General Wesley Clark's Take on Obama and Syria

Last edited Sun Jul 27, 2014, 04:01 PM - Edit history (3)

Wesley Clark on Syria; he invokes Bill Clinton

by Max Brantley - Sep 2, 2013



http://www.arktimes.com/ArkansasBlog/archives/2013/09/02/wesley-clark-on-syria

It quotes from this article:

Wesley Clark: Syria vs. Kosovo

...As in the case of Syria today, there was no United Nations resolution explicitly authorizing NATO to bomb Serbia. But NATO nations found other ways, including an earlier U.N. Security Council Resolutionpage 105, to legally justify what had to be done. In Syria, the violation of the 1925 Geneva prohibition against the use of chemical weapons is probably sufficient justification. (The fact that Russia used chemical weapons in Afghanistan in the 1980s should be used to undercut Russian objections to strikes against Syria today.)...

The Kosovo campaign was also less tidily packaged at the time than it appears in retrospect. When the bombing began, NATO had not yet formulated its political conditions for halting the bombing. NATO nations hardened their views when the Serbs retaliated against the civilian population of Kosovo and neighboring Macedonia. These episodes are always fluid, but so long as your political coalition is well organized - and NATO was - objectives can be modified and clarified during the course of military action. Not every "I" has to be dotted or "t" crossed before initiating a strike...

Finally, Kosovo taught us that diplomacy can smooth over hostilities with nations that oppose your policy. At the outset of the Kosovo campaign, Russia pulled its liaison personnel out of NATO HQ, sent a representative into Belgrade, and belligerently threatened to send out its Black Sea fleet to interfere with NATO operations. Intensive diplomacy, including repeated visits to Moscow by Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott, eventually brought the Russians into co-leading a diplomatic mission that culminated in Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's acceptance of NATO conditions. Heated protests aren't insurmountable if there is persistent diplomacy before and after hostilities commence...

But President Obama has rightly drawn a line at the use of chemical weapons. Some weapons are simply too inhuman to be used. And, as many of us learned during 1990s, in the words of President Clinton, "Where we can make a difference, we must act."

http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2013/08/29/syria-wesley-clark-kosovo-nato/2726733/

Brantley goes on to say:

And, because after sleeping on it I'm still stunned by Republican Rep. Tim Griffin's sneering condescension on the issue, I'd like to repeat it in full here:

“It will be an uphill battle for the president to convince me because I think he has handled this entire situation quite poorly,” said Representative Tim Griffin, Republican of Arkansas. “And frankly I am reluctant to give him a license for war when, with all due respect, I have little confidence he knows what he is doing.”

Tim Griffin and other Republicans in Arkansas simply do not accept President Obama's legitimacy regardless of issue. It runs deeper than philosophical differences.

That is what it is, for them. Those who seek to make the case that the President is doing a Bush - Cheney PNAC action will fail. He is not their man. He has not, and will not. do as they want and they will never forgive him for not being their servant.

JMHO.

EDIT: I made an OP out of my reply here, and just added more information:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1017143855#post21

The OP's video left the impression Clark verified Obama's proposed action was planned in 2001. That is not correct, as PNAC planned that in 1997.

The video has no date mentioned, making it appear new. I found the same video posted in 2011. It is video of a Democracy Now interview March 2, 2007.

Thus the premise the video channel is promoting is incorrect. I posted here since I know the BOG is into factual content.

I hope this will enlighten anyone here upset by it as it would be easy to be disturbed by this coming out now. But it did not come out now.

I noticed the comments on youtube, and there is more than one copy of this, that people are falling for this error. A quick google of Democracy Now, Clark, Seven Countries in Five Years, Syria, etc. yields a more factual picture than an undated video.


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