Dispel Clark Myths here:

[Mobius]

http://www.clarkmyths.com/
Clarkmyths.com is a cooperative effort of on-line supporters of General Wesley K. Clark.
http://www.clarkmyths.com/myth1.html
Myth #1 : Contrary to what you have may have read in small circulation magazines subsidized by right wing ideologues and the mainstream media scribes who plagiarize them, General Clark never claimed to have received a call from the White House asking him to link September 11 to Iraq. But there is no real doubt that the White House was hard at work trying to establish just such a connection within hours of the attacks.

http://www.clarkmyths.com/myth2.html
Myth #2 : When Wesley Clark corrected Myth number 1, the mendacious punditry knew what to do. Think up a new lie. Republican political operatives posing as editorial writers would have you believe there is no such thing as a Middle Eastern think tank in Canada. Bob Somersby at the Daily Howler sets the record straight.
http://www.clarkmyths.com/myth3.html
Myth #3 : A pack of beltway reporters announced that General Clark had "flip flopped" on the resolution authorizing the use of force in Iraq. Digby sets the record straight.

http://www.clarkmyths.com/myth4.html
Myth#4: Katrina vanden Heuvel said Wesley Clark advocated a dangerous assault on Russian forces who unilaterally occupied the Pristina Airfield just after the conclusion of the Kosovo conflict. Unfortunately, she is missing the context and gets the time line of the incident wrong. Eric Tam sets the record straight.

http://www.clarkmyths.com/myth5.html
Myth#5 : Shortly after Howard Dean asked General Clark to be his running mate, Mr. Dean said Wesley Clark was a "Republican." The facts tell a different tale.

http://www.clarkmyths.com/myth6.html
Myth#6: David Hackworth, a former Colonel, once called General Clark "a perfumed prince who never got his boots dirty." That was before he sat down and talked with him.
http://www.clarkmyths.com/myth7.html
Myth#7 : Calling General Clark a "war criminal" should be beyond the pale. But if Counterpunch is going to print baseless charges, we take a moment to refute them.

http://www.clarkmyths.com/myth8.html
Myth#8: Accusing General Clark of being involved with the siege at Waco, Texas is a sure fire way to stir up partisan political passions. Closely examining the facts is a sure way to douse them.

http://www.clarkmyths.com/myth9.html
Myth#9: Some folks seem to think Clark's meeting with Ratko Mladic was a bad thing. We provide a little military history.

http://www.clarkmyths.com/myth10.html
Myth #1: For the radical right, there is no bigger boogie man than Bill Clinton. We provide some perspective on President Clinton's relationship with General Clark.

OK did I miss anything? If I did I'm sure you'll let us all know, at which point we Clark supporters will gladly refute you.
Also this site backs up the claims made with many many links. Very good, reliable and numerous links.

[arewethereyet]

1. But how do you get people to click on links after a TV ad ?

perception is reality and making comercials that show Clark in a bad light are child's play.

[Mobius]

3. How can i take your argument seriously if you didn't

take the time to read all of that before jumping to conclusions?
It is our duty to forward this kind of information to as many media sources, so It CAN get on TV for ALL to be able to see.

[arewethereyet]

5. I'm afraid you miss my point

I have been to that site and seen what it had to say. I have also see the snips on TV that are available for use by the right.

You can send out debunking material to the media and they might even use them but its not the media that are the problem, its the TV viweing voters.

In short, a picture is worth a thousand words.

And the GOP understands this very well.

Feel free to take me seriously or not, thats your right and I respect that.

[Mobius]

6. I didn't miss anything tyvm

"You can send out debunking material to the media and they might even use them but its not the media that are the problem, its the TV viewing voters.
What they are watching is the problem. Not them. You clearly are suggesting , that viewers relegated to only TV viewing, are the cause not the symptom. The cause is what is in the TV, hence the blame, in this instance" lies with the media.

[arewethereyet]

8. OK I'll rephrase

The media, meaning news and info-tainment such as CNN and Fox and the papers, can offer up bits regarding the veracity of claims regarding candidates and that may make a difference.

However, the 30 and 60 second mini passion plays that are big time TV ads can be used very effectively to influence people's thoughts. A 3 minute refutation will not trump a 30 second ad in the target's own tongue or hand.

This has been shown to be true time and again. Reference Al Gore, "inventor of the internet" and an endless string of others.

[Mobius]

4. how many minutes before you replied?...a little over 3?

You read all of those entire articles WITH the many links provided in a little over 3 minutes? I find that doubtfull.

Mobius (524 posts) Sat Feb-07-04 10:36 AM
Original message
Dispel Clark Myths here:

arewethereyet (1000+ posts) Sat Feb-07-04 10:40 AM
Response to Original message

1. But how do you get people to click on links after a TV ad ?

[krkaufman]

11. What's your point?

Every candidate can be shown in a bad light. What?, you think Rove will -- in the face of such a purty face -- refuse to smear Edwards?

The point of the web page, it appears, is to show that all Rove would have on Clark are *smears*, rather than any valid negatives. The same cannot be said for the other candidates.

[wyldwolf]

2. Yeah, one that was repeated at DU over and over even AFTER ...

... it had been debunked. I guess they were so intent on making the charge stick that they hoped repeating it enough would make it become accepted as truth.

Anyway, this is how I wrote it:

One of the often repeated yet patently false statements about Wesley Clark is that he works, or has worked, as a lobbyist for Henry Kissinger. This conclusion was originally arrived at be an odd "six degrees of Kevin Bacon"-style name association Google search that showed both Clark and Kissinger were associated with a company called CSIS - Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The slanderer usually states that Wesley Clark is a lobbyist for a company whose chair (or CEO or head or owner or boss) is Henry Kissinger and thus, works for Kissinger. However, this could not be further from the truth.

According to the CSIS website, the chairman of the company is Sam Nunn, one of the country's most respected Democrats and a former senator of 24 years. In addition, The CEO is Bill Clinton's former U.S. deputy secretary of defense John Hamre.

Wesley Clark is a senior advisor for CSIS - a position so lofty that it doesn't even merit a bio on CSIS's homepage!

So where does Henry Kissinger fit in to all of this?

Kissinger heads up The International Councillors, a CSIS affiliate, comprised of a group of international business leaders. This minor affiliate group meets only twice a year to discuss the implications of the changing economic and strategic environment.

There is absolutely NO indication that Wesley Clark is a part of this group.

So, we see, a Wesly Clark-Henry Kissinger connection is dubious at best and the statement that Clark "lobbies for Kissinger" or "works for Kissinger" is intellectually dishonest.

Some may (and do) contend, in light of the above revelations, that Clark working for the same goals as Kissinger is still a bad thing. This is desperation on their part, though. There is no indication that Clark and Kissinger work toward the same goals at CSIS, which is a very multi-facited company involved in things ranging from programs on technology and public policy, international trade and finance, energy, enviromental concerns, and medical genetic therapy.

Further, there is no explanation to what exactly Kissinger's role there is, so making any judgement is a shot in the dark.

Plus, do we really want to venture into territory where personalities connected through physical entities automatically become associated? In that Bizarro world former President Bill Clinton and then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich are forever connected because they worked together for a shared goal - The Hart-Rudman report on Terrorism.

In the same vein, a similar slanderous claim could be made against Sam Nunn, Dr. Betty Stanley Beene (former president of United Way of America), Harold Brown (Jimmy Carter's secretary of defense), Zbigniew Brzezinski (Jimmy Carter's national security advisor), John Hamre (Bill Clinton's U.S. deputy secretary of defense), and Felix G. Rohatyn (Bill Clinton's Ambassador to France), among other members with democratic credentials - all members of CSIS.

The fact remains that CSIS is an independent, nonpartisan public policy research organization. However, with an active imagination, something sinister can be found in anything.

[Tinoire]

9. You forget these facts about Clark, the CSIS, Nunn & their backers

Nunn has been on the board of directors for some of the largest corporations in the world; including Coca Cola, Dell Computers, and, most frighteningly, General Electric and Texaco. GE, if you didn't know, makes its money off of refrigerators, bombs, weapons of mass destruction and television programming. Texaco is, well- a Texas based oil company.

In that blink of the eye a businessman drenched in oil becomes a Vice President. But blink again and he reverts back again. A journalist becomes a lobbyist. A lobbyist becomes a policy maker. The policy maker becomes the "expert". So it is no surprise that some of the key players in the game keep reappearing in many different incarnations, from think tank fellows, to journalists, from corporate board members to White House staff, from CIA operatives to authors.

====

JOHN HAMRE THIS John Hamre? This is the guy you're parading? The one on the following board with their great graphics on their HS web-site? Mr Homeland Security? Makes sense when you think Acxiom & CAPPS II but not a very good reference.



http://www.homelandsecurity.org/staff.asp?page=1

====
Way back in December of 2000, CSIS was one of the first out of the starting gate to propose the creation of a Department of Homeland Security in its Homeland Defense: A Strategic Approach. The 2002 Homeland Security Department proposal sent to the US Congress by the current regime is based almost entirely on CSIS's proposals. Why so much influence from this particular 501 c (3) that has a paltry operating budget of US $17.5 million? CSIS boasts on its Board and Advisory Board former US Defense Secretaries William Cohen and Harold Brown, former Senator Sam Nunn, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, retired USAF General Brent Scowcroft, and former DCI James Woolsey, among other US military and civilian "retirees". Also on the CSIS staff are six Military Fellows representing the US Coast Guard, Marines, Air Force, Army and Navy.

http://www.counterpunch.org/stanton0906.html

==
Is this your defense of Clark sitting on the boards of two of the most vile neo-con organizations out there? It's weak. Very, very weak.

Senior Advisor for the Center for Strategic International Studies where he is listed under "Who Leads the CSIS" www.csis.org/html/csislead.html

The http://www.csis.org/ is a Right-Wing think tank that has been very close to Bush on matters dealing with Iraq & Afghanistan. They're like a who's who of the whatever neo-cons aren't in government and has a Board of trustees who's members proudly sit on boards of Halliburton, Hunt Oil, National Petroleum Council, American Petroleum Council, General Electric, special counsellors to Reagan, and what the hell is Sam Nunn up to with the Nunn-Wolfowitz-Task Forces for Hughes Electronics? I should have guessed. DLC. Media Transparency has quite a run-down on this organization
http://www.mediatransparency.org/all_in_one_results.php?Message=CSIS

National Endowment for Democracy (currently implicated in the Venezuelan Coup Scandal for having financed the oppostition to Hugo Chavez) which Ronald Reagan started in the early 1980s to promote American values abroad. Also on the board Frank Carlucci, Carlyle fame, Morton Abramowitz, Vin Weber, Evan Bayh http://www.ned.org/about/who.html

Ronald Reagan started the NED in the early 1980s to "promote American values abroad" by destabilizing progressive movements/governments, especially those with a socialist or democratic socialist bent. Also on the board Frank Carlucci (Carlyle fame), Morton Abramowitz, Vin Weber (original PNAC signatory), Evan Bayh http://www.ned.org/about/who.html

Here are the CSIS & National Endowment for Democracy's major/majority donors:
Sara Scaife Foundatation financed in turn by Mellon Industrial, at one time its largest single holding was stock in the Gulf Oil Corporation. Richard Scaife is the 38th richest man in America. Scaife has been a leading financier of New Right causes. The Sarah Scaife Foundation is considered to be one of the top 4 conservative foundations. He's known as the Right's Founding Father.

www.mediatransparency.org/funders/scaife_foundations.htm

The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation one of the country's largest and most influential right-wing foundations. Its targets range from affirmative action to social security, it has seen its greatest successes in areas of welfare "reform" and attempts to privatize public education through the promotion of school vouchers.

The overall objective of the Bradley Foundation is ... laissez-faire capitalism: capitalism with the gloves off. (...) supports right-wing groups such as the Heritage Foundation, source of policy papers on budget cuts, supply-side economics and the Star Wars military plan for the Reagan administration; the Madison Center for Educational Affairs, which provides funding for right-wing research and a network of conservative student newspapers; and the American Enterprise Institute, literary home of such racist authors as Charles Murray (The Bell Curve) and Dinesh D'Souza (The End of Racism), former conservative officeholders Jeanne kirkpatrick, Jack Kemp and William Bennet, and arch conservative jurists Robert Bjork and Antonin Scalia. <snip / this just goes on and on sending CHILLS up my spine>

http://www.mediatransparency.org/funders/bradley_foundation.htm

http://www.mediatransparency.org/funders/john_m_olin_foundation.htm

The Smith Richardson Foundation: active in supporting conservative causes... one of the countries richest families. Funded the early "supply-side" books of Jude Wanninski and George Gilder. Board of Directors include Ben Wattenberg (right wing, radical Free Market, Senior Fellow at American Enterprise Institute, maker of the right-wing PBS show "Think Tank", Senior Editor of The American Enterprise Magazine[br />
More: http://www.mediatransparency.org/funders/smith_richardson_foundation.htm


You have to really wonder about these things and ask serious questions when you run across articles where PNACers like Morton Abramowitz are telling us what a great guy Clark will be for us because the rest of our candidates are “woefully deficient”. Woefully defecient for PNAC ? THAT is the entire idea!

Article:

While Clark does not describe himself as a Democrat, he leans liberal on domestic policy.

<snip>
Some Democrats are skeptical, however, that Clark has what it takes to mount a campaign in 2004.
"There's no question Wesley Clark would bring a lot to the party and field," said Democratic strategist Mark Mellman. "But the reality is for all these candidates it is getting a little late, especially for those who don't have a political organization in place in places like Iowa and New Hampshire. Despite having a compelling message, it may be late to set a place at the table as a practical matter."
Others, however, say Clark's strengths could trump the field. Morton Abramowitz, a State Department veteran with whom Clark worked in Kosovo, called Clark "a fighter, a determined battler" and said Clark's military experience gives the general an advantage in an area in which the other Democratic candidates are "woefully deficient."
"He comes as a commanding figure," Abramowitz said. "He's run things. What has Joe Lieberman run?"
Abramowitz dismissed the idea that it is too late for Clark to consider a run for president in 2004.


From:
Gen. Clark's Next War: Conquer the Democrats?
By E.J. KESSLER
FORWARD STAFF
http://www.forward.com/issues/2003/03.01.31/news6.html

Clark well represented the very evil that Progressives are fighting when he waged that obscene, illegal war against Serbia because it stood in the way of the West's grand scheme to integrate the Balkans into an economic model in which the region's economies would be subordinated to Western corporate interests as we bombed and destroyed the entire country so that Soros and his friends could get their hands on the socially owned firms that belonged to the people of Serbia and we could get our access to the oil rich Caspain sea. Just like Bush’s war, that war was waged without UN approval and without Congressional authorization.

Clark is being pushed on us by the DLC, well known for and very open about its corporate ties and interests, known for its cooperation with the American Enterprise Institute which is the parent of PNAC (PNAC is on the AEI’s 5th floor- wonder just what we can expect to find on the other 4 floors). These companies and George Soros (who is part of the Carlyle Group right along with James Baker, Frank Carlucci and the Bush & Bin-Laden families), represent the transnational corporate interests that are killing us. Do we ever ask ourselves why George Soros- a foreigner- is so eager to buy our elections for the paltry sum of $10 million dollars at the same time that he is destabilizing our currency by dumping the dollar and buying Euros? Have WE learned NOTHING from what Soros did to Indonesia, Ukraine, Belorus, Malaysia and is trying to do in Russia now? Do we not recognize the MO as it’s being done to us? The Democratic party- sold for the equivalent of $54.41 from someone making $60,000/yr to the CSIS, the NED, the Sara Scaife Foundatation, the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, Soros & Carlyle.


An MIC world of "liberalisation" of neighbourhood economics and more intervention in social democracies, using our weapons of economic blockades, debt interest elevations, cluster bombs and depleted uranium coated shells, all to achieve war objectives under the pretext of going after terrorists and illicit drug-traffickers.

Count me out. Your post didn't de-bunk anything; it just tries to white-wash the associations. Bringing neo-Liberals like Brzezinski along as references is alarming. BOTH neo-Cons and neo-Libs are the cancer eating away at this country and at both of the major political parties.

[kiahzero]

10. You're showing your bias:

Way back in December of 2000, CSIS was one of the first out of the starting gate to propose the creation of a Department of Homeland Security in its Homeland Defense: A Strategic Approach. The 2002 Homeland Security Department proposal sent to the US Congress by the current regime is based almost entirely on CSIS's proposals. Why so much influence from this particular 501 c (3) that has a paltry operating budget of US $17.5 million? CSIS boasts on its Board and Advisory Board former US Defense Secretaries William Cohen and Harold Brown, former Senator Sam Nunn, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, retired USAF General Brent Scowcroft, and former DCI James Woolsey, among other US military and civilian "retirees". Also on the CSIS staff are six Military Fellows representing the US Coast Guard, Marines, Air Force, Army and Navy.

Aside from its woefully pathetic incarnation from the Bush Administration, what is wrong with the idea of having one department to try and defend us against attack? Should we not upgrade security in needed areas, such as nuclear power plants, or chemical plants, or our ports?

The problems with the DHS reside in the implementation, not the abstraction.

National Endowment for Democracy (currently implicated in the Venezuelan Coup Scandal for having financed the opposition to Hugo Chavez) which Ronald Reagan started in the early 1980s to promote American values abroad. Also on the board Frank Carlucci, Carlyle fame, Morton Abramowitz, Vin Weber, Evan Bayh http://www.ned.org/about/who.html

IIRC, he NED has four distinct and separate components: A part for Republicans to do their thing, a part for Democrats to do theirs, the AFL-CIO (such a horrible, rightwing body the labor unions are), and one other, which I can't think of offhand.

You have to really wonder about these things and ask serious questions when you run across articles where PNACers like Morton Abramowitz are telling us what a great guy Clark will be for us because the rest of our candidates are

[Mobius]

12. shameless kick

:kick:

[jpgpenn]

7. Don't expect too many takers!