Clark Was Not Clinton's General: An Inside Look At Clark Falsely Accused

[wyldwolf]

There may be no worse
epithet in military circles than "Clinton's general." So it came as
little surprise that, as soon as retired General Wesley Clark threw
his stars into the race for the Democratic presidential
nomination--and hired a Clintonite all-star team to staff his
campaign--conservatives rushed to tarnish him by association with
their most loathed president. Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe reminded The Wall Street Journal's John Fund that the former supreme allied
commander "was known as 'Clinton's general'" for the way he
"constantly ran decisions about the Kosovo war directly by the White House." By way of elaboration, National Review's David Frum called
Clark the embodiment of all the "illusions and errors of the 1990s," arguing that his nato leadership was "based on an unending series of errors, above all his claim that his air campaigns could destroy Serbian military capabilities." In a column this week, Robert Novak implied that Clark would not have been promoted without the intervention of senior Clinton officials.


The onslaught is bewildering for two reasons. First, none of it is
true...

As he writes in his memoir, Waging Modern War, "One of life's
greatest gifts, I've found, is the opportunity to fight for what's
right." He adds, "There is so much more to be done." Throughout the
'90s, he bridled at U.S. inaction, particularly in Rwanda, where
rampaging Hutu militiamen murdered 800,000 Tutsi in 100 days. The
response from Washington was worse than nothing: Secretary of State
Warren Christopher urged a "full, orderly withdrawal" of U.N.
peacekeepers, lest the United States be called upon to relieve the
rump force, a prospect the Pentagon adamantly opposed. Clark, then
Shalikashvili's policy director, was ashamed. He later observed to
author Samantha Power, "The Pentagon is always going to be the last
to want to intervene." In Waging Modern War, Clark implies that the
military dishonored itself "when we stood by as nearly a million
Africans were hacked to death."


A year later, Clark risked his career to confront the uniformed
reluctance to use force in defense of human rights...

http://www.farcaster.com/mhonarchive/hauserreport/msg00467.html

No, this doesn't draw much from Clark's book. It isn't a review of it. And it is a bit anti-Clinton.

But very pro-Clark.

[knight_of_the_star]

1. Wow

He should use that as part of his campaign. That would soften his image for the more die-hard liberals in the Democratic Party.

[wyldwolf]

3. It's really an incredible piece...

Shows how Clark did end-arounds of the big wigs in the Pentagon to lobby the Clinton White House to use the military for human rights interventions.

How it utterly pissed off the pentagon brass (remember the general who recently dissed Clark?)

[gully]

2. Bookmarked, thanks...

:)

[Padraig18]

4. Thanks!

:hi:

[wyldwolf]

5. Yep! Imagine: A general more concerned with protecting human rights...

..than blowing things up... or even his own career!

[RandomUser]

6. The mind boggles...

Thanks for finding this.

[wyldwolf]

7. Sounds like one of them damn liberals if you ask me!

:)

[charlie]

8. Love him or hate him

...and I don't hate him (disclosure: Kucinich is my guy), there's one thing that's truly remarkable about Clark -- he's a general who threw his lot in with the Democrats. As far as I know, that just doesn't happen. Have there been others in modern times who were actively and openly affiliated with the party? It seems to me that Clark just might be a bellwether for a seachange. Maybe more officers in the rank and file will consider the Democrats, or if they're already one of us, be less reticent about disclosing their political standing.

[WilliamPitt]

9. Nah. He's a mole for the BFEE.

Haven't you heard?

[wyldwolf]

10. ...and a deep cover one, too!

The BFEE has been planning this for 20 years...

bwahahahahahahahaha!

[Donna Zen]

11. All the PNAC

financing flows through NED. The only reason Clark is outing PNAC, is to throw us off the plan (er...I actually read that one on DU.)

[WilliamPitt]

12. And he eats kittens

[stickdog]

31. And his "defender" is an assistant editor for the TNR who led

the cheers from the "left" during Bush's transparently full of shit build up to the Iraq War.

[DoveTurnedHawk]

33. Michael Moore Michael Moore Michael Moore

You're so cute, stickdog. Predictable, but cute.

DTH

[stickdog]

36. ignorant ignorant ignorant

perfectly typical, though.

Appeal to an "expert" who ain't no expert.

[DoveTurnedHawk]

39. LOL

I'll take Moore as much more of an expert than you, stickdog.

DTH

[stickdog]

44. You'll take Michael Moore as long as he's a useful tool.

I don't remember seeing you coming to his defense at the Academy Awards.

[DoveTurnedHawk]

46. I'll Take Anyone Willing to Help Take This Country Back From Bush

And that even includes Governor Dean, if he wins the nomination.

DTH

[kiahzero]

40. Wouldn't this be a logical fallacy?

After all, it seems like an inverse appeal to authority:

Person X feels P is good.
Therefore, since X was wrong in instance Y, X is always wrong.
Therefore, P must be bad.

[DoveTurnedHawk]

41. Stickdog Enjoys Making Those Types of Arguments

He also loves the guilt-by-association argument.

DTH

[stickdog]

45. Here's how the argument goes.

Clark is a neocon.

TNR is a neocon publication.

Therefore, it is not surprising that TNR would praise Clark.

[kiahzero]

50. And there's where your fallacy is

Because you use "it is not suprising that TNR would praise Clark" to try and prove that Clark is a neocon, which is clearly circular.

If you were trying to form a logical argument, you might have tried:
TNR is neocon.
TNR praised Clark
Therefore, Clark must be neocon.

However, (not being overly familiar with TNR, and therefore not being qualified to address it's neocon-ness), this assertion is flawed in that you assume neocons will only praise neocons.

[stickdog]

52. I'm not trying to "prove" Clark is a neocon using the TNR.

The General has already made that little nugget quite clear himself.

Is this July, 2003 transcript true or false?

http://www.newsmax.com/showinside.shtml?a=2003/7/2/102033

Wednesday, July 2, 2003 10:23 a.m. EDT

Gen. Clark Won't Rule Out Running as Republican

HANNITY: Yes, and you would not run as a Republican under any circumstances you can think of?

CLARK: I haven't said that.

HANNITY: Would you?

CLARK: I just haven't said that. I just haven't crossed that bridge. So I'm not going to cross it.

HANNITY: Have you ever voted for a Republican in your life?

CLARK: Absolutely.

HANNITY: Are there Republicans now that you admire that you would tell us about?

CLARK: Well, I served in the Ford administration. I was a White House fellow. I worked for Paul O'Neill and Jim Lann in the Office of Management and Budget.


And is this report accurate or not?

http://www.cse.org/informed/issues_template.php/1576.htm

General Wesley Clark, Democratic candidate for president who is not a registered Democrat, has been criticized for being a keynote speaker at a Republican fundraiser in 2001. There, he said President Ronald Reagan "was truly a great American leader" and praised President George H.W. Bush for his "tremendous leadership and statesmanship" and said he was "very glad we’ve got the great team in office: men like Colin Powell, Don Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, Paul O’Neill— people I know well— our president, George W. Bush."

[boxster]

14. My favorite (so far) is the person who posted

that Clark was running as a Democrat so that he could intentionally lose the primary so that he could run as an independent so that he could take enough votes away from the "real" Democrat candidate to ensure a Bush win.

Got all that?

[MODemocrat]

21. w h aaaat?

How far out can one get?! :think:

[wyldwolf]

23. No... HERE it the best one...

"According to what I recently read in a town meeting broadcast by C-Span Clark seemed to choke on the word "democrat." We cannot have anyone in the white house who has any compunctions about being and supporting the party he is running under."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=483256&mesg_id=483382&page=

[boxster]

27. I agree. That is too funny.

Frankly, I'm kind of amazed Clark's doing as well as he is. The scrutiny of his first couple of weeks has been incredible.

I do believe that is the ultimate, though. Not to mention that's in a thread about how he "sounds" just like Bush.

Uh, huh.

[wyldwolf]

28. It shows you how seriously the dem base takes the "scrutiny."

Most of it is a joke and the rest is wild conspiracy theories - all put forth because, 1. Clark is military guy, and 2. Clark jumped in and stole the thunder from a couple of other candidates.

[boxster]

13. You forgot - he's also the "establishment" candidate of Clinton...

and the party elite!

}(

[Donna Zen]

17. ooops!

Okay_but I just remembered that he:

• Commanded at Waco

• Tried to start WWIII

• Is only in this election because bush can't win...think Soros

• and....we know nothing about his positions on the issues

• and...how do we know he's not lying about his positions on the
issues.

• and...lest we forget, he is a plant of the oil cabal. (Whew! that
was a wild thread.)

[boxster]

18. Isn't he Chelsea Clinton's real father?

Or is that the alien from the Weekly World News?

I get the two confused.

[Eloriel]

15. No, he's the Stop Dean candidate

of the DNC, DLC and Clintons.

Eloriel

[kiahzero]

16. And that Draft effort

was a vast centrist conspiracy.

Although I think this meme at least has more credibility than the "Rovian plant" meme (it's not hard).

[Donna Zen]

19. Hey!

I'm a card carrying member of the draft movement...why didn't I get the memo from "Centrist Central High Command?"

[boxster]

20. Wasn't it in with your "Shut down your website or else" letter?

I'm pretty sure that's where they were supposed to be.

[IranianDemocrat]

22. Clark is PNAC, murders kittens, and enjoys Michael Bolton!

What a scumbag!

[wyldwolf]

24. Now HOLD ON! You take that Michael Bolton accusation back!

[Scoopie]

29. Now HOLD ON! You take that Michael Bolton accusation back!

Yeah!!!
I can stand the accusations that he eats kittens, is a stooge for the PNAC, the Republicans, the *fill-in-the-blank,* that he is a war criminal, that he is arrogant - but don't you DARE accuse him of listening to Michael Bolton!!
:)

[charlie]

25. Jiminy Fargin' Christmas

I make a serious post -- and a right neighborly one, I might add -- and look at all the self-flagellating wankery I get.

All you goddamn kids get off my post line!! Go play in a Dean thread somewhere :)

[boxster]

26. I think it's called "emotional release".

Hehe....

}(

[stickdog]

30. WOW. The neocons at TNR like neo-Clark!

The author of this glowing piece of depleted uranium is Spencer Ackerman, assistant editor of The New Republic -- that former bastion of liberalism that was recently taken over by DLC/PNACers who led the cheers from the ostensible left for the monstrously moronic and murderous Iraq War.

Ackerman was one of the morons cheering loudest if you'll recall, going so far as to call Powell's UN address "devasting."

[DoveTurnedHawk]

32. TNR Isn't Pure Enough for You Either...But You Can't Explain Michael Moore

Stick that in your pipe and smoke it, stickdog.

DTH

[stickdog]

35. What, the guy who endorsed Nader last time out?

Please.

That really showed great judgment, didn't it?

[DoveTurnedHawk]

38. It Showed Far Left Tendencies

So yes, even some far lefties can see Clark is the real deal.

As for impugning Moore's past judgment, you of all people should go easy on people for admitting past mistakes, considering the candidate you support and all of his changes of heart.

DTH

[stickdog]

47. Why does Moore think Clark is the real deal?

Here's Moore's "argument" for Clark:

1) Clark defended Moore on TV.

2) Clark has what it takes to beat Bush.

3) All the candidates are flawed.

That's it. With this sort of in depth reasoning, he ought to sign up as "DoveTurnedHawk2" and start posting here.

[DoveTurnedHawk]

49. That Logic Seems Straightforward Enough

Reason #2, in particular, carries huge weight with me and most other people who want to see Bush deposed.

I'll take that logic any day over your weak guilt-by-association, logical fallacy, prejudiced-to-the-point-of-bizarre-hatred slams against Clark.

DTH, AKA MichaelMoore2

[stickdog]

54. Clark lobbied for CAPPS II.

For that alone, Clark should be drawn and quartered.

If you disagree, care to take a stab at defending it?

[stickdog]

34. Another "incredible piece" by Spencer Ackerman

http://www.wadinet.de/news/iraq/nw1082_history.htm

It is by now a well-established fact that chemical weapons claimed the lives of over 5,000 Kurds in the northern Iraqi town of Halabja on March 16, 1988. It is equally well-established that responsibility for this atrocity lies with Saddam Hussein. Indeed, there is virtual unanimity among the dozens of journalists, government delegations, and international human rights groups who have investigated the matter that Halabja was the first frightful act of Saddam's Anfal campaign, a genocide that consumed almost 100,000 Kurds in all. Yet according to a chilling and incoherent op-ed published in Friday's New York Times, Saddam had nothing to do with the massacre after all. The author of this revisionist account is Stephen C. Pelletiere, a retired Army War College professor who served as a senior Iraq analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency during the Iran-Iraq war. Pelletiere is the co-author of the 1990 book Iraqi Power and U.S. Security in the Middle East, which concluded that Iranian gas, not Iraqi gas, murdered the Kurds at Halabja. In his Times op-ed Pelletiere recycles this argument, only this time against the backdrop of a second war with Saddam. He's no more convincing today than he was 13 years ago.

Pelletiere begins by reprising the usual facts--namely, that Halabja was the site of an intense battle between Saddam and the Iranians. He first concedes that Iraq did use chemical weapons, but argues that the Iranians did as well. The Kurdish victims of the chemicals "had the misfortune to be caught up in the exchange." Pelletiere then cites a Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) report, issued shortly after Halabja, to support his conclusion that Iranian gas that killed the Kurds. His evidence? The Kurdish corpses "indicated that they had been killed with a blood agent," which the Iraqis, "who are thought to have used mustard gas in the battle, are not known to have possessed."

But this claim is wildly implausible. First, interviews by international human rights groups with scores of Halabja survivors reveal no such confusion about who deployed the chemicals. Kurds who were outside their houses during the mid-morning attack "could see clearly that these were Iraqi, not Iranian aircraft, since they flew low enough for their markings to be legible," concluded Human Rights Watch in its 1993 report Genocide In Iraq. In any case, the argument for Iranian culpability neglects the logistics of the Halabja battle itself. The Iranians, who controlled the town on March 15, would have no reason to use chemical agents against the Iraqi counteroffensive on March 16, since the Iraqis retaliated with air strikes and placed no soldiers on the ground against whom such weapons could be deployed.

Second, even if the victims died of exposure to blood agents, this would be perfectly consistent with the claim of Iraqi responsibility. A 1991 DIA report, since declassified, concluded definitively, "Iraq is known to have employed ... a blood agent, hydrogen cyanide gas (HCN) ... against Iranian soldiers, civilians, and Iraqi Kurdish civilians." Nonetheless, it is far more likely, according to the standard accounts of the attack on Halabja, that mustard gas and the nerve agents sarin and tabun--and, some doctors examining survivors have speculated, perhaps VX and the biological agent aflatoxin--were the instruments of Kurdish murder, which the Iraqis were known to possess. For example, Human Rights Watch noted that survivors excreted blood-streaked urine, "consistent with exposure to both mustard gas and a nerve agent such as Sarin."

[kiahzero]

37. Perhaps it's just because I'm tired

But I fail to see the point. I wasn't aware that whether Saddam gassed the Kurds was in question; I believed that the question was whether or not this merited war, with most sane people saying no.

Assuming that we believe that Saddam gassed the Kurds, I see no problem with using that to demonstrate that Saddam would have used WMDs again if he wanted to; I merely disagree with the assertion that this was a necessary reason to go to war - lots of psychopaths would love to gas innocents if they had the capability.

Was this to try and challenge the credibility of Spencer Ackerman?

[noiretextatique]

42. rowdyboy posted, just yesterday, a plea too DUers to verify

and question sources posted about "democratic" nominees, especially clark. i believe his admonition applies to pro-clark sources also.

[kiahzero]

43. Right

But I don't understand the point he's trying to make with that specific article.

[stickdog]

48. No, it was to show he was trying to quiet war opponents before the war.

Ackerman published several pro-Iraq War articles, but TNR's archives require a subscription, and this was the only one I could uncover that was freely available on-line.

[kiahzero]

51. I'm sorry, but

that article looked far more to me like an academic disagreement than an Ann "thrax" attempt to shut the opposition up.

[stickdog]

53. How about when he said that Powell's UN case was "devastating"? (nt)