What Must Be Done to Complete a Great Victory - Wesley Clark - 4/03

Published on Thursday, April 10, 2003 by the Times/UK
Anti-War Candidate?
What Must Be Done to Complete a Great Victory
by General Wesley Clark

Can anything be more moving than the joyous throngs swarming the streets of Baghdad? Memories of the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the defeat of Milosevic in Belgrade flood back. Statues and images of Saddam are smashed and defiled. Liberation is at hand. Liberation — the powerful balm that justifies painful sacrifice, erases lingering doubt and reinforces bold actions. Already the scent of victory is in the air. Yet a bit more work and some careful reckoning need to be done before we take our triumph.

In the first place, the final military success needs to be assured. Whatever caused the sudden collapse in Iraq, there are still reports of resistance in Baghdad. The regime’s last defenders may fade away, but likely not without a fight. And to the north, the cities of Tikrit, Kirkuk and Mosul are still occupied by forces that once were loyal to the regime. It may take some armed persuasion for them to lay down their arms. And finally, the Baath party and other security services remain to be identified and disarmed.

Then there’s the matter of returning order and security. The looting has to be stopped. The institutions of order have been shattered. And there are scant few American and British forces to maintain order, resolve disputes and prevent the kind of revenge killings that always mark the fall of autocratic regimes. The interim US commander must quickly deliver humanitarian relief and re-establish government for a country of 24 million people the size of California. Already, the acrimony has begun between the Iraqi exile groups, the US and Britain, and local people.

Still, the immediate tasks at hand in Iraq cannot obscure the significance of the moment. The regime seems to have collapsed — the primary military objective — and with that accomplished, the defense ministers and generals, soldiers and airmen should take pride. American and Brits, working together, produced a lean plan, using only about a third of the ground combat power of the Gulf War. If the alternative to attacking in March with the equivalent of four divisions was to wait until late April to attack with five, they certainly made the right call.

As for the political leaders themselves, President Bush and Tony Blair should be proud of their resolve in the face of so much doubt.

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0917-14.htm

I was hopelessly depressed when Dubya marched to war and I could do nothing to stop it. The reasons were lies and i knew it (hell I wasn't even up on DU at that time). The only way to avoid madness was to hope that the war would end swiftly and without a lot of casualties (on either side really).

I watched Gen Clark on CNN and got the same messages. He didn't think we should be there but was hoping against hope that the war would end swiftly....he always expressed reservations about "the day after".

As far as complimenting the troops....he spent 34 years in the military and I suppose you never get over the impulse to cheer for your team.

I don't hold it against him.....

as it would have made him appear to look like he was wanting the mission to fail.Even if he didn't agree with the war he didn't want the mission to fail.And there were successes in the early stages of the war he was pointing them out.As an anylist that was his job.after they started the war if he would have kept saying they shouldn't have went in he wouldn't have been an anylist he would have been a protester.Not that there's any thing wrong with protesters.I watched him on CNN much and I never got the impression he was convinced by Bush's criteria for going to war.He was paid to anylize objectively,I think he did a good job.Many people will interpet it any way that suits them,but I have no doubt he was never on board supporting this presidents reasons and decision for going to war.

As for the political leaders themselves, President Bush and Tony Blair should be proud of their resolve in the face of so much doubt.

What does he mean by this statement?

Can anything be more moving than the joyous throngs swarming the streets of Baghdad? Memories of the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the defeat of Milosevic in Belgrade flood back. Statues and images of Saddam are smashed and defiled. Liberation is at hand. Liberation — the powerful balm that justifies painful sacrifice, erases lingering doubt and reinforces bold actions. Already the scent of victory is in the air. (snip)
As for the political leaders themselves, President Bush and Tony Blair should be proud of their resolve in the face of so much doubt.

those are not the words of an "anti-war" candidate. those are the words of a man who wanted to be on the side he thought was winning at the time.

when he says nonsense like this: "As for the political leaders themselves, President Bush and Tony Blair should be proud of their resolve in the face of so much doubt. "

He may be trying to give the impression now that he had his doubts -- but the time to speak up clearly and unambiguously against the war was before the war -- it took real courage on the part of Dean, Graham, Kucinich, Sharpton and Braun.

Many Gulf states will hustle to praise their liberation from a sense of insecurity they were previously loath even to express. Egypt and Saudi Arabia will move slightly but perceptibly towards Western standards of human rights. Germany has already swung round from opposition to the war to approval. France will look for a way to bridge the chasm of understanding that has ripped at the EU. Russia will have to craft a new way forward, detouring away, at least temporarily, from the reflexive anti-Americanism which infects the power ministries. And North Korea will shudder, for it has seen on display an even more awesome display of power than it anticipated, and yet it will remain resolute in seeking leverage to assure its own regime’s survival.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it's my impression from browsing (admittedly often conflicting) news reports here on DU that

• Germany continues to criticize the Iraq invasion as unjust;
• France is looking for ways to turn the 'chasm of understanding' into a moat to secure EU states from American influence;
• Russia's new way forward involves strengthening its ties to Iran and Saudi Arabia, the latter of which is now pursuing nuclear weapons for its own defense;
• North Korea continues to threaten that any hostility will be met with mushroom clouds.

Clark seems here to have been bitten by the same Bob-forsaken "they hate us for our freedoms but they will love us for our big honking army" bug which forms the core of the PNACzi fantasy world. Is this the kind of foreign policy experience that's supposed to make people drop candidates like Dean in favor of? Lauding the "implacable determination to use force"?

Just a week ago, I was having lunch with my brother and mentioned that I (at the moment a Dean supporter) didn't really have any opinion on the possibility of a Clark candidacy, because I figured if he opposed Dean's *positions*, he didn't stand a chance, and if he paralleled Dean's positions, well, I don't hold much stock in any magic "electability" factor for one candidate over another -- I'll be happy to vote for sanity under any name. But this doesn't sound like sanity to me, and I very suddenly am worried.

The world saw Iraq as a war of aggression because it was one -- this isn't up for debate. We weren't attacked by Iraq, and we didn't go in to defend an ally who'd been attacked. Nobody is going to respect us for this war. Is it such a difficult concept to grasp that people generally don't want to pet a rabid dog?