- except for Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Hawaii) and that only the Bush administration is an aberration in this legacy of being a good-neighbor, but that isn't the truth, and it isn't the whole story, and, if you believe Kinzer, you miss the causes for so much of the shit going on in the world today.

Also, I know I may be over-reading Clark, but I think it's important to recognize that the US having rules that work for us is part of the problem and not the solution. We don't need rules that benefit just us in the face of a growing India and China. We need objective and fair rules that work for EVERYONE including China and India, and that, sometimes, might not work for the US, so that nobody feels that she is getting the short end of the stick and resorts to extra-legal shit.

I know that adhering to the Geneva convention works for everyone. But, I did get the impression from Clark's table for one exchange with WelshTerrier2 that he thinks that it's important for the US to get the longer end of the stick at the cost of the autonomy of oil-producing nations (eg, he thought that cheap oil for American oil cos is good for the US, even it means that developing countries lose the value of their natural resources). I don't think it's good for the US to extract wealth from other nations in a way that impoverishes those nations and confers great wealth on the US. It's fun to do that in the short term, and a lot of Americans make a lot of money. But it's a violation of the values and ethics upon which the US was founded, and it results in global instability over the long run that costs society much more than the benefits it conferred on a few rich Americans.

[Donna Zen]

15. Replying here

just to clear up something. Clark told WT2 that the US should get oil just like anyone else: pay for it.

The rule of law does work for everyone. I don't want China writing the law...theirs are not good for everyone. I have no comment about India's laws, but Arundhati Roy is not very impressed.

I do not expect you to pay any attention to anything I've just written, because past practice assures me you won't. Sorry, but that is how I understand your continued trashing of Wes Clark. Personally, I'm glad to hear someone speaking clearly about the deep and long-lasting negative effects of the torture law. I don't expect Clark to make his case against that law by dregging up every f'cked up thing that America has done. Somehow, I hardly think that any logical person would think that a wise course of action.

Now we have very popular Dem candidates talking about bombing Iran. Wes Clark is against that concept.

[1932]

16. Didn't he say to WelshTerrier2

that the US creating a government in Iraq that was friendly to the US, that embraced US interests, was better than having to fight for oil?

By the way, I should make it clear that I agree with what Clark is saying here about the Geneva Convention -- and he makes it clear that, in the case of the G.C. he's arguing that the US has to play by the same rules it expects others to follow, even if it means sacrificing the ability to the torture (however, he also says that there's nothing to be gained from torture, so there's no real sacrifice).

My only criticism is that when I read this quote, the memory it triggered was Clark saying things at Table for One (and in his book) which sound more like an argument that the US needs rules for the world which benefit US interests.

Also, I think Clark doesn't give enough weight to arguments like Kinzer's and like the argument in Confessions of an Economic Hit Man that the US does a great deal of stuff short of outright colonization that have very serious and very long-lasting repurcussions on the well-being of millions of people overseas, and also, I believe, they hurt working Americans in ways that I've argued in other posts here at DU (holding back other countries from developing middle classes out of the labor and natural resource wealth in those countries ultimately lowers the bar for working Americans and it also feeds the polarization of wealth within the US that results in a poltical system that is very easy for the wealthy to use to beat down everyone else).

[Tom Rinaldo]

18. You are over reading again

Clark OPPOSED invading Iraq in the first place. Clark is not one of the Democrats who at one time said that George Bush was correct to invade Iraq, waiting months if not years to change their mind about that before finally admiting that they were wrong.

Clark thought then and thinks now that American interests would have been better served by not invading Iraq period, but sure, if the choices are boiled down to having to either fight to seize Oil, or negotiating to purchase an essential commodity from a nation that is not hostile to America, Clark would chose the second, as would almost any sane American. The point remains, Clark thinks if we need foreign oil that we should pay fair market prices for it. Anyone can spin that comment any way they want I suppose, but I have a hard time disagreeing with it.

[1932]

20. See my edited post above.

By the way, do you have link for the TPM quote. I'd like to read it again.

When you think of a nation that is not hostile to the US (in the context of Iraq) do you imagine a country where Iraqis benefit from the wealth created by Iraqi oil, or do you think of a nation where US companies benefit from the wealth created by Iraqi oil? The Iraqi consititutuion is not written to create the former situation. IIRC, that's the context within WT2 asked that question.

[Tom Rinaldo]

22. I don't have a link saved anywhere

I think it was quoted here on DU at the time. Also it may still be saved at TPM, since Clark was a guest blogger, they might have an archive for guest bloggers. I'm not sure because I don't go there much, I went there then because I knew that Clark would be blogging.

I know that the Iraq Constitution was screwed with, and yes what I envision when I think of dealing fairly with a non hostile nation is a situation where the people of that nation benefit as well they should by the exploitation of their own natural resources. Clark opposed the U.S. Administration of Iraq at the time, in the aftermath of Bush's invasion. He felt that the U.S. should get out of the way and internationalize the Provisional Administration for the short period of time legitimately needed for Iraq to form it's own government. He felt that the supposed primary military and political objectives of reestablishing a secure nation state inside Iraq, free from either Baathist or terrorist influences, would be advanced by the U.S. making it clear that we weren't there to control Iraq oil or Iraq territory. Sadly the Bush Administration disagreed.

I've got to sign off now. As I said on another thread, I have to be out of the house all day tomorrow attending a political rally and have some prep to do.

[CarolNYC]

31. TPM exchange

This is going to be a long answer so I hope someone reads it...

Here's the link to the exchange between wT2 and Wes : http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/8/29/94325/1284#comment-39349

Here's Wes' full response to welshTerrier2's question, which did not mention the Iraqi Constitution, BTW:

On August 30, 2005 - 2:00pm wclark said:
Hi welshTerrier2--

Without question, oil is one of many interests that the United States has in the Middle East. Oil is what gives the region much of its significance. But oil is important to America. Until we develop energy independence, we're going to be dependent on imported oil and, increasingly, natural gas.

America's economic strategy with respect to oil is that it is a commodity, and the people that have it want to sell it because they need the money. So our primary approach until developing energy independence should be, if we need it, to buy it - rather than having to fight for it.

Were we to pull out precipitously from Iraq, and destabilize the emerging political efforts there, the consequences would likely be a steep jump in the price of oil and hardship for millions of Americans as a consequence. But the consequences and thus our interests go beyond oil. As I said in my comment to Jai, potential for a civil war in Iraq would be high if we leave before there's an agreement and the militias disarm. But it might not just be civil war, because the Kurds will likely declare independence, which would bring in the Turks and Iranians as well.

So though I was absolutely against going into Iraq, now that we're there it's critically important that we get out in the right way. That means helping Iraq put a new democratic government in place, develop the security forces it needs to defend itself, and ensure that the needs and interests of America and all nations in the Middle East are respected in the process, to minimize future regional conflicts. It's up to the Bush Administration to ensure that happens, and up to the rest of us to hold their feet to the fire until they act.

I've been scratching my head, trying to figure out how you get a call for "rules that benefit just us in the face of a growing India and China", "that he thinks that it's important for the US to get the longer end of the stick at the cost of the autonomy of oil-producing nations (eg, he thought that cheap oil for American oil cos is good for the US, even it means that developing countries lose the value of their natural resources)", "that the US creating a government in Iraq that was friendly to the US, that embraced US interests, was better than having to fight for oil", that he was advocating for "a nation that is not hostile to the US (in the context of Iraq)...as a nation where US companies benefit from the wealth created by Iraqi oil" as opposed to "a country where Iraqis benefit from the wealth created by Iraqi oil".

Even for you, it seems a bit of a stretch. But I think I may have figured it out, at least to an extent. From your posts, it seems that when it comes to US interests, you hold a belief that is a mirror opposite to what Bush seems to believe. Whereas Bush seems to believe that anything in the interest of any other nation must not be in the interest of the US, you seem to think that anything in the interest of the US could not possibly be in the interest of any other nation involved. Two sides to the same coin, really....

When you say that Wes seeks "rules for the world which benefit US interests," I wouldn't disagree with you.

However, whereas you seem to read that as rules which benefit ONLY US interests (and therefore, rules that exploit and/or shortchange everyone else involved), Wes has always been a "common interest" kind of guy. Maybe it comes from hard personal experience, you know, the kind you get negotiating a peace between seemingly irreconcilable parties (And, true, very few have that experience, which is one of the things that makes Wes so valuable, especially in these times.), but Wes believes that even the most irreconcilable parties can find common ground if only those involved are willing to try hard enough to find it. He's seen it happen. He's participated in it.

So, you see, Wes believes that there truly can be "rules" that benefit both the US and everyone else involved. He often speaks of how the actions we take as a nation will be viewed by those on the receiving end of those actions...

Here he was on Al Franken, on Sept 11, talking about the "regime change" in Iran:

Well, you know the President intervened and, and as I recall, so did Condeleeza Rice, before their elections and called for them to have a different government. Well, no, no group of people want another country to tell them who they should elect. And whether we agree that those elections were democratic by our standards or not in Iran, there were people over there who believed they were, and they didn't like the United States pointing its finger and trying to meddle, even in an open way. And there's a suspicion, of course, that there's a lot going on that not so open. But this has made it much more difficult to deal with the problems of North Korean and Iranian nuclear aspirations.

http://securingamerica.com/node/1450

He was just on Fox yesterday speaking of how we can't decide how Iraq should be partitioned, because we're not the ones who have to live there, live with the day to day effects of the partitioning:

I don't believe we want to be the ones proposing this. The Iraqis are going to have to decide themselves how to survive. They've got to get along with each other whether there are borders in between that divide nations or borders that divide provinces or streets that divide Sunnis and Shias, or walls and houses. They've still got to get along with each other because there's no ocean that's going to appear between them. And secondly the process of doing this…can you imagine all these people being thrown out of their homes, chased down the street and having it 'made in America'? Why would we want to bring that on ourselves? We've got to work politically to help the Iraqis come to their own solution, not one made in America.....We have to be able to help the Iraqis make their own solution....Well, it was never my vision that we'd have a Jeffersonian democracy there but I do know that the President was extolling that Iraq is a model for democracy. A number of us warned that this wasn't actually likely to be feasible, that the invasion of Iraq wasn't necessary - it was an elective war. Now we're in there. What we need to do is let…work with the Iraqis, work with the neighbors and find the right way out. There is a way through this that will hold Iraq together as a state, will reduce the killing and will prevent Iraq from becoming a threat to its neighbors again. Dividing it in three parts, 'made in America' - that's not the way.

http://securingamerica.com/node/1663

And my favorite, especially as it relates to your charge about "the rules that benefit just us", in regards to China and India...This from a Q&A session at the Council of Foreign Relations on Feb 14, 2006:

In the 21st century, do we want to live in a balance-of-power world, or do we want to live in a different kind of international structure? That's the question Americans have to ask. If you want to live in a balance of power world, you have to ask yourself, okay, now, China, their -- economic predictions say they'll have our GDP sometime, the equivalent, maybe 2030, maybe 2035; depends on whether you believe they grew 16 percent in a year or 9 percent. Nobody knows, and they probably don't know.

But imagine this. The year is 2030, 2035. The United States has 320 million people; Mexico has 140 million people. Mexico and the United States are still at odds over the Southwest border. And the American vigilantes on our side of the border are matched now by irate Mexicans who are tired of all this name-calling and the use of force and the threats and so forth.

And China, of course, at this point, has economic relations with both countries. China says, please, you all settle that quarrel; don't get into this because you're both valued customers of China. Can't you work together in peace? Would it help you if we deploy a couple of Chinese aircraft carriers off the coast of San Diego to illustrate that we really want you to solve this peacefully? (Laughter.) Of course you'd be offended, right? I mean, say, what the heck? That's what we're doing to China. That's the way they see this.

So it starts -- I mean, I don't think there's any objection to the United States doing defense planning and having capabilities-based forces, or even doing wargaming. I wouldn't have any objection to that. I mean, that's what armies and militaries have to do.

The question is, what's the national strategy? Are we simply going to perpetuate a 19th-century balance-of-power system in which, you know, right now, okay, well, let's line up with India against China. Let's work a different level of encirclement. For what end? Can't we work together to create international institutions, rules of the road, rules of conduct in international behavior that have enough support and legitimacy throughout the world that every single nation will find it in their own interest, through their own political systems, to follow these rules of behavior? And can't nations then band together?

We tried this once with the League of Nations. It failed because the United States wasn't part of it. We've tried it again with the United Nations. It's not working very well with the United Nations, in part because of the way the United Nations has constituted itself -- it's badly in need of reform -- and in part because of the fact that we as Americans have been very ambivalent about the leadership role that we inevitably have to take in the United Nations.

Now, if we didn't have a U.N., we'd be struggling now to create something like that. We need a different international structure, because we don't want to find ourselves 50 years from now or 30 years from now trading aircraft carrier deployments with China -- we'll move our two carriers from Taiwan, fine. Then these two Chinese carriers are going to deploy from south of the Hawaiian Islands to, you know, off Cabo San Lucius. Why? What are we doing this for? We shouldn't be in that game so let's try to change that game.

http://securingamerica.com/node/607

Finally, back for a moment to Wes' comment in his response to wT2 about "a steep jump in the price of oil and the hardship for millions of Americans as a consequence." I don't believe he was worried about any hardship that would be suffered by any US corporations. He's talking about the ones who can least afford it.

I used to think that raising the price of gas to $5 or $6 would be a good way to force people to conserve on consumption until listening to Wes set me straight. I heard him speak of how those who could least afford it, those who have to drive long miles to get to a job would be most affected. I thought of that when I read in Saunders and Jarding's book about how the folks in rural areas have been screwed out of public transportation and so they are forced to drive their own vehicles long miles to get to jobs that aren't paying much. They would be hurt the most by a steep rise in gas prices because they can least afford it and they have no other options...

Me, in the middle of a city, with all kinds of public transport at my beck and call and owning no car, was thinking only about how it would affect me. Wes, as always, was thinking about how it would affect the least among us.

[Tom Rinaldo]

32. Just so you know Carol, I read your post. Thank you

That was a labor of love on your part and I hope more people do read it. I think those who do will find a lot to think about in it. I'm pretty familiar with Clark's thinking myself, but there were nuances that you connected that set off light bulbs for me too.

Of course readers should know that Clark's specific comments about the situation inside Iraq were written quite a while ago, this is not a recent piece that you quoted from.

[CarolNYC]

33. thanks Tom...

You mean the TPM piece? Yeah, that was way back in August 2005...Lot different now.

[Donna Zen]

34. CarolNYC, thank you for putting this all together

It is only over a period of time and many comments, that one can begin to see Wes Clark's vision for how the world might look. During one of the Q & A's, he talked about the strategic framework. With that one answer, a light came on for me. I'd never heard of or thought of the concept that for foreign policy wonks is part of the conversation. What makes the General's view point unique is that he sees with clarity both the diplomatic and the military aspects in question.

I missed his recent appearance, but for weeks on the net, I've answered the many posts proposing to divide Iraq by saying that it is not our proposal to make. bush and cheney think that they can make these decisions for other countries, and that is why we are in this mess. I'm glad to read that Wes Clark has taken this position.

[CarolNYC]

35. I actually don't have Fox so I didn't see it yesterday....

but the video and transcript are up on http://securingamerica.com

[Texas_Kat]

19. Keeping in mind that his audience was a relatively savvy group of graduate

students at UCLA, I'd expect Clark to refrain from rehashing policies of dead administrations with a 'The History of the World" lecture.

He had a limited time and a specific topic -- he delivered a powerful and cogent message.

[Tom Rinaldo]

17. I think you were over reading Clark

I watched the exchange you mention in real time, while Clark was live blogging at Kos, I remember it very well. Clark said that the United States needs to develop renewable energy sources that make us less dependent on Middle East Oil, and in the interim we should do what any consumer of any product is expected to do when they want more or it, buy it on the open market, not seek to steal it. Yes WelshTerrier2 was fishing (in the best sense of that word) for a broader condemnation of generations standing American corporate theft enabling and imperialistic policies regarding oil and energy resources, and Clark didn't go there in his short reply. Which of course puts Clark in the same company with every major Democratic Presidential candidate. I think even WelshTerrier2 would agree that he isn't hearing what he wants said about that yet from any leading Democrat, but what Clark did say was positive on the face of it. I honestly think that any reading of the transcript of that exchange will show that the words you used to describe it were certainly never written, nor, in my opinion, were they even implied.

Clark is on record writing that growing endemic poverty around the world creates a national security threat to America because it leads to instability and failed states on one hand, and to environmental depredation and to the spread of diseases on the other hand. Clark frames generous U.S. international assistance as working for everyone. It fits into something that Clark says often; "the United States needs more friends and fewer enemies".

And yes of course the United States has a very checkered history of selfish mixed with less selfish actions. It is unusual in human history for a nation to wage a massive war (World War II) against enemies that it later occupies and then helps rebuild, allowing them to again become independent in relatively short order. The Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe also was visionary. But America has had entirely too many Republican Presidents since World War II, and our greed tends to be sharper edged under Republican Administrations, and what has at best been a balancing act thus tilts more heavily negative.

It would be foolish not to view Clark's comments within a partisan political context which is how they were intended. Clark is focused on convincing Americans to put their trust in the Democratic Party over the Republican Party, not in the Socialist Workers Party over both the Democratic and Republican Parties. He frequently uses a technique that Martin Luther King Jr. perfected. King could have railed endlessly at Whites about all the evils that White racism against Blacks had caused, but that was not the message he usually chose to deliver. He focused more on hope and on the innate goodness of White Americans. He reminded White Americans of their most positive legacies and he invoked them openly and repeatedly, calling Whites to greatness through pride at least as much as shame.

Yes the history Clark invoked was simplistic, one could call it air brushed, but the goals he was articulating were ideals that we really do need to strive for, ideals that stand opposed to the Bush Administration foreign policy, and he rooted those ideals in positive aspects of American history. It wasn't so long ago that the Chinese Students of the Democracy Movement that so many of us respect and honor erected a statue, their Goddess of Liberty, which was directly and knowingly modeled after the American Statue of Liberty. Bill Clinton was our President then. Most of if not all of the American evils that you listed in your post were already well known to the world, and yet an American ability to inspire others then still remained.

[1932]

21. A lot of good books have been written since 2000, or so

which take on these issues in a way that I think a 2008, mainstream, popular Democratic candidate could also embrace and still win an election.

There is a long legacy in the Democratic party that was on the good side of this fight. I don't think we have to give up hope. At the very least, I think it's worth talking about these issues seriously at this stage.

[FrenchieCat]

23. What's so amazing is as an Edwards' supporter, you never really

Discuss John Edwards' failing in reference to what he believed back in 2002, 2003, 2004 and most of 2005 in his support of the Iraq invasion. In addition, you don't bring up his joining the Corporatist Bilderberg group for their annual "getAway" nor his attendance and speechmaking in front of the powerful Israeli lobby organization aka AIPAC meetings. Just a couple of months ago, Edwards spoke before AIPAC and clearly voiced a more than required Hawkish stance against Iran. Did you approve?

Do you ever have any comments to make in reference to John Edwards and his Foreign policy approach....or is it just Wes Clark that you are so intrigued with that you make it a point of criticizing much of what he says or has written; all done through your special gift at "interpretation" and "Instant recall" re-interpretation usually proven misleading and/or wrong.

It is clear to me that as much as Edwards plays the populist he is actually less of an internationalist than Wes Clark is. Yet, you reserve your "ire" about Clark's view of Internationalism...and revere John Edwards! How could that be? Isn't there some sort of disconnect going on with you when discussing foreign policy as well as economical Global Policies.....cause that's what I pick up on. So why is that?

Do you have any comments on this recent endeavor's of John Edwards? Why is it that what John Edwards has done and is doing is "so right"....while you try so hard to find wrong in what Wes Clark says and writes? :shrug:

BusinessWeek has learned that Edwards has signed up to work for the New York-based private investment concern Fortress Investment Group as a part-time senior advisor. As such, he will be "providing support in developing investment opportunities worldwide and strategic advice on global economic issues," says Edwards spokesperson Kim Rubey.
snip
his experience in Washington should serve him well as a global financial adviser. He was on the Senate Intelligence Committee in Congress and boned up on global economics during the 2004 Presidential campaign for several nationally televised debates with Cheney. Edwards now serves as a co-chair of a Council on Foreign Relations task force on U.S.-Russia relations.

[CarolNYC]

24. hawkish on Iran

I must say that the "more than required hawkish stance against Iran" by the former Senator was distressing but not unexpected, given his way too hawkish for my taste stance during the leadup to the Iraq invasion and far into that mess...

It is one thing that General Clark has been stressing recently in his personal appearances, the need for all of us to talk up the whole Iran thing and the desire of certain folks in this Administration to attack....He's really worried about this and thinks we need all hands on deck to stop it.

[ddeclue]

29. Have you heard of a book called "The Folly of Empire"..

It goes into detail about the Phillipines, Hawaii, Cuba, etc. and our first bout with colonialism in the late 19th/early 20th century.

It's an excellent book, which I doubt any neo-con would ever read.

Doug D.

[cassiepriam]

8. I would love to see a Gore/Clark ticket nt

[Crunchy Frog]

9. K&R.

Great picture of Wes there.

[FrenchieCat]

11. Crunchy...you've got to clean up this post! Cause you speak of a pic

of Wes....yet the only pic anyone can see when attempting to understand what you posted is the pic in your post with the cat up the butt. :shrug:

:(

[Crunchy Frog]

12. I was referring to his post, not mine.

That's my sig pic, meant to illustrate the perverted side of Republicans. I hope no one thought that was meant to represent Wes.

[CarolNYC]

10. article

article at the UCLA International Institute page:

"“Addressing a UCLA audience for the first time as a senior fellow for the Burkle Center for International Relations, Gen. Wesley K. Clark (U.S. Army, ret.) expressed dismay at Congress' apparent embrace of indefinite detention and some forms of torture for terrorism suspects in the Military Commissions Act of 2006. Congress sent the bill to President Bush Sept. 29, the day after the Senate narrowly rejected an amendment that would have restored the right of captured individuals to have their detention reviewed by a judge.

From counterterrorism and geo-strategic perspectives, Clark told invited guests at the Oct. 2, 2006, breakfast, America's turning away from the spirit of the Geneva Conventions is an example of "shooting ourselves in the gut." Clark is a former supreme allied commander of NATO and a 2004 Democratic presidential candidate.

But Clark made his case most forcefully on moral grounds, highlighting an incompatibility between torture and both societal and military virtues.”

more...including some quotes from the discussion here:

http://www.international.ucla.edu/article.asp?parentid=54426

Also, short video of Wes addressing a question about the torture bill at the Jack Murphy rally on Saturday, I believe:

http://pennsylvaniaprogressive.typepad.com/my_weblog/2006/10/wes_clark_on_to.html

[MrCoffee]

25. Well hell, now I'm all the way confused...

"'It was America that led to the creation of the Geneva Convention,' he said, 'and now we're walking away from it, from the very values we espoused?'"

So where does that put Sherrod Brown, and Lautenberg, and Menendez, and the rest of the Democrats who voted for the MCA?

General, don't forget the talking point...it's "hold your nose and vote D", not "walking away from the very values we espoused."

[FrenchieCat]

26. It appears that the General knows how to disagree with a policy

without putting down Democrats who may have voted for it. He understands that it is Republicans who have advocated torture, and as far as he's concerned the whole notion is a wrong one regardless of who voted for it.

[MrCoffee]

27. It's dishonest not to apply Clark's statement across the board.

He also understands (i hope) that the MCA would not have passed if the Senate Democrats hadn't rolled over and allowed it to pass.

As much as i'd love to, i can't give Democrats a free pass while eviscerating repubs for the same exact thing.

[FrenchieCat]

28. I don't think that I nor the General are giving anyONE a "free pass",

He is making his opinion clear that this law just passed is horendous and why. It is a law that needs to be reversed, no matter who voted for it.

Are you saying that somehow him pointing his fingers specifically at the Democrats who voted for it would make everything all the better? Cause I don't.

[Donna Zen]

30. Recently Clark and Sestak

expressed their fear that things will get worse. He is not pleased with the Democrats voting for this bill, but as someone who spoke with he and Sestak said: "If you had told the two of them that their hair was on fire, they would tell you to talk to them after Nov. 8th."

General Clark can believe that this bill is unAmerican without losing sight of how extremely important it is for us to change the majority in at least one house. Why? Cause more bad stuff is coming unless Democrats control the agenda.