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The Brian Lehrer Show
The Military Mind
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
General Wesley Clark, retired four-star general, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander, 2004 Democratic presidential candidate and the author of A Time to Lead: For Duty, Honor and Courage (Palgrave Macmillan, September 2007), checks in on the state of the military, the state of the war, and the state of the current campaign.
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Comments
Hillary Clinton is a warmongering corporate shill, W lite. If she's elected, expect more of the same.
Question?
Would General Clark serve as a secretary of state in the Obama administration? If so could he promise to purge any pnac members from the state department and pull some strings in the pentagon to get them out of there too.
"We have to talk to people we don't agree with...?"
Isn't that in essence what Obama said, and Hillary got all over his case?
You can call it a "struggle", you can call it a "conflict".
Hey! You can even call it....a JIHAD!!!!! Right? That's what "jihad" means? Struggle?
Listening to his motivation of why he supports a candidate I think he might as well supports Obama. Immaculate record of what he has accomplished going back to high school, talking to countries like Iraq, someone you can trust. To me he speaks more about Obama then any other candidate.
Will Acting President Cheney bomb Iran before the end of his term?
Has Gen. Clark read about full-spectrum operations in the military? What would he say about officers who combine economic development and civil society promotion with combat operations rather than simply conduct combat operations as he implies about our current efforts.
How can General Clark reconcile his support for Hilary Clinton when she said she would not "deal" with Iran? This was in contradiction to what he said he supports at the beginning of the interview?!?!?!
Why do so many people consider Clark a flawless hero? He may be critical of THIS war, but he's no pacifist.
I wish his soapbox was not so big or that journalists would bother to check his record. We're talking about a man who oversaw the use of indiscriminate cluster bombs on the use of civilians in Eastern Europe. That was not a "clean" war like everyone likes to believe. Its easy to avoid US casualties when you bomb safely from the air.
With all our force and economic might, you think we could do a little better than solving problems through killing.
This guy is also a war monger. Of course the U.S. wan't INVADE Iran. Put up the wrong straw man & Brian let him get away with it. The program is to BOMB Iran.
And there's NO evidence that Iran is heading toward a nuclear weapons program. That is a bald-face assertion by all U.S. warmongers that is completely unsupported.
The really interesting question is whether Hilary Clinton shares General Clark's views regarding the role of the military in the present and the future.
Oy, "Palestinians must get a grip on their own security." Occupied people have no ability to do that. It's like asking them to be their own jailors. The more Clark opens his mouth, the more I realize what a wingnut he is.
to ECAHNomics:
Thank you for describing the problems with this interview.
It's very weak-kneed, Brian. Have you done any research on our role in busting up Socialist Yugoslavia? Clark just said "we saved them"! Well maybe he wants to go back a little further and talk about the CIA shenanigans that destabilized the country.
What's next? A warm and cuddly talk with Kissinger? I do not trust General Clark one bit!
I haven't decided who I support for the Democratic nomination, but after hearing Wesley Clark speak, I wish he were one of the choices. I can't remember when I last heard such a reasoned and articulate discussion of U.S. foreign policy.
Solution to Afghan opium is for other countries to import it legally for medical use. But Big Pharma put the kaibosh on that.
Did Gen. Clark just state that he would leave it to the Saudis and the Syrians to deal with individuals who go into Iraq and commit terrorist attacks there? Is it realistic that those states would have the same interest that we do in preventing such attacks?
Eric
I didn't hear that-too busy typing. But if he said that, than you can expect the Saudis & Syrians to send MORE of their malcontents to Iraq. Itsa great way for them to get rid of them.
Another Clark boner.
Allison--
I was agreeing with you for awhile about freedom in Iran. You forgot to mention the 30,000 jews that live there without much strife. (Whoops! There goes that Ahmedijendad wants a new holocaust argument>>>)
However, Sharia law? Seriously, you're defending it?
I'm not real interested in a society based on the word of some guys interpretation of biblical "law". What if that guy's mistranslating god's will...or what if god doesn't exist and he's making it all up?
you also forgot the social restraints put on Muslim women. It's hard to argue Iranian women aren't 2nd class citizens, even if the same is true in most religious communities--especially Christianity.
Long Live The Glorious Regime of the Supreme Leaders of Iran -
The government of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has stepped up a crackdown on students, unionists and teachers in the past months, Nobel winner Shirin Ebadi's rights group said Monday.
"We are pained to say that the ninth government has further tightened the space for political, unionist, press and student activists despite its populist slogans," the group said in its latest report.
Ahmadinejad -- whose government is the ninth elected since the Islamic revolution in 1979 -- has made the implementation of "justice" one of his core policies.
But Ebadi's Centre for the Defenders of Human Rights said there had been a noticeable increase in pressure on student activists, unionists and teachers in the period between June and September.
"The student movement this summer experienced one of its hardest periods," it said.
Along with many arrests, prominent university professors have been sacked for "alternative thinking" and hundreds of students have been banned from studying for "political or ideological reasons".
Students have staged several protests at universities in Tehran over the jailing of three of their colleagues for the publication of images deemed offensive to Islam in student publications.
"You forgot to mention the 30,000 jews that live there without much strife. (Whoops! There goes that Ahmedijendad wants a new holocaust argument>>>)"
whoa
a. please verify the claim that they live there "without much strife"
b. (Whoops! There goes that Ahmedijendad wants a new holocaust argument>>>)"
what???
how does that argument - whatever it is (i never mentioned his holocaust denial) "go away"?
hey, some people in darfur are doing well --
there goes the whole genocide in darfur argument!
yipppeee, mr. wizard!
allison-
i must have misread the sarcasm of your original post as openmindedness. now your original post is not visible--not sure why--so I can't really see where we split off. However, you no longer seem interested in anything beyond spouting the usual propaganda.
If you knew so much about Iran, you would know that the President has very little power and that the Shah is really calling the shots. (Israel also has a president along with a Prime Minister--who's heard a word from that guy?) Did you know that the Supreme leader has issued a decree that nuclear weapons are immoral and will never be pursued in Iran? Thought not...
Ahmedijendad's boasts are for a domestic audience. They sound similar to me as Bush's wanting to "smoke them out of the caves" or this ridiculous, racist Islamofascist meme of the Republicans.
You should also google the oftquoted: "wipe Israel off the face of the map". It was a mangled translation; he said no such thing but has been used to intensify the "threat" of a country that hasn't attacked it's neighbors in 250 years.
Or keep believing what the warmongers say and paranoid Zionists if you want. Either way, pushing for a war with Iran is not a good idea for the wellbeing of the inhabitants of Iran nor Israel or the US.
This thread is closed.
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