To those of you who don't yet hope to the bottom of your heart that Wes Clark becomes the next president, I remind you that one thing we all have in common is that we all want the best possible America we can create. Since that is predicated on having the best president we can have, please take another look at why so many of us DO hope that this is the man who we choose to re-establish America's reputation for compassion, peace and justice.
We hope for this for the same reasons that he is the Democrat most amenable to folks who won't necessarily vote Democratic: Because Wes Clark is the man most qualified to mitigate Bush/Cheney's damage AND bring the Liberal agenda to fruition.
Please don't dismiss him out of hand on the grounds that conventional wisdom says he's not electable. Just look at him and ask yourself if he's the best man for the job. If so, then don't allow the powers that be to dictate to you the people who our nominee is.
I'm not asking merely to change minds, but also to make sure that at Yearly Kos y'all make it abundantly clear to the man just how much we do not take him for granted so that he'll know that when he enters the race the Democratic party will be abundantly grateful that he's on our team.
"Wes Clark is a gift to the Democratic party!" --Michael Moore
"Major Clark is the most outstanding Major I have ever seen. Brilliant, innovative, hardworking, and extremely enthusiastic, professional in every respect - I can not praise him too highly...The fact that General Haig selected him for his personal staff is indicative of his caliber. Further, his gracious wife is a distinct asset to him and to the Army."
-From the Award of the Silver Star, as presented to Capt. Clark after he was wounded in battle in Vietnam, February, 1970
From Page 97 of Wesley K. Clark: A Biography, by Antonia Felix (2004)
The White House Fellows program is extremely competitive: out of 2,307 applicants, only 14 are chosen. Clark went through a lenghthy selection process including regional and national finals and a series of personal interviews in Washington D.C. Then, as now, the selection commission look for gifted, highly motivated young people who had already made extraordinary achievements in their professions and shown a commitment to public service. The program's mission is to give future leaders working knowledge of government. Fellows get first hand experience in Federal government, serving as full-time, paid special assistants to cabinet-level officials. .........snip......
Clark was assigned to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and worked as Special Assistant to the director James T. Lynn.......snip........... For 3 months, Clark worked 6 days a week preparing a report on budget issues that was published as part of President Ford's Fiscal Year 1977 Budget.
He directed a department task force to analyze overhead and administration cost in government and to recommend procedures to reduce costs, and participated in another task force that studied military compensation.
Lynn also gave him a six-week special assignment to serve as special assistant to John Marsh, counselor to the President. Clark helped Marsh write a review that advise President Ford about changes in the structure of the intelligence community..........snip..........
In the spring if 1976, darning his stint as White House Fellow, Clark met up with his friend and classmate John "Jack" Wheeler, who asked him and another classmate Matt Harrison, if they would be interested in helping him create a Vietnam memorial at West Point. Wheeler wanted to create something dedicated to all that served, not just cadets or other army personal. He went to Clark "because of Wes' instinct for what matters and for committing himself". It would be the beginning of a long association on this project as well as in working out Wheeler's next project of building a national Vietnam Veteran's Memorial in Washington DC.
To raise that kind of idea in 1976 was just off the rails as far as a lot of people were concerned; technically the war had only been over for one year and it was too close to the event" said Wheeler " But the memory of those killed in action was a searing memory for all of us." They succeeded in building the memorial at West Point, and over the next few years Clark played a major role in helping to raise the $10 million for the national monument. " He lent his considerable prestige and put his shoulder to the wheel" said Wheeler. " I could not have walked down that road with out him"
Wheeler knew getting congressional approval for a national monument designated to an unpopular war and finding a location and design upon which everyone could agree was going to be a challenge of mythic proportions. He also knew that Clark cared enough about the soldiers' memories to take on such a challenge without a second thought. " He was a blood member of the class fellowship" said Wheeler. " Wes was a leader who took risks. I knew that with out asking him.
........The Wall was completed in 1982 and dedicated on Veterans Day of that year. Etched into it's black stone panels are the of 57,939 dead, creating a wall that became "a threshold where the dead also meet the living"
Wes Clark speaks on health care (3 minute youtube)
p 100-101 of Wesley K. Clark: A Biography, by Antonia Felix (2004)
In the spring if 1976, darning his stint as White House Fellow, Clark met up with his friend and classmate John "Jack" Wheeler, who asked him and another classmate Matt Harrison, if they would be interested in helping him create a Vietnam memorial at West Point. Wheeler wanted to create something dedicated to all that served, not just cadets or other army personal. He went to Clark "because of Wes' instinct for what matters and for committing himself". It would be the beginning of a long association on this project as well as in working out Wheeler's next project of building a national Vietnam Veteran's Memorial in Washington DC.
To raise that kind of idea in 1976 was just off the rails as far as a lot of people were concerned; technically the war had only been over for one year and it was too close to the event" said Wheeler " But the memory of those killed in action was a searing memory for all of us." They succeeded in building the memorial at West Point, and over the next few years Clark played a major role in helping to raise the $10 million for the national monument. " He lent his considerable prestige and put his shoulder to the wheel" said Wheeler. " I could not have walked down that road with out him"
Wheeler knew getting congressional approval for a national monument designated to an unpopular war and finding a location and design upon which everyone could agree was going to be a challenge of mythic proportions. He also knew that Clark cared enough about the soldiers' memories to take on such a challenge without a second thought. " He was a blood member of the class fellowship" said Wheeler. " Wes was a leader who took risks. I knew that with out asking him.
........The Wall was completed in 1982 and dedicated on Veterans Day of that year. Etched into it's black stone panels are the of 57,939 dead, creating a wall that became "a threshold where the dead also meet the living"
"Major Clark is the most able White House Fellow I have known during my seven years in Washington...He brought to his work a brilliant mind and rare common sense. He has initiative, style, imagination, moral courage, and integrity--each in extraordinary degree...He has a rare sensitivity to others and a remarkable ability to motivate and lead them....He is totally dedicated to public service as a military officer."
-James T. Lynn, Director, Office of Management and Budget, July 8, 1976
Wes Clark: The standard bearer on why torture is a no-no (hence making him the candidate best suited to re-establish America's correct reputation)...
On practical benefits of the Geneva Conventions:
On the one hand, because of who we are and what we represent our soldiers have received a privileged status. On the other hand, all the cruelty in the world doesn't by itself break the spirit, break the will to resist, or end a fight; in fact, it strengthens and hardens resolve.
On effective interrogations:
I don't know where the desire to resort to rough methods comes from....Look, if you put people under pressure, some will talk. The less disciplined they are, the less cohesive the organization, the more they'll talk; and the less pain you need. The more disciplined, the more cohesive, the less likely it is you'll break them....
If you look at Al Qaeda, although they're getting financial assistance from all over the world, they're not living in mansions. They're not really getting rich. Apparently Osama bin Laden, despite the fact that he has several wives, lives in caves. There's reason to believe they're a pretty tough, hardened organization. So you can't anticipate that they're going to break under pressure easily.
What we have found in our experience in interrogation over centuries in armed forces worldwide is that you have to get people to talk voluntarily....
The Yemenis have gone so far with Al Qaeda as actually having imams come in and doing "deprogramming," and actually arguing with terrorists...[with] some success. Then, of course, they apologize, they blurt out everything you want, and you can believe it.
On torture and U.S. military values:
We thought we were in this uniform because we stood for something. We stood for what was right, what was fair, what was just: we didn't torture people. I certainly wouldn't have stayed in an armed forces or worked with a government that I thought was doing the same skulduggery that the Soviets and the rest of them were doing. That's what we were against. How can it be that we think we can condone that kind of stuff now?
Torture not justified because there are "bad people":
We've heard that argument. We heard it in Argentina with the desaparecidos. We've heard it all over Latin America. We've heard it in Europe. We read it in novels. We know enough, surely, not to trust it. We've seen it in history. We've seen great empires like Rome lose their moral authority totally when they departed from humane standards of treatment.
On geo-strategic grounds for following international norms:
We've got to have allies to help us win this war on terror. The only way those countries work with us is through our moral legitimacy. We shaped the post-Cold War environment. It was America that led the effort to create the Geneva Conventions. And now we're walking away from it? What happened to that shining beacon that was America when we can walk away from the very values that we've espoused?
And then there's the future.... There will come a time when maybe America isn't the only superpower, and maybe not even the preeminent superpower. If you look at the economic map—assuming that we can get a grip on challenges like global warming—then it's reasonable to expect that India and China...will at some point have at least equal and maybe greater capacity than the United States. I'm not trying in any way to diminish what we consider exceptional about America, but it's just a reality that scale is one of the most important laws in economics. And they've got scale on us. And we've got to set rules of international behavior that work to our interest, that other nations will agree with and voluntarily adopt as their own. I like to think of these as the Golden Rules of international behavior: do unto others as you'd have them do unto you.
Wes Clark knows how to fight; if only Washington had the backbone to listen to him
More presciently, Clark was right about the Russians. When fewer than 200 lightly armed Russian peacekeepers barnstormed from Bosnia to the Pristina airport in Kosovo to upstage the arrival of NATO peacekeepers, Clark was rightly outraged. Russians did not win the war, and he did not want them to win the peace.
Clark asked NATO helicopters and ground troops to seize the airport before the Russians could arrive. But a British general, absurdly saying he feared World War III (in truth the Russians had no cards to play), appealed to London and Washington to delay the order.
The result was a humiliation for NATO, a tonic for the Russian military and an important lesson for the then-obscure head of the Russian national security council, Vladimir Putin. As later Russian press reports showed, Putin knew far more about the Pristina operation than did the Russian defense or foreign ministers. It was no coincidence that a few weeks afterward, Russian bombers buzzed NATO member Iceland for the first time in a decade. A few weeks after that, with Putin as prime minister, Russian troops invaded Chechnya. Putin learned the value of boldness in the face of Western hesitation. Clark learned that he had no backup in Washington.
Recent events in Kosovo show that Clark's bosses in the Pentagon and White House still don't get it. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. Henry Shelton, rebuked Clark in February for using 350 American soldiers to reinforce French troops who were unable to quell violence between Albanians and Serbs. After the American reinforcements were pelted with rocks and bottles, Shelton and the White House, panicky about potential casualties, told Clark not to volunteer U.S. troops again.
But Clark was right to act. He understood the value of using force quickly and early to show who was in control, and to demonstrate to the European allies that the United States is willing to put lives at risk too.
"Just when the world is being dragged into the death spiral of an unending cycle of violence by a vision-less, coldblooded collection of think-tank warriors goose-stepping their way into the new millennium with a stunning lack of respect for human rights, the environment, or international law, along comes a man with the proven credentials of intelligence, integrity, and courage singularly equipped by his spirit and experience to lead us out of this mess. Don't listen to what the lying liars say about him; listen to what he says. Wesley Clark is a prayer answered. Peace"
-- Kris Kristofferson
Wes Clark--voice of clarity in a post 9/11 world...
Others will argue, and in my view correctly, that our security depends more on building windows and bridges to the outside world than in building walls. They will suggest that in the new millennium our best security lies in reinforcing others around the world that share our values, rather than shutting ourselves off from them. They will suggest that national security is far broader than national defense, and they will argue that what is ultimately a conflict of ideas and ideals cannot be won by bombs and bullets alone, but must include commitments to human rights and democratic norms.
But where is the balance here? How much must we give up to be safe? And how much will such sacrifices compromise the very freedoms we seek to protect, or the prosperity we have come to enjoy? These are the issues with which you must grapple...they cannot be decided by "experts" and "authorities." Coming up with the balance will be your responsibility – it cannot be delegated to so-called experts – or given over in trust to elected leaders. Rather, yours is the daily responsibility of citizenship, carried on through open debate and exercised at the ballot box on a hundred different issues and candidacies. And this will require dissent, dissent that cannot be silenced through charges of comforting the enemy without surrendering the very freedoms we say we are fighting for.
Other generations have paid a heavy price in blood for the freedoms we enjoy, but no other generation will bear a heavier burden in defining the essence of our country, as you must carry in the years ahead.
[...]But death can come without warning, in war or in peace, at home or abroad, in sickness or in health. There are no guarantees, except the certainty that we are all mortal beings. As Jesus enjoins us in the book of Matthew, worry not about your life or your body... seek first God’s kingdom and his righteousness...do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. We ourselves must live everyday as if it were in fact our last...we must live it so well...measuring lives by the quality, not the quantity...Perhaps your generation can show us the way in this, as no other has before.
[...]You will determine whether rage or reason guides the United States in the struggle to come. You will choose whether we are known for revenge or compassion. You will choose whether we, too, will kill in the name of God, or whether in His name, we can find a higher civilization and a better means of settling our differences.
"Clark exhibits the best balance of professional ethics of any officer I know. Particularly noteworthy is his demonstrated selfless dedication to his men, his unit, and the Army. He exhibits absolute integrity of word, deed... he establishes and observes scrupulous ethical and moral standards."
-Colonel Lester E. Bennett, June 2, 1980
"Wes Clark has been a superb battalion commander and will be a superb brigade commander. He is officer of the rarest potential and will clearly rise to senior general officer rank. He will be one of the Army's leaders in the 1990's."
-General Colin Powell, May 21, 1982
"Wes Clark has the character and depth to be another Marshall or Eisenhower in time of war."
-Brigadier General William W. Crouch, March 16, 1988
"Professional and moral attributes are impeccable. Strong in all areas. Best leader-thinker in the Army....a great leader who takes care of soldiers and families.... He has it all and has done it better than anyone else."
-General Edwin Burba, Jr., March 20, 1992
American Son--The Wes Clark youtube bio
Lt. Gen. James Hollingsworth, one of our Army's most distinguished war heroes, says: "Clark took a burst of AK fire, but didn't stop fighting. He stayed on the field 'til his mission was accomplished and his boys were safe. He was awarded the Silver Star and Purple Heart. And he earned 'em."
"Broken Engagement" by Wes Clark--How the strategy of the Cold War is and is not relevant to the Middle East (and how ignorant the Bush Administration is of this)
MAJ. GEN. ROBERT SCALES: I've known Wes for 40 years; he's also a passionate, committed, empathetic individual. So, soldiers in wartime have to lead soldiers into battle and the lives of men and women are at stake. And sometimes that requires a degree of flintiness that you don't need in other professions.
HUME: What about those who suggest that his character reflects a kind of unbridled ambition that puts his career above all things, fair?
SCALES: No. No. Unfair. Again, like I say, I've known him all my adult life. He is an individual who is committed to a higher calling. I mean he's got three holes in him and a Silver Star from Vietnam. He has a...the word patriot only partially describes his commitment to public service. And for as long as I've known him, he's always looked, you know, beyond himself and he's been committed to serving the nation. And I think what you are seeing happen here recently is an example of that.
Defense Secretary William Perry who, as deputy defense secretary first encountered Clark in 1994 when he was a three-star on the Joint Staff: "I was enormously impressed by him," said Perry, a legendary Pentagon technologist who served as defense secretary under Clinton.
Perry was so impressed, in fact, that with Clark facing retirement unless a four-star job could be found for him, Perry overrode the Army and insisted that Clark be appointed commander of the U.S. Southern Command, one of the military's powerful regional commanders in chief, or CINCs. "I was never sorry for that appointment," Perry said.
Gen. John Shalikashvili, chairman of the Joint Chiefs overrode the Army once again and made sure Clark became Supreme Allied Commander Europe, traditionally the most powerful CINC, with command of all U.S. and NATO forces on the continent.
"There is this aspect of his character: He is loyal to people he knows are capable and competent," Macgregor said. "As for his peers, it's a function of jealousy and envy, and it's a case of misunderstanding. Gen. Clark is an intense person, he's passionate, and certainly the military is suspicious of people who are intense and passionate. He is a complex man who does not lend himself to simplistic formulations. But he is very competent, and devoted to the country." --Col. Douglas Macgregor
"I asked a whole lot of my friends who were generals and colonels and majors, who served over General Clark and under General Clark, and every last one of them said to me that this is a good man, and if he were leading our nation they would be proud. Son of the South capable of making a dangerous world a safer place for everybody. A man we are going to make the next president of the United States."
- Ambassador Andrew Young, Dec. 21, 2003
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