Sign Gen. Clark's petition

[yellerpup]

to stop the surge.

Link: http://securingamerica.com/stopthesurge

We have to fight like hell to keep it from happening. Our troops are counting on us to support them.
:patriot:

[Rick Myers]

1. Done and kick

:kick:

Send the link to ALL your friends!

[yellerpup]

3. Thanks RM! eom

:hi:

[Tom Joad]

2. No military option on my table. Fuck his table, i demand a real change.

[yellerpup]

10. Thanks for weighing in.

...as long as our free speech holds.

[Adelante]

4. Done nt

[yellerpup]

5. Thanks. n/t

[Boo Boo]

6. Clark is right, the military option must remain on the table with Iran. When

Clinton backed the N. Koreans down and they shuttered their Plutonium production operations, it was achieved through diplomacy backed by a credible threat of force. Bush abandoned those agreements, and declared that a nuclear N. Korea was "unacceptable." But, the threat of force is no longer credible and the N. Korean's have restarted their program with impunity. Clinton's threat of force was sincere, credible, and ultimately resulted in avoiding the use of force while achieving our diplomatic objectives.

The threat of force must remain on the table. We don't have much of a position otherwise.

[Tom Rinaldo]

7. Clark is the only leading Democrat who I have heard also note

that keeping all of our options open also includes the option of deciding that it may be wiser, if need be, to attempt to coexist with a nuclear armed Iran, like we did with the Soviet Union/now Russia, and with China for decades, than it would be to deal with the likely reprecussions of attacking Iran and only setting back the day when they gained nukes temporarily, while cementing a deep and burning hatred for the U.S. in that region of the world.

[yellerpup]

12. Won't it be great to have a thinker in the WH again

Clark thinks and speaks like the brilliant, fully integrated human being he is. Also, a natural born leader, IMHOP.

[yellerpup]

9. What a light bulb moment, if only Dim Bulb were sentient.

Diplomacy...diplomacy could be effective if only this administration could do it. Thanks for signing on.

[Eurobabe]

8. Signed and sent to 5 others.

My email went to Sherrod Brown :loveya: and George Voinovich :puke:

[yellerpup]

11. Good work!

Congrats to Sherrod Brown and to all those who voted him into office.

[Larry Allen]

13. No way.

No way do I endorse a military option for Iran. His is very insideous. A wolf in sheep's clothing. This is the height of irresponsibility. If ever I thought of Clark as having a place on the ticket, that notion is completely dashed.

There is not one shred of evidence that Iran is pursuing nuclear technology for other than peaceful purpose producing of electricty which is their right.

Iran has declared nuclear weapons to be anti-Islam. Iran is a signer ot the non-proliferation treaty and a member in good standing with IAEA, and was participating in a voluntary extended protocol of stringent inspections until
the US moved to refer Iran to to the UN Security council. Iran reduced its participation to the legal requirement.

Analysts at the time were estimating that Iran could have a bomb in 5-10 years, assuming that Iran had secret weapons grade enrichment facilities, and that all or a significant fraction of the uranium would be diverted to weapons programs and little or none to fuel rods. But with stringent inspections and every milligram tracked, that estimate would extend to millenia.

Hardly a desirable result for those planning a wider war in the middle east. Th Bush administration bombed the IAEA precisely beacuse it was working, bullied its way through the security council and transformed baseless allegations into a sanctions regime despite the fact that Iran does not have a nuclear weapons program and has done nothing illegal.

The sanctions are targeted not only against Iran's fuel cycle program, but also against ballistic missiles. Now, Irans conventional missle industry is a real threat to a desparate superpower with this "military option" on the table. It represents a very real deterrent to US/Israeli bombs. Iran's missle capability is what make talk of bombing Iran so irresponsible. Iran, it turns out, is capable of defending herself.

Also targeted by the sanctions are banking resources for continued devlopment of Irans oil industry. This betrays the neo-cons purpose. It is economic warfare. Iran's government derives 90% of its budget from oil exports. Every barrel of oil consumed domestically, including electrical generation, costs Iran $50 to $70. The situation is ripe for nuclear power generation and was over a decade ago.

There may be something about the Persian mentality that accounts for their insistance on controlling their own nuclear fuel cycle. Look at their behavior with respect missile technology. No sooner do they get hold of a missile but they are producing their own Iranian version of that missile. They buy the very best Russian technology and then improve upon it. They have supersonic anti-ship cruise missles for which we have no defence. Depending on deployment strategies, they may have the ability to take out our carrier groups before an extended bombing campaign gets underway.

With presidential candidates of a frustrated superpower alluding to bombing Iran, she has just as much right to missle technology as to nuclear fuel cycle technology. And who could question Iran's right to develop her own oil fields?

To Mr Clark I would say you can't put the "military option" on the table and then refuse to talk about it because it is a "last resort". I would challenge Mr. Clark with two questions. First, can you point to anything Iran has done that would justify a US military strike. Anything at all, anything, that is, of substance. If you do have something, then come out with it now. Otherwise you are blowing neocon smoke and playing mind games with the American people. Or else you do in fact support a wider middle east conflagration. Second, just how much of the United States Navy are you willing to sacrifice for this "military option" of yours?

[Tom Rinaldo]

14. You are barking up the wrong tree

Clark is the only national Democrat willing to speak out on the record about the need to also consider the option of trying to contain any potential threat from an actual nuclear armed Iran WITHOUT using military force against Iran. I dare you to find one other Democrat, with even a ghost of a chance of getting elected President, who has had the guts to say that. Honestly, I don't know of any. All I hear from the other Democrats is platitudes that run the range from, "we need to pursue diplomacy to convince Iran to abandon their nuclear program" to "Iran must not be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons under any circumstances", often those two statements are somehow combined as if no one knows how to add two plus two. When pushed, every Democrat says that the use of force must remain on the table, but most of them also posture macho about how Iran can NOT be allowed to go nuclear.

Meanwhile Wes Clark is the one who has been urging face to face diplomacy with Iran for three years at every chance he gets. Wes Clark is the one who acknowledges that Iran is a great nation with legitimate national interests in the Middle East. Wes Clark is the one who pointed out first and most frequently that the United States under Bush has a policy of regime change for Iran, so why on earth would they ever trust us? Wes Clark is the one who points out that the United States is the country that not only threatens Iran, but has it militarily surrounded. Wes Clark is the one who bluntly points out that it is completely Un-American to talk about bombing a nation that we refuse to even talk to. Wes Clark is the one who travelled all across the United States this Summer and Fall trying to help Democrats retake Congress because he openly stated that he belived the Bush Administration would attack Iran in the Spring if we did not.

I share your concern but I respectfully suggest that you begin to question some of our other Democratic leaders about their stance on Iran while giving Wes Clark a little support for trying to stop another rush to war.

[Larry Allen]

16. Alright, I will give Gen. Clark a chance, if he reworks his petition.

Perhaps you can convince General Clark to remove the Iran language from his surge petition so that people like me can vote against escalation of this occcupation of Iraq without potentially endorsing world war III. With regard to other democratic candidates, I would be surprised if John Edwards or Dennis Kucinich have a military strike against Iran option but I could be wrong. Obviously I won't be voting for anybody who considers Iran an enemy of the United States, or a threat to the United States, or who considers the sanctions justified, or who considers Iranian hegemony as necessarily destabilising, or who treats this neocon propaganda about nuclear (bomb) ambitions or nuclear (weapons) programs as established fact. Unfortunately, General Clark seems to do just that in his anti-surge petition.

This Iran thing is a fight the neocons have been itching for since the axis of evil speech. Perhaps if Bush had not sabatoged the whole nuclear proliferation branch of CIA intelligence, or the IAEA when it was operating with Iran's full cooperation, pehaps we would know by now that this whole nuclear ambitions theory is just so much neocon smoke and mirrors to justify future oil wars. In any case, we do not win elections by letting the neocons frame the issues.

Any diplomacy with Iran aimed at convincing Iran to abandon their legitimate peaceful nuclear program is truly barking up the wrong tree. But talks with Iran as a potential ally about regional stability could have enormous positive consequences. First we would have to undo the damage of the Bush administration, recognize Iranian sovereignty, and drop the wholly unjustified punative sanctions. Iran would respond immediately by returning to the voluntary IAEA invasive inspections. This could put to rest any fears of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons.

Then as we sit down to talk we must first resolve any lingering issues from the Shah of Iran, hostage crises days. After that, you will find Iran completely cooperative. Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, you name it. A great ally to have in the region. An economically strong, stabilizing force, well on the road to democracy themselves. As different as it is from the Bush dynasty policy of death, destruction and chaos accross the entire region, this is eminently practical diplomacy.

[FrenchieCat]

17. Hey Larry, I'm from Oakland Too.....

:hi:

Anyways, here....

Washington shouldn't rule out the use of military force against Iran, former US senator John Edwards told The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday while on a visit here. He also backed Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's unilateral realignment plan.

Edwards, a Democrat from North Carolina, is considered likely to run for the presidency in 2008, after losing in the 2004 race as John Kerry's running mate.

"We cannot allow Iran to have nuclear weapons," he declared, endorsing America's current approach of working with the Europeans using diplomatic levers.

But he said the "carrots" on offer have to come with heavy pressure, such as "serious sanctions."
In terms of the "stick" of military strikes, he said, "I would never take any option off the table."


http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1149572637421&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Memorable Edwards quotes:
"It's important for America to confront the situation in Iran, because Iran is an enormous threat to Israel and to the Israeli people." (October 2004)
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=755782

[Larry Allen]

19. Then John Edwards will have to answer too.

Do you have the slightest shred of evidence that Iran has a nuclear weapons program or the ambition to acquire nuclear weapons? The sanctions limit Irans sovereignty and hurt it economically. Can you think of anything Iran has done to deserve this? And in the absence of any evidence of Iranian wrong doing, are you nevertheless so sure that she is a threat to the United States and Israel that you would contemplate preemptively bombing Iran? And if so, at what cost to our Navy? How much devastation to our fleet is acceptable? Will you accept responibility if a particularly disasterous attempt to bomb the smitherines out of Iran, results in the loss of six decades long American hegemony based on our ability to project conventional force around the world and forces us to retreat behind strategic and space based weapons? Finally do the war in Iraq and a potential war with Iran make the region any safer for Israel?

Finally, to all democratic candidates: Do not let architects of the most disasterous foreign policy in the history of this Republic frame the foreign policy debate. How many times did we hear democrats recite the mantra "Iraq is better off without Sadam Husein".
Now with WMD shown to be a lie, Iraqi civilian dead going on 1 million, and 2 million having fled the country, and "rebuilding" and "winning hearts and minds" and "democratizing" given up on, and "preventing civil war and chaos" no longer a reason for staying, with only those permanent military bases and 30 year oil leases to hang our hat on, with 100 tortured and murdered Iraqis scraped up off the streets of Baghdad every day, I don't hear a lot of "Iraq is better off".

Lesson: Do not fall for this villification of Iran.

[FrenchieCat]

15. The PNAC Dog doesn't hunt in Clark's political view and so you are obviously misinformed

on Clark's position in reference to Iran. Clark was the first one to insist that we should "talk" to Iran, not bomb them.

If you're looking for those Democratic candidates that are not taking the military option off the table, and are also not advocating that we "talk" to Iran, you will need to look at other potential candidates.

"How can you talk about bombing a country when you won't even talk to them?" said Clark.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/dc-notes-wes-clark-is-_b_37837.html

Wesley Clark on Iran: "We Need to Talk"
http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2006/1/30/221916/857

"I'd, I'd send a high level emissary to talk to the Iranian leadership and have direct dialog with Iran. "
http://securingamerica.com/node/1243

"We must talk to Iran. We must talk to Syria…and Kuwait and Jordan. But it's Iran and Syria that we've resisted talking to. They're part of the equation whether we like it or not and we need to be talking to them."
http://securingamerica.com/node/1766

On Fox News no less, an exchange with Wes Clark.....

Huddy did her dirty work again, interrupting Clark, "Can we talk to people like Syria and Iran? How?"

"Yes you can," insisted Clark. "And here’s the thing. You cannot occupy those countries, you cannot simply declare World War III unless you want to raise an army of 12 millon men and march into the Middle East and occupy it, and we’ve already seen the example of Iraq. This is very, very difficult. So this is not like World War II with Germany and Japan. This is entirely different. We should use the military sparingly, as a last resort."

Again Huddy, who rarely challenges a conservative guest, asked Clark how the U.S. could "have diplomacy ... with countries like Syria and Iran. ... These are countries that have been on the record saying let's destroy the United States."

"If you agree with people, the dipolomacy is different. When you don’t agree with people, it’s even more important to talk, to box them in, to understand what they want, to help them see the world differently. Keep the force in reserve,. Otherwise, you’re just going to end up raising a 10-million man army to invade the Middle East and that’s something we don’t want the United States to do and I don’t think your viewers want all their children to spend the rest of their lives in uniform."

After he finished, a woman said, "I disagree with the general, and I agree with Juliet. We’re dealing with people that want to kill us. It's like if somebody's holding a gun to you how can you just talk to them?"

Clark again was ready with a response. "They’re not holding a gun to our heads," he said. "We are there. It’s our military that’s in Iraq. It’s the Israelis that are there with the most powerful vorce in the region. Iran has no way of reaching us except through Hezbollah terrorists. We’re tracking those people in the United States. I’m not saying there’s no threat, but I’m saying don’t make the mistake of thinking that this is a head-on conflict like Germany and the United States in World War II. It’s not there."
http://www.newshounds.us/2006/07/24/fox_undercuts_wesley_clarks_sane_words.php

I found it telling how Wes Clark stated that any rational contingency planning by the United States should consider a scenario under which we would peacefully co-exist with a nuclear armed Iran. That is not politician doubletalk, and it is not something a politician being guided by focus group polling would dare utter. Conventional political wisdom in the United States is that the question is only HOW to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons, not whether Iran MUST be stopped from getting them.

We can live in an idealistic bubble and pretend that major political leaders in the Democratic Party would never support launching a preemptive war against Iran. I don't agree. I think far too many of them have already roping themselves into that position by accepting the argument that Iran cannot be dealt with rationally, and that it is flat out impossible for the United States to ever allow Iran to become nuclear-armed, under any conceivable circumstances.

Some may be troubled by hearing Clark mention, and not totally rule out, a future military option against Iran, to which I say welcome to the world we live in, rather than the world we want. If you listen to other Democratic leaders, not a single one I know of categorically rules out American use of force against Iran to stop them from gaining nuclear weapons. Some embrace macho posturing, and some carefully tip toe around saying anything clear at all about possible military action, but none rule out the option. Clark levels with us, which is something you can always count on him to do:
http://www.awesclarkdemocrat.com/2006/05/realitybased_clark_speaks_abou.htm

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Everything in diplomacy is intended to advance the interest of one party at the expense of another. I mean, diplomacy is, it's another form of struggle. This was a measured strategy on the part of Ahmadinejad. Ahmadinejad's been no friend. On the other hand, my experience is need to talk to people, especially before you bomb them, you should talk to them. And so, I've been pressing the United States to have- open a dialog with Iran for some time. I'm not sure if the dialog will talk them out of going for a nuclear option, but I think the dialog is the right place to start.
snip
I've said the military option has to remain on the table, but in truth the United States government should be planning for three options. It should be planning for first, how to dissuade Iran from getting, from wanting to have a nuclear weapon. That's the first option. Second option is how to live with an Iran if they get a nuclear weapon. And I'm not saying you could ever solve that option, but you should be looking at it. I'm not saying that it's an acceptable option, but you should be asking yourself, 'What would it take for us to be able to accept an Iranian nuclear weapon?' What would it take? A change of government? A disarmament? An international presence? What would it take? -more
This ClarkCast, "Common Voices: Iowa" in audio, video and transcript here. http://securingamerica.com/clarkcasts

http://www.awesclarkdemocrat.com/2006/05/realitybased_clark_speaks_abou.htm

[Larry Allen]

18. Thanks for all the articles. I will read them.

[yellerpup]

21. What a great rebuttal.

Thanks for carrying that weight. :loveya:

[Adelante]

20. 9,791 emails to George W. Bush -- MORE!!

:kick:

[yellerpup]

22. Great news.

Thanks!

[Adelante]

23. 10,349 nt

:kick: