This is for any Dems. who have trouble with a former general as POTUS.

[xkenx]

You woulda thunk that after all the information about Wes Clark, at least here and @ DKOS, that folks would know that Clark, in his essential being, is an antiwar progressive. But I keep seeing comments about "warlike mentality, rigid authoritarian, MIC-lover, doesn't know domestic policy, inexperienced, etc." So let's see if I, as an antiwar liberal whose hero was Bobby Kennedy, can shed some important light on this--maybe convince a few that Wes Clark is a gift to the Democratic Party who can flip red states and whup any Rethug they can put up.

THE "DUCK PRINCIPLE"
Ducks don't wear signs labeling them ducks. If it has a ducksbill, waddles like a duck, quacks like a duck, swims like a duck, then you know it's a duck.
Wes Clark is one of the Democratic Party's foremost progressives by virtue of his actions over the years, not by any labels that people want to throw at him simply because he had a career in the military.
It is time to appreciate just how lucky we are to have this national treasure. Just a few items:

--Clark was always butting heads with the stereotypical "macho" military Neanderthals because he saw the horrors of war firsthand in Vietnam and always espoused "diplomacy first."
--Clark was one of the leaders of the all-volunteer Army created after the Vietnam debacle. To keep personnel in you had to do a good job of providing for their family needs, health, education, equal opportunity.
--Clark actually won environmental awards at bases under his command.
--When Clark was working at the Pentagon in the mid-90s, he was virtually the only voice crying out to intervene in Rwanda.
--It was Clark's voice, along with Madeline Albright, who persuaded the Clinton Admin., over the objections of the Pentagon, to stop the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. Tell the Kosovar Albanians that Wes Clark isn't a liberal, progressive, humanitarian.
--It was Wes Clark's voice prior to the Iraq invasion who urged that we exhaust all possible diplomatic means before any military action, including in testimony to Congress.
--It was Wes Clark who filed an Amicus Curiae brief in the University
of Michigan affirmative action case.
--It was Wes Clark who committed the act of political courage by appearing on the cover of the Advocate (gay rights magazine)during the '04 primaries.

Since when is it some kind of a black mark for someone to give to his country by serving in the military if he does so in a principled manner? Wes Clark felt that he could make the most impact by providing a progressive voice to that institution.


2008 is all about flipping a few red states into our column. Hillary certainly can't do it. Wes Clark is a progressive wolf in military uniform sheep's clothing. Many Republicans who didn't care for Bush, still couldn't vote for Kerry. Clark was the only Dem. they could consider. Clark has had more EXECUTIVE leadership roles than any Senator by virtue of his military commands where he had responsibility for the lives of hundreds of thousands of servicepeople and their dependents--the whole range of housing, education, training, healthcare, social services, sometimes in a dangerous spot. When Clark was Supreme Allied Commander Europe (Eisenhower's last military position), he had "Head-of-State" status, meaning that he dealt directly with prime ministers/presidents, not underlings. And Clark was virtually the only voice urging help for Rwanda. And Clark and Madeleine Albright were the ones who convinced Clinton to take action against the ethnic cleansing in the Balkans, where Clark carried out the military action w/o the loss of a single American life. In this he stood up to the Pentagon brass who wanted nothing to do with "saving Albanians." And it was Clark who served for more than 30 years AFTER getting shot up and winning hero medals in Vietnam, when he could have gone for the big bucks in private industry. Try Swift Boating this guy--the smackdown will be heard around the world. Clark is all about duty, honor, country. When Clark's American Dream/American Hero story gets out to middle America, watch how many red states flip. And the beauty of Wes Clark is that HE IS A REAL LIVE D-E-M-O-C-R-A-T, with a progressive agenda equal to anyone.

[whistle]

1. Gen Wesley Clark would make a great president

[xkenx]

2. Wes Clark is the embodiment of what is still good about this country.

[AlinPA]

11. He is still my favorite - except for his helping to make Fox"News" credible.

I'd love to see him run, but I'm afraid the media has decided who the front-runners will be.

[xkenx]

12. Only if "we the people" lay down and allow it.

As for Fox News, it's sort of like going into the lion's den. He gets his message across to the % of fox viewers who haven't drunk the Rovian Koolaid, hones his debating skills, and enthralls us with his regular smackdowns of O'Lielly, HanRATity, and Piggy Cavuto.

[AlinPA]

16. I stopped watching that garbage channel about 2 years ago.

[William769]

3. I don't think I have ever read a post on Du that said he shouldn't be President.

With that said tho, I supported in in the 2004 Primary and even voted for him in the primary, but the way he exited the race he would never get my vote again. Generals don't run away.

[xkenx]

5. His exit was when Kerry became inevitable. I call that honorable.

Clark closed ranks to support the inevitable candidate. He was demonstratiing that he was a good Democrat. If you know ANYTHING about Wes Clark, you know he is not a quitter.

[William769]

6. I know he got alot of my money and my vote.

And nothing is locked up till the convention. Nuff said.

[xkenx]

9. When you have a majority of votes LOCKED UP in March, the

convention is a formality. Do you have some real issue with Clark that you aren't stating here?

[William769]

10. It's already been stated.

[Clark2008]

15. And he was not going to go into hock to pay a staff

with Kerry locked in the nomination.

To me, that's the honorable way to behave. Not like other people who kept running despite the slightest chance in hell of winning. After Tennessee and Virginia, it was over.

[paulk]

4. isn't it kind of moot?

I doubt if Clark's going to even run. And if he does... he'd start out in the 2nd or 3rd tier. Can he raise the money to even compete, at this point? This whole argument just seems pointless.

[xkenx]

7. Not so.Here's why.

Do you remember an obscure former governor of a tiny New England state who became the annointed one in 2003 by his grassroots organizing and fundraising? The power of the netroots is growing exponentially. There was just an article in LA Times about Josh Marshall's TPM being the driving force to expose the US Attorney scandal, Ambramoff, and others. There were also recently posted some statistics about the 2004 primaries' fund raising, showing Clark's outraising Dean in the last quarter, and outraising John Edwards on a monthly basis by better than 2:1. It is so early now that not many are paying attention, Hillary and Obama are beating each other up. When people start really getting bored will be the time for Clark to step in as "The true national security candidate." Plenty of time for the buzz and to raise money.

[kimmerspixelated]

8. Right, but even so

you'd get no argument from me. I always thought he'd be good, because of what he knew about what really goes on in war, and I saw him on Maher once exposing the war lies, and I thought he was brilliant.

[ElboRuum]

13. My question to you would be this...

While I've not seen these comments myself as it seems the general feeling around here that Wes Clark would make a great President, and I'd agree, is there anything to the "rigid authoritarian" claim?

If there is, I'd probably back away from him too. I don't really want an authoritarian in the White House. I've had my fill of 'deciders'. His military experience might indicate a decider mentality. Of course the Republicans would vote for him. There's the promise of decidering. Can deciders build coalitions? Maybe, but we've got one right now who can't or won't. Can deciders mend fences? Or are they just used to making decisions with a finality that doesn't allow for the consideration of others' views?

Not that I agree that there is this 'decider' within Clark, but I would wager that it is the feeling of some that the Supreme Allied Commander Europe isn't used to clearing a lot of things with other people. Maybe this is where that sentiment comes from.

[FrenchieCat]

14. I'm not sure who would think......

this....."wager that it is the feeling of some that the Supreme Allied Commander Europe isn't used to clearing a lot of things with other people."

Actually, Wes Clark had to negotiate every move that he made via the 19 Nation Coalition known as NATO.

As supreme allied commander Europe, the West Point graduate and Rhodes scholar successfully led the first major military offensive in NATO's 50-year history. He directed NATO's Operation Allied Force, the 78-day air campaign against Yugoslav forces that U.S. and alliance leaders have hailed as the most precise ever.
snip
As Joint Staff director for strategic plans and policy, he led the military negotiations for the Bosnian peace accord of 1995.
snip
Great Britain's Lord George Robertson, NATO secretary- general, commended Clark for his "unique combination of military expertise, political knowledge and diplomatic skill." He said Clark helped to win the peace and restore stability in Bosnia-Herzegovina and played an important role in building a new relationship with Russia and NATO's partners in peace.

Robertson said NATO benefited from Clark's "wise military advice, determined leadership and political savvy." The U.S. armor officer, who holds a master's degree in philosophy, economics and politics from Oxford University, "helped turn the concept of a Euro-Atlantic community into a living reality," he said.

Calling Kosovo "one of the most complex operations a planner could dream up," Robertson said Clark proved up to the challenge. "Your diplomatic skills, your experience in the region and your transparent honesty helped you to negotiate robustly with (Yugoslav President Slobodan) Milosevic."

When NATO decided to use force in Kosovo, Robertson said, the SACEUR led the alliance through its biggest test in its 50 year history. Clark's operation saw all of NATO's goals achieved.

Operation Allied Force demanded "not only military skill," the secretary-general said, "but real political acumen." The operation succeeded "within the demanding political framework of a 19-nation alliance and always under intense media scrutiny."

Bosnia and Kosovo today are a testament to Clark's achievements, Robertson said. "Under the watchful eye of (NATO's Kosovo Force), a million Kosovars have returned to their homes and are now living in peace and freedom for the first time in a generation. (People throughout the Balkans) have at last achieved some real hope for the future. This is a historic achievement, and you have a right to feel proud of it," he told Clark.
snip
In his final address as SACEUR, Clark credited NATO's success to superb teamwork. He thanked military and political leaders from NATO's 19 member nations, his staff and the international troops who served under his command.

"We have demonstrated," Clark said, "that there is nothing stronger than the power of ideas -- ideas of freedom, law and justice, and that democratic peoples united in vision of a common imperative form an irresistible and magnetic force which is transforming the very nature of Europe."
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/May2000/n05042000_20005043.html

"He's a warrior for certain, but he can think," Christman says. "He knows how to deal with politicians and diplomats at the highest levels."

Christman cites Clark's role in negotiating a settlement to the war in the Balkans. He says the two sides were at an impasse over how to divide a Serbian enclave until Clark proposed a novel solution. He had the Defense Mapping Agency create a three-dimensional computer map of the disputed area so both sides could see the geography from all angles and determine the most natural borders. Clark's technique helped them decide where where the lines should be drawn.

"It was a very creative solution," Christman said. "This sort of creativity was Wes' strong suit."
http://www.sptimes.com/2003/10/06/Worldandnation/The_presidential_cand.shtml

[ElboRuum]

19. Well...

Certainly anyone who hasn't taken the time to get the facts and has a chip on their shoulder about the concept of military service could certainly have that view. It's just intellectual laziness. Can you not imagine some might, given this reality?

[xkenx]

31. Of course, that's why the OP

[xkenx]

17. I was merely repeating claims from some by way of reference,

which was the reason for my original post. There are still some Dems. who want to stereotype Clark as some kind of militarist.

[ElboRuum]

20. I was merely postulating a hypothesis.

Of course there are Dems who would write off Clark, because they haven't taken the time to get into what he's about for whatever reason, and I would hypothesize that one of those reasons might be a bigotry against people who would willingly serve in the military.

[FrenchieCat]

21. Certainly, that is true.....

But then some voters might automatically not vote for a woman, an African-American, an Hispanic, or a young looking guy from the south who has limited experience...in other words, all who run for Prez are not going to satisfy all. :shrug:

[xkenx]

23. As usual, Frenchie, you frame it well.

[Dinger]

18. Damn xkenx, You Are Something Else, K and R!!!

Excellent post, and these will come in handy when I talk to people who want to know more about Clark. When I talk to people abouthim, I do mention someof these points, and people always react in a positive way.
:patriot: :patriot: :patriot: :patriot:

[xkenx]

38. Thanks, Dinger. If we build the Clark message, they will come.

[OneBlueSky]

22. my dad was a career Army officer, and from experience I can tell you that . . .

the people who most hate war are those who have experienced war first-hand . . . so from that perspective, I think Wes Clark may have a distinct advantage over some other candidates . . .

my own preference, however, remains Al Gore . . . wouldn't mind Clark as VP, though . . .

[w4rma]

24. He's one of my top three choices, but he's waited too long to start a campaign. He's not running. nt

[xkenx]

25. With the patriotic fire that burns and the hints he drops, I'd be blown away if he doesn't run.

[MattSh]

26. What I don't like about Wes Clark.....

Hmm. Let's see. NATO was formed to "contain" the Soviet Union and communism. Yet, the Soviet Union ceased to exist many years before Wes Clark gained the post of Supreme Allied Commander of NATO. I would expect an "creative" thinker to declare that he sees no need for NATO to continue to exist, since the reason it was created had long ago been swept into the dustpan of history. Did Wes Clark do anything to help lead to the demise of NATO? Apparently not, since it still exists.

Of course, Wes Clark fully understood the reason for NATO's continued existence. The US Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex needed an enemy to continue to rob the US Treasury and US taxpayers blind. A mirage would do just fine. As someone living in East Europe, I think I can safely say that the continued expansion of NATO, and it's continued existence, is NOT making this part of the world safer.

You want a "creative" thinker? How about someone who proposes to cut the Pentagon budget by 75%? I'd call that "creative". Anything short of that is just business as usual, with the stress on the business.

Yes, I know. No one is going to do that. They know who butters their bread.

[w4rma]

27. He couldn't do that. He was military general who had to take orders.

NATO is ultimately a political organization.

[CJCRANE]

28. Clark is more likely

to have the political capital to reform the Pentagon than just about any other candidate.

[xkenx]

30. MattSh, you are precisely why I started this thread. You can' t possibly believe that the military

commander of NATO, like all of the US military, is anything other than an instrument of the civilian government. Do you have an anti-Clark agenda here, couched in mumbo-jumbo? Since the MIC IS so powerful, as you say, someone like Wes Clark, who cannot be Swift-Boated as a "Girly Man,' will be able to take meaningful steps towards reforming the Pentagon. His choice of Sec. Def. will help too. Do you remember anything about the NATO war in tha Balkans? As another DUer, put it, that was about Wes Clark saving Muslims, who did not have oil, from genocide. Or do you have a candidate in mind who might ACTUALLY ACCOMPLISH something that Wes Clark could not?

[Adelante]

39. FYI, MattSh, just a sample of his thinking on the MIC

New Hampshire Public Radio, Laura Knoy, 11/5/03
http://www.nhpr.org/node/5339

"I think General Eisenhower was exactly right. I think we should be concerned about the military industrial complex. I think if you look at where the country is today, you've consolidated all these defense firms into a few large firms, like Halliburton, with contacts and contracts at the highest level of government. You've got most of the retired Generals, are one way or another, associated with the defense firms. That's the reason that you'll find very few of them speaking out in any public way. I'm not. When I got out I determined I wasn't going to sell arms, I was going to do as little as possible with the Defense Department, because I just figured it was time to make a new start.

"But I think that the military industrial complex does wield a lot of influence. I'd like to see us create a different complex, and I'm going to be talking about foreign policy in a major speech tomorrow, but we need to create an agency that is not about waging war, but about creating the conditions for Peace around the world. We need some people who will be advocates for Peace, advocates for economic development not just advocates for better weapons systems. So we need to create countervailing power to the military industrial complex."

[ArbustoBuster]

29. General Washington was one of the best presidents we ever had, and probably was THE best.

He set a positive example for all the presidents who followed him. So military command isn't a negative as far as I'm concerned.

What I've seen of Clark, I like. The times I've seen him speak on the news, he seemed intelligent and on top of the issues. I'd vote for him in a heartbeat.

[roseBudd]

32. I love the sound of Wes Clak in the morning, sounds like victory, Wes is Webb 2.0

White males will vote for Wes. Even southern males will vote for him. They want to come back home. We have to let them.

[xkenx]

35. Exactly! Who better to flip red states?

[eridani]

33. None of those things in quotes are really true.

"warlike mentality, rigid authoritarian, MIC-lover, doesn't know domestic policy, inexperienced, etc."

However, he still seems to favor a US foreign policy based on unquestioned imperialism. Not necessarily a downcheck, as all the other front runners are exactly the same (and by virtue of absence of military experience possibly more inclined to saber-rattling and similar ways of proving themselves). Candidates who openly espouse dropping our century plus-old project of world conquest to focus our resources on inventing the next economy are automatically dismissed as fruitcakes, and we don't yet have the interconnected social infrastructure to overcome the corporate noise machine.

(Note that he was not opposed to ALL ethnic cleansing in the Balkans. He at best stood aside when US mercenaries helped the former Nazi Tudjman successfully cleanse the Krajina region of Serbs. And I've never yet heard Clark or anyone offer an adequate justification of why a demand to sell off Serbian state industries was included in the US ultimatum to avoid wholesale elimination of infrastructure, and whatthehell such policies had to do with stopping ethnic cleansing. Nice that no American lives were lost--too bad about the thousands of tons of DU poisoning the shit out of the region.)

[xkenx]

34. You're another who prompted the OP; you just phrase the stereotyping differently.

Nothing in Clark's background suggests in interest in American imperialism. On the contrary, more than almost anyone, he urges respect for the hopes and aspirations of the people of other nations, and to work diplomatically in the world. By the same token Clark realizes, sanely, that there are those out there who would do us harm, so we need to be prepared. BTW, EVERYTHING undertaken in the Balkans was by consensus among the 19 member nations of NATO.

[eridani]

36. Consensus on the ethnic cleansing of the Krajina doesn't justify it

Do you or Clark have a justification for the US helping Croatia to successfully do what you are horrified about Serbia attempting to do? And what about that demand that Serbia sell off its state or worker owned industries? No comment?

I didn't say he was "interested in" American imperialism--what I said was that he doesn't appear to object to it. Where are his regrets? General Smedley Butler played a key role in utterly destroying every independent popular government in Central America in the early years of the 20th century, but he later developed a bad case of the regrets. Where are Clark's regrets?

http://co.quaker.org/Writings/SmedleyButler.htm

I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.

I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service.

I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.

During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.

Do you or does Clark have an answer to the question of why 700+ military bases all over the world have anything to do with defense of American citizens or territory?

Still, we probaby can't get an anti-imperial president this time, and Clark is no worse on that score than any of the front runners.

[xkenx]

37. And better than most at being able to accomplish change w/o people looking over his shoulder.