Journal drunkrussian's Journal: General Wesley Clark and Governor Howard Dean
America is right now stuck with a lost and confused foreign policy. In 2004, the Democratic candidate, to get my vote, must be ready to repair the damage the current administration is doing to American foreign policy.
Right now, the rhetoric coming from the administration clearly indicates that we are prepared to go to war with Iraq, with Security Council approval or not. This is incredibly dangerous to US foreign policy. How would we feel if Iraqi forces came into the United States to despose George W. Bush, claiming he was "unelected" and "despotic"? Or, even more appropriately, how would we feel if Iran were to announce a policy of "regime change" in Pakistan? What would we do if Iran decided to remove General Musharraf, the leader of Pakistan, and replace him with a leader extremely hostile to the United States?
This double standard is a very risky proposition. Okay, so there may be some slight short-term gains. However, in the long-term, this will do terrible things to our reputation in the international community, and will do nothing to improve American security other than creating a mass of recruits willing to fight in terrorist organizations around the world against the United States. Whoopty do.
There is no goal of American foreign policy that cannot be achieved through a long-term policy based on justice and the rule of law. Slobodan Milosevic is on trial in the Hague now. East Timor is an independent nation. Afghanistan is every day becoming more stable under an international peacekeeping force. Even China, untouchable through the UN due to their Security Council veto power, has begun to open itself up to democracy and improvement of human rights through trade agreements and the WTO. Multilateral instruments and organizations can work - but only if there is no double standard. We cannot force the smaller, less powerful nations to abide by rules set by international bodies the large, powerful nations do not follow.
Look at the case of NATO. NATO was founded as an organization in which the United States would come to the aid of Western Europe in the event of Soviet attack. When NATO first invoked Article Five, Europe came to the aid of the United States. Since then (September 2001), European NATO pilots have been flying AWACS sorties over the United States. This benefit is exactly the kind of thing that comes out of a foreign policy where we may sometimes be bound by a law higher than doing whatever we want to do.
However, with our invasion of Iraq, we are about to undertake an attack that is condemned by the vast majority of the international community. We do not care. We are going to adopt the policy of "regime change," despite the fact that it is completely unjustified under international law. There is no provision in international law for removing the leader of a state, since that could completely destroy the framework of states, which has set up international law!
This action will weaken international law and the UN. That will permanently damage our ability to carry out future action against states attempting to develop weapons of mass destruction. Not that we have the moral high ground on that issue - this rhetoric about keeping the world safe from weapons of mass destruction comes from the nation with the largest nuclear arsenal in the world, a nation that has tested biological weapons against its own citizens (in San Francisco and against Navy ships, resulting in several deaths).
If we got Security Council approval for a war in Iraq, I would feel much more comfortable about it. I'm not saying it's what I would do, but who am I to stand in the way of the Security Council? However, the administration's reckless policies seem to indicate that we are going to war with Iraq either way. It's hard to argue otherwise when the administration claims that the inspectors not finding anything automatically means noncompliance by Iraq. How can they get out of that situation - if the inspectors find nothing, they are not cooperating, but if the inspectors find something, they are in breach of international law?
This breakdown in American foreign policy is why we require a different kind of Democratic nominee. Every senator in the race voted in favor of the war. Only Governor Howard Dean has publicly come out against war in Iraq. General Wesley Clark has also come out against the war. So has Al Gore.
I do not by any stretch of the imagination support Saddam Hussein. He is an evil man who has committed the worst atrocities imaginable against his people. However, he has not attacked us. The terrorists did that. Anyone who looks at Iraq and compares it with terrorist organizations will immediately come to the realization that there is no way Hussein would ever give weapons to the kind of terrorist organizations that fight against the United States. The same criticisms that have been leveled against the United States can be equally leveled against Iraq. Iraq is a secular state in the Middle East. Groups like al Qaeda would never work with a state like that! Osama bin Laden offered to fight on the side of the coalition in the Gulf War!
However, Dean, Gore, and Clark all make the same key point: the war on Iraq distracts us from the war on terrorism. Right now, there are many more places in the world we should be going if we want to be rid of the terrorist menace.
Gore, obviously, is not running for the Democratic nomination. It's unfortunate - he is the most successful Democratic candidate in history, judging by votes received. Clark has not announced that he is in the race. Dean has announced, but has little name recognition or fund-raising capacity.
General Wesley Clark would be my first choice for the Democratic nominee for president. General Clark is a genius - he graduated first in his class at West Point. He rose through the military ranks quickly, commanding troops in battle, and eventually becoming an assistant to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. At the JCS, he became intimately familiar with conducting foreign affairs. He was then appointed Supreme Allied Commander, Europe - the top military commander of all NATO forces. As SACEUR, he gained a lot of experience in working with groups such as the NATO General Assembly and the member states of NATO. He led the Kosovo campaign that liberated Kosovo and destroyed Slobodan Milosevic's infrastructure to the point that the people were able to despose Milosevic. He then commanded the relief and reconstruction mission for Kosovo, KFOR. Unfortunately, Clark was relieved of command as SACEUR after publishing a book called "Waging Modern War," in which he sharply criticized his civilian commanders.
Clark is an innovator. He successfully demonstrated during the Kosovo campaign the way modern war will be fought. Many lessons were learned from that campaign that carried over to the war in Afghanistan. Clark also has been a major innovator in the concept of Operations Other Than War (OOTW) - peacekeeping, for example. KFOR is a textbook OOTW operation. While the civilian administration may profess to be against "nation-building," the military quietly has recognized that OOTW is an inevitable result of conflict in the modern world. The military forces in Afghanistan right now are performing an OOTW operation right now. In Iraq, no doubt there will be OOTW operations after the war we seem to have decided to undertake. Clark wrote the book on how to do OOTW operations in Kosovo.
Clark has been meeting with Democratic strategists and donors. However, I believe that it may be too late for him to mount a serious fight for the nomination. Clark would be as famous Colin Powell, except for one thing - by virtue of being the OOTW innovator, rather than the military leader in a major successful conflict, he has had much less publicity than a general such as Colin Powell.
Dean is also an attractive candidate because of his views. However, Dean is unfortunately in as difficult a situation as General Clark. I'm afraid neither one will be able to mount a presidential campaign in 2004. I've got a feeling that Clark's meetings may be about running in 2008.
Oh well. Only six more years of a lost and confused foreign policy! And let's not forget about the domestic issues...with our new Republican Congress, we're going to make the tax cut permanent, spend out of the deficit, and massively increase the national debt!
The only chance for the Democrats is if something goes severely wrong during the next two years, particularly with regards to the economy.
Oh well.
Right now, the rhetoric coming from the administration clearly indicates that we are prepared to go to war with Iraq, with Security Council approval or not. This is incredibly dangerous to US foreign policy. How would we feel if Iraqi forces came into the United States to despose George W. Bush, claiming he was "unelected" and "despotic"? Or, even more appropriately, how would we feel if Iran were to announce a policy of "regime change" in Pakistan? What would we do if Iran decided to remove General Musharraf, the leader of Pakistan, and replace him with a leader extremely hostile to the United States?
This double standard is a very risky proposition. Okay, so there may be some slight short-term gains. However, in the long-term, this will do terrible things to our reputation in the international community, and will do nothing to improve American security other than creating a mass of recruits willing to fight in terrorist organizations around the world against the United States. Whoopty do.
There is no goal of American foreign policy that cannot be achieved through a long-term policy based on justice and the rule of law. Slobodan Milosevic is on trial in the Hague now. East Timor is an independent nation. Afghanistan is every day becoming more stable under an international peacekeeping force. Even China, untouchable through the UN due to their Security Council veto power, has begun to open itself up to democracy and improvement of human rights through trade agreements and the WTO. Multilateral instruments and organizations can work - but only if there is no double standard. We cannot force the smaller, less powerful nations to abide by rules set by international bodies the large, powerful nations do not follow.
Look at the case of NATO. NATO was founded as an organization in which the United States would come to the aid of Western Europe in the event of Soviet attack. When NATO first invoked Article Five, Europe came to the aid of the United States. Since then (September 2001), European NATO pilots have been flying AWACS sorties over the United States. This benefit is exactly the kind of thing that comes out of a foreign policy where we may sometimes be bound by a law higher than doing whatever we want to do.
However, with our invasion of Iraq, we are about to undertake an attack that is condemned by the vast majority of the international community. We do not care. We are going to adopt the policy of "regime change," despite the fact that it is completely unjustified under international law. There is no provision in international law for removing the leader of a state, since that could completely destroy the framework of states, which has set up international law!
This action will weaken international law and the UN. That will permanently damage our ability to carry out future action against states attempting to develop weapons of mass destruction. Not that we have the moral high ground on that issue - this rhetoric about keeping the world safe from weapons of mass destruction comes from the nation with the largest nuclear arsenal in the world, a nation that has tested biological weapons against its own citizens (in San Francisco and against Navy ships, resulting in several deaths).
If we got Security Council approval for a war in Iraq, I would feel much more comfortable about it. I'm not saying it's what I would do, but who am I to stand in the way of the Security Council? However, the administration's reckless policies seem to indicate that we are going to war with Iraq either way. It's hard to argue otherwise when the administration claims that the inspectors not finding anything automatically means noncompliance by Iraq. How can they get out of that situation - if the inspectors find nothing, they are not cooperating, but if the inspectors find something, they are in breach of international law?
This breakdown in American foreign policy is why we require a different kind of Democratic nominee. Every senator in the race voted in favor of the war. Only Governor Howard Dean has publicly come out against war in Iraq. General Wesley Clark has also come out against the war. So has Al Gore.
I do not by any stretch of the imagination support Saddam Hussein. He is an evil man who has committed the worst atrocities imaginable against his people. However, he has not attacked us. The terrorists did that. Anyone who looks at Iraq and compares it with terrorist organizations will immediately come to the realization that there is no way Hussein would ever give weapons to the kind of terrorist organizations that fight against the United States. The same criticisms that have been leveled against the United States can be equally leveled against Iraq. Iraq is a secular state in the Middle East. Groups like al Qaeda would never work with a state like that! Osama bin Laden offered to fight on the side of the coalition in the Gulf War!
However, Dean, Gore, and Clark all make the same key point: the war on Iraq distracts us from the war on terrorism. Right now, there are many more places in the world we should be going if we want to be rid of the terrorist menace.
Gore, obviously, is not running for the Democratic nomination. It's unfortunate - he is the most successful Democratic candidate in history, judging by votes received. Clark has not announced that he is in the race. Dean has announced, but has little name recognition or fund-raising capacity.
General Wesley Clark would be my first choice for the Democratic nominee for president. General Clark is a genius - he graduated first in his class at West Point. He rose through the military ranks quickly, commanding troops in battle, and eventually becoming an assistant to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. At the JCS, he became intimately familiar with conducting foreign affairs. He was then appointed Supreme Allied Commander, Europe - the top military commander of all NATO forces. As SACEUR, he gained a lot of experience in working with groups such as the NATO General Assembly and the member states of NATO. He led the Kosovo campaign that liberated Kosovo and destroyed Slobodan Milosevic's infrastructure to the point that the people were able to despose Milosevic. He then commanded the relief and reconstruction mission for Kosovo, KFOR. Unfortunately, Clark was relieved of command as SACEUR after publishing a book called "Waging Modern War," in which he sharply criticized his civilian commanders.
Clark is an innovator. He successfully demonstrated during the Kosovo campaign the way modern war will be fought. Many lessons were learned from that campaign that carried over to the war in Afghanistan. Clark also has been a major innovator in the concept of Operations Other Than War (OOTW) - peacekeeping, for example. KFOR is a textbook OOTW operation. While the civilian administration may profess to be against "nation-building," the military quietly has recognized that OOTW is an inevitable result of conflict in the modern world. The military forces in Afghanistan right now are performing an OOTW operation right now. In Iraq, no doubt there will be OOTW operations after the war we seem to have decided to undertake. Clark wrote the book on how to do OOTW operations in Kosovo.
Clark has been meeting with Democratic strategists and donors. However, I believe that it may be too late for him to mount a serious fight for the nomination. Clark would be as famous Colin Powell, except for one thing - by virtue of being the OOTW innovator, rather than the military leader in a major successful conflict, he has had much less publicity than a general such as Colin Powell.
Dean is also an attractive candidate because of his views. However, Dean is unfortunately in as difficult a situation as General Clark. I'm afraid neither one will be able to mount a presidential campaign in 2004. I've got a feeling that Clark's meetings may be about running in 2008.
Oh well. Only six more years of a lost and confused foreign policy! And let's not forget about the domestic issues...with our new Republican Congress, we're going to make the tax cut permanent, spend out of the deficit, and massively increase the national debt!
The only chance for the Democrats is if something goes severely wrong during the next two years, particularly with regards to the economy.
Oh well.
General Wesley Clark and Governor Howard Dean More Login
General Wesley Clark and Governor Howard Dean
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