Letters to the Editor
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7 countries in 5 years?
Wow, that's not only stupid, but it's clear they didn't even know what resources they had available. I guess that's not a surprise.
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Okay, General Clark!
Why did you not say this stuff nine months ago? And why did you not say it in the context of a presidential campaign?
We need a warrior such as yourself, a warrior who has rational sense, such as yourself, as our next president. Instead, we have a defective choice between a group of out-of-touch Republicans and experience-deficient Democrats?
Where were you? Where are you?
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what is new about this?
Project for a New American Century laid out such plans in the nineties....all they needed to get public support would be a "Pearl Harbor" type of incident....which they conveniently got
but eight months after they took power....
The rest...is....well the rest.....
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Dammit
We're behind schedule.
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timbuktom
You are right in saying Wes Clark should have all this stuff up when he was running for President.
But really do we need any more military types running for President, or for that matter any public office during this time?
I mean part of the problem in your argument is that military person is best suited for being President becuase they can defeat the Republicans and can take care of our national security. And therein lies the problem with your argument. the last thing we need is any more military representation or militaristic we are tough fantasies which led us to war in the first place. If we elect a military guy like Wes Clark, sure we may not go to war if he is Pres, but we will re-affirm the notion to the rest of the world that we are basically scared shitless of "the others" and need a general to protect us, and that we havent shed our sense to protect ourselves via war instead of dialogue
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A Losing Proposition
The Neocons spelled out their broad plans for the Middle East on their website “Project for the New American Century” long before Bush entered the Whitehouse. Iraq was to be the first country to fall and provide a base from which to launch other attacks in the area.
Ironically, Bush may have been God’s choice for president after all. It is conceivable, though maybe not likely, that Al Gore could have been sold on the idea of regime change in Baghdad had he been sworn in on January of 2001. There is a small chance that Bush’s biggest blunder might have been a marginal (and fleeting) triumph for Gore. Surely, there would have been more extensive planning for post-war Iraq under Gore and the situation could have ended up looking like something resembling success. Then suddenly, you have a more confident and hawkish president eyeing other dictators in the region. But because we had Commander-in-Chief Eddie Haskell running the show, America, the supposed lone superpower, is learning what the English temporarily forgot: invading and occupying Middle Eastern States is a losing proposition.
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Nothing on relocating the Palestinians
My goodness! I thought Moving them all to Jordan would be tops on the list
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If a tree falls...
Just because no one was listening, doesn't mean Clark hasn't been warning about the PNAC plans for many years.
He wrote about the 7 countries in 5 years in his book Winning Modern Wars written in 2002.
He was called a crackpot for talking about PNAC during his campaign.
An article in the NYSun from Oct.'03 starts out:
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...
http://daily.nysun.com/Repository/getFiles.asp?Style=OliveXLib:ArticleToMail&Type=text/html&Path=NYS/2003/10/02&ID=Ar00100
He talked about it with Tim Russert on MTP in Dec. 2003:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3476052/
The examples go on and on. We who have followed Clark all these years are as sorry as anyone that no one listened...
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Who's to say it still isn't the plan?
This isn't that surprising. If you accept that we are either near peak oil, then the current powers, and I don't mean presidential, will do whatever it takes to secure what's left of the world's oil. Considering that fact that the Chinese and Russians have been locking up most of the newly found oil via bilateral trade agreements, then this game will continue, irrespective of who's in the White House. That is the real reason we will never leave Iraq, and will either be permanently be on the verge of war with Iran or will attack it outright. This is going to one interesting ride.
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Thanks for writing about this, Joe,
but those of us who've been supporting General Clark for years have wondered and waited for the story to get some attention.
Just as we think his run for president should have received more attention, almost everything he writes and says deserves attention; he is devoted to this country and he is brilliant and a genuine treasure.
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zephmarie's right
I worked on Clark's campaign in 2004, and he was definitely talking about the Pentagon meeting then.
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The good news and the bad news
First the Good News:
I first heard General Clark describing PNAC (Seven countries in five years) on Meet the Press in May or June in 2003. I remember the moment well because I was well aware of the PNAC document which had been sent to Pres. Clinton. In fact, it was that interview that convinced me to sign onto the Draft Clark site.
Since then I've heard General Clark talk about his Pentagon encounter many times including during a conference at the Kennedy Library to a room full of historians, reporters, and others gathered for the "Vietnam and Presidency" forum, I know his told us. I wondered why John Burns of the NYT didn't report this, he was there along with Brian Williams the moderator. It's their silence that you should question.
The Bad News:
That so many have not heard General Clark speak about the "seven countries" is a clear sign that important news isn't getting out no matter how qualified the messenger, and no matter that he has delivered the message over and over again for years. The fault lies not with Wes Clark but with those who have eyes and ears and refused to listen and/or to read.