RAPID FIRE - Silver Bullets

Radio Interview with Laura Knoy:
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.

Clark: Don't spare Pentagon
http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/09/25/elec04.prez.debate/
"We're faced with a very serious deficit problem. We need to keep the--we need to go back to the top 2 percent and repeal those tax cuts. We need to put all the government spending programs on the table, including the military programs. We need to then have no new programs unless you can pay as you go. And then we need a simpler, fairer, more progressive tax code. "

Wesley Clark was talking about PNAC years ago and pointing his finger in the direction that only "Left wing Bloggers" would recognize! For those still not familiar with this organization (PNAC), its founding member Bill Krystol just “got” himself a job with the Times (Times-Warner parent of CNN-2006 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2005/10/12/conservative-columnist-bi_n_8746.html ) as a columnist. PNAC was the guiding light in orchestrating the Iraq War, and was hard at work promoting such since 1998! Here’s what was reported that Wes Clark had to say about PNAC going back to 2003!

General Wesley Clark, the late entry into the race for the Democratic nomination for president, is making what critics called a “bizarre,” “crackpot” attack on a small Washington policy organization and on a citizens group that helped America win the Cold War.

In a Tuesday interview with Joshua Micah Marshall posted yesterday on the Web site talkingpointsmemo.com, General Clark gave his evaluation of the Clinton presidency. He said that the Clinton administration,“in an odd replay of the Carter administration, found itself chained to the Iraqi policy — promoted by the Project for a New American Century— much the same way that in the Carter administration some of the same people formed the Committee on the Present Danger which cut out from the Carter administration the ability to move forward on SALT II.”

Wesley Clark's Conspiracy Theory The general tells Wolf Blitzer about the neoconservative master plan. by Matthew Continetti 12/01/2003 2:00:00 PM

Yesterday on CNN's "Late Edition," for example, Clark said--not for the first time--that the Bush administration's war plans extend far beyond Iraq.

"I do know this," Clark told Wolf Blitzer. "In the gossip circles in Washington, among the neoconservative press, and in some of the statements that Secretary Rumsfeld and Secretary Wolfowitz have made, there is an inclination to extend this into Syria and maybe Lebanon." What's more, Clark added, "the administration's never disavowed this intent."

Clark has made his charge a central plank of his presidential campaign. Clark writes in his book, "Winning Modern Wars," that in November 2001, during a visit to the Pentagon, he spoke with "a man with three stars who used to work for me," who told him a "five-year plan" existed for military action against not only Afghanistan and Iraq, but also "Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia, and Sudan." Clark has embellished this story on the campaign trail, going so far as to say, "There's a list of countries."

Clark's proof? None. He never saw the list. But, the general recently told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, "You only have to listen to the gossip around Washington and to hear what the neoconservatives are saying, and you will get the flavor of this."

You probably get the flavor of what Wesley Clark is saying, too. It tastes, as THE SCRAPBOOK pointed out three weeks ago, like baloney. And sometimes, as in the case of yesterday's interview with Blitzer, it tastes like three-week-old baloney.

Some would wish to saddle Wes Clark with the total ridiculous credit for being the sole supporter and abater of the SOA based on his one year stint in 1996-97 as CICEUR, then it would be fair and appropos that he then be also given all of the credit for all of the positive changes in Latin America in them being more to the left than even America currently (more leftists have been elected and govern there than ever before!). In fact, 1996 was the year many revelations were made on the SOA and the year that changes were requested and later granted. if we're gonna go way out there, might as well be all emcompassing in everyway imaginable!

Do these same people know that Clark did not institute the SOA (which was established back in the 40s)? Do they know that it is congress that funds it? Do they know that it was while Wes Clark was CIC that reforms were done there? Do they know that the worse abuse in Latin America by those who may have graduated from the SOA occurred in the '60, '70 and '80s way before Clark's time? Do they know that Wes Clark is not responsible for the SOA and has stated that if anyone can point to abuses there, if he were President, he would shut it down? Do all of the "left" anti SOA peeps know that maybe what they should also concentrate on are the human abuses going on in China and in Iraq and many other p, as opposed to this old Red Herring always pulled out and slammed into Wes Clark's face as though he really is more responsible for its existence than all those folks in the senate, the house and the executive branch....while Wes Clark never had a vote? They must not know any of these things, otherwise same folks would be busy writing their senators and congressional representatives telling them to defund the school.

George Bruno will be happy to take you down there," Clark told the woman who questioned him in Concord. "If you find anything in that curriculum material or anything that's taught there that looks in any way remotely connected with human rights abuse or torture, you let me know, and I promise you, we'll close the School of the Americas when I'm president," he said. But if "you find nothing wrong and you see these officers and noncommissioned officers in there learning about human rights, I'd like you to change your position." link is to a smear page, do not use.... haah http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0117-01.htm