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One of my top choices for Obama's vice president is General Wesley Clark. Clark was against the war, brings foreign policy credentials, is a Washington outsider, was a Clinton supporter, and is strong on progressive issues.
Last week Matt Stoller of Open Left started an Obama/Clark website.
The political argument for Clark is simple. He is a great surrogate for Democrats, with experience in 2004 and 2006 on the campaign trail, and a genuine national base of supporters. In terms of governance, which is what Obama says is the most important criteria for his VP pick, Clark can help Obama deal with the mess that the Bush administration left behind. As commander of NATO in the late 1990s, Clark won a war, so he is more likely than any progressive out there to be able to wrangle solutions from a military establishment that has been decimated by Bush's cronyism and incompetence. That is really important moving forward, since rebuilding our national security posture is a critical challenge over the next eight years
Clark also emphasizes Obama's strengths. He is popular among grassroots progressives, he was against the war in Iraq from the get-go, and he is an outsider to politics.
10 comments:
I guess that whole thing about Clark getting FIRED for incompetence as Nato chief isn't important, is it?
Face it. The fired guy is the only military guy you have.
How pathetic. No wonder no one counts on dems regarding our national security.
Clark won a war, so he is more likely than any progressive out there to be able to wrangle solutions from a military establishment..
Dude - uhm - Clark didn't win the war. Clark was fired from this war. It's a fact. You show your ignorance of history. I hope you aren't a history teacher.
...but on November 6, retired Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf appeared on CNBC's Capital Report, hosted by Gloria Borger and Alan Murray, who asked him what he thought of Clark.
"I think the greatest condemnation against him . . . came from the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff when he was a NATO commander.
I mean, he was fired as a NATO commander," Schwarzkopf replied, "and when Hugh Shelton said he was fired because of matters of character and integrity, that is a very, very damning statement, which says, `If that's the case, he's not the right man for president,' as far as I'm concerned."
When at a forum in September, retired Gen. Hugh Shelton was asked if he would support retired Gen. Wesley Clark for president, Shelton, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, quickly took a drink of water.
"That question makes me wish it were vodka," Shelton said. "I've known Wes for a long time. I will tell you the reason he came out of Europe early had to do with integrity and character issues, things that are very near and dear to my heart.
I'm not going to say whether I'm a Republican or a Democrat. I'll just say Wes won't get my vote."
Extra! July/August 1999
Legitimate Targets? How U.S. Media Supported War Crimes in Yugoslavia - By Jim Naureckas
NATO justified the bombing of the Belgrade TV station, saying it was a legitimate military target.
"We've struck at his TV stations and transmitters because they're as much a part of his military machine prolonging and promoting this conflict as his army and security forces," U.S. General Wesley Clark explained--"his," of course, referring to Yugoslavian President Slobodan Milosevic.
It wasn't Milosevic, however, who was killed when the Belgrade studios were bombed on April 23, but rather 20 journalists, technicians and other civilians.
Clark's logic is exactly the same as that of the death squad commander who orders the assassination of a journalist or a publisher whose opposition newspaper supports the goals of a guerrilla movement.
The targeting of the studio was a war crime, perhaps the most indisputable of several war crimes committed by NATO in its war against Yugoslavia.
Kosovo was Clintons unnecessary war. Going down memory lane reminded me of Clintons other stellar cabinet member - Janet Reno. Janet had her own little war, called Waco. History has not shined well on Waco and Janet specifically. I'd forgotten Wesley's role in that hole murderous crime committed by Janet and Bill, with Wes at the wheel.
From insightmag.com, Oct. 15, 2003 - Clark Tanks Rolled Into Mount Carmel
Those seeking an investigation of his part in the Waco outrage say that Clark not only played a hidden role in the military-style assault on the Branch Davidians, but easily could have refused to participate in what was a clear violation of the Posse Comitatus Act that bars use of the U.S. military for civilian law-enforcement activities.
...there are indisputable facts that confirm he (Wes) had knowledge of the grim plans to bring the standoff to an end.
Between August 1992 and April 1994, Clark was commander of the 1st Cavalry Division of the Army's III Corps at Fort Hood, Texas.
According to a report by the U.S. Department of the Treasury, the list of military personnel and equipment used at Waco included:
15 active-duty military personnel
13 Texas National Guard personnel
9 Bradley fighting vehicles
5 combat-engineer vehicles
1 tank-retrieval vehicle
2 M1A1 Abrams tanks
Additionally, Fort Hood reportedly was used for much of the training for the bloody attack on the Davidians and their children.
Based on the fact that military equipment from Fort Hood was used in the siege and that training was provided there, say critics, it is clear the commanding officer of the 1st Cavalry had direct knowledge of the attack and, more likely than not, was involved in the tactical planning.
From The Guardian, Tuesday August 3, 1999:
"I'm not going to start the third world war for you," General Sir Mike Jackson, commander of the international K-For peacekeeping force, is reported to have told Gen Clark when he refused to accept an order to send assault troops to prevent Russian troops from taking over the airfield of Kosovo's provincial capital. - Robertson's plum job in a warring Nato
No sooner are we told by Britain's top generals that the Russians played a crucial role in ending the west's war against Yugoslavia than we learn that if Nato's supreme commander, the American General Wesley Clark, had had his way, British paratroopers would have stormed Pristina airport threatening to unleash the most frightening crisis with Moscow since the end of the cold war.
Mary Robinson, the UN human rights commissioner, said Nato's bombing campaign had lost its "moral purpose". Referring to the cluster bomb attack on residential areas and market in the Serbian town of Nis, she described Nato's range of targets as "very broad" and "almost unfocused".
There were too many mistakes; the bombing of the Serbian television station in Belgrade - which killed a make-up woman, among others - was "not acceptable".
I recall that you are a teacher. Your lack of knowledge of history concerns me as a parent sending my child to public school.
I hope you aren't a history teacher.
This is sad proof that our teachers are deficient in the public school system.
Sad indictment of the state of Iowa education.
"At the beginning of the Kosovo conflict,CounterPunch delved into the military career of General Wesley Clark and discovered that his meteoric rise through the ranks derived from the successful manipulation of appearances:
faking the results of combat exercises, greasing to superiors and other practices common to the general officer corps.
We correctly predicted that the unspinnable realities of a real war would cause him to become unhinged.
Given that Clark attempted to bomb the CNN bureau in Belgrade and ordered the British General Michael Jackson to engage Russian troops in combat at the end of the war, we feel events amply vindicated our forecast.
With the end of hostilities it has become clear even to Clark that most people, apart from some fanatical members of the war party in the White House and State Department, consider the general, as one Pentagon official puts it, "a horse's ass".
(BILL CLINTON'S) Defense Secretary William Cohen is known to loathe him, and has seen to it that the Hammer of the Serbs will be relieved of the Nato command two months early. (WHICH HAPPENED - HE WAS FIRED).
Gen. Wesley Clark Fights On and On
CounterPunch November 12, 1999
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