IMPORTANT: Correction about Clark on Saudi Arabia!!!

[BurtWorm]

BROWN: You said -- you just said and you have said before you wouldn't have gone in. Do you think the world and the region, perhaps more particularly, is a better place because Saddam Hussein has been overthrown?

CLARK: Well, all things being equal, yes. But all things are never equal.

And this is a case where there are -- there are pluses and minuses on this. Certainly, the Iraqi people now have an opportunity to grasp for freedom. And we've uncovered some of the horrendous excesses and depredations of the Iraqi regime and brought them to light.

On the other hand, personal security, economic security is down in many places in Iraq. There is terrorism in Iraq that wasn't there before. We have charged up the al Qaeda recruiting machine. I guess we could have done even a better job of reinforcing Osama bin Laden had we invaded Saudi Arabia. But next to Saudi Arabia, going into Iraq was a pretty good thing for al Qaeda. It put a U.S. and British force on the ground in an Arab country and gave them all the ammunition they needed to raise the intensity of hatred against the West.

So these things balance out. And it's really too soon to say. I would say, at best, it's a net wash. It may be negative for U.S. security on the whole.

[Dookus]

1. This is why I like him.....

he discusses with nuance and subtleties - not silly sound bytes.

[BurtWorm]

2. kick

[Zuni]

3. I like Wes Clark because he is not an ideologue

He is a balanced thinker, who weighs issues like I do. He seems to actually think about everything before dismissing it. He actually thinks about the issues, unlike so many people who are stuck in a deep ideological framework. Anyone can be a right wing or left wing ideologue and just stick to the sectarian line. But those people are zealots and we do not need any more zealots on the White House.

[Pastiche423]

4. "...the Iraqi people now have an opportunity to grasp for freedom."

:puke:

Keep trying. :eyes:

[BurtWorm]

5. It's not true?

Isn't it more true that they now have an opportunity to kick the occupation out on its ass and grasp some kind of freedom, more of an opportunity than they had to kick Saddam out on his ass? I'm not saying it's a good thing we invaded, but I'm not blind to the truth that the Iraqis have a little more potential to dispense with the present dictators than they had witht the last, though of course the potential for civil war is also heightened.

[Name removed]

6. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[BurtWorm]

7. I think he is a she

and I'd rather hear him or her express that him or herself.

[wtmusic]

8. Yeah, they're all bad guys

who won't Grab Their Ankles For America.

[Pastiche423]

12. Whaaa?

Have you not been paying attention to what is going on in Iraq? Please tell me you haven't bought the flowers and dancing bullshit.

Hey! Those thousands of innocent Iraqis may be dead, but they now have an opportunity to kick the occupation out on its ass and grasp some kind of freedom, more of an opportunity than they had to kick Saddam out on his ass!

Yep, that's just grand.

[BurtWorm]

13. Please learn how to read.

The words "flowers" and "dancing" were nowhere to be seen in there.

A lesson in nuance: The idea of freedom for Iraqis will not mean the same thing as freedom for any American, left, right, radical or reactionary. It can only be self-determined. But the question is this: Were the Iraqis free under Saddam? Are they free now? I think we would agree in both cases the answer is complicated. But the case can be made--and I am not qualified to make it, so this is not my case, necessarily--that the Iraqis have a better chance to determine their own freedom with Saddam out of power than they did with him in it. And this is irrespective of any American midwifery. This may be too subtle an idea for an ideologue to grasp. Good luck!

[Merlin]

14. Try this on for nuance.

There is more to life than the ability to toss off the current regime. Say, in the US of A, for example. I DETEST this current regime. Yet I live a more or less normal life, so do my kids. Yes, I suffer somewhat in my community for being a Democrat in business. And true, I'm probably not in danger of being killed. But it's not like Hussein was out there killing every third child, either. He was brutal to his political opposition. But he was a remarkably liberal dictator, even allowing his people to have guns. It was the most westernized of Muslim nations, aside from Turkey. Women were treated equally socially and economically.

But let's get back to America. I feel politically oppressed by Bush. I feel he and his ilk have taken over the US political, economic, military and media establishments and are running, effectively, a dictatorship.

Now let me ask you this, Burtworm. Suppose this asshole is re-elected in '04. Do you think I would like it better if, say, the Russians came in here then and took over America and threw out George Bush? Would you expect me to pave their paths with flowers and praises? Can you grasp the fact that in such an improbable circumstance more than a few of us would take our rifles to the fucking hills and kill every last godam Russian invader we could find?

Go ahead. Connect the dots here.

[juajen]

15. I agree with you

They were better off with Sadaam. I disagree with The Great Clark on this one. I think we should beg the UN to come in and hope they can find a democracy or some sort of rule; but, I doubt they will have a better or equal government than the one they had with Sadaam. We have certainly been fed a lot of lies about the Hussein regime. It's very hard to separate fact from fiction. If some of what we were told was untrue, and I know some things are false, he might have been the very best ME ruler. Don't bother flaming me. I think he was had by Bush I and II and I have a right to that opinion.

[BurtWorm]

16. You have to learn to read, too. For context.

I am not saying the Iraqis are better off now than they were before. At this moment they clearly are not. I am not arguing that the war was good, necessary or just. I opposed it before, during, after, and still oppose and will oppose it tomorrow.

I am defending the validity of the phrase Pastiche and others have singled out to criticize in Clark's statement about Iraq, a statement that he/she/they/you all have taken out of context and blown out of proportion. Clark's statement was not about how wonderful the invasion was. His statement in essence was about the foolishness of the war. It is a statement against the war. It's distressing, to say the least, to see well-intentioned people thoughtlessly, reflexively turning it into a pro-war statement because it can't be perfectly shoe-horned into their own positions that the war was not merely foolish but completely, unmitigatedly EEEE-VILLLLL.

[friendofbenn]

9. by grasping for freedom

does he mean grasping for their own oil as its sold off to u.s companies?

[BurtWorm]

10. Is that what you really think he means?

Why is it that some people have to pull shit out of every quote not from Dennis Kucinich?

[Romberry]

11. Sounds like...

...Howard Dean. If Clark gets the nomination, he owes Dean a big "thank you" for making the water safe to come in.

[kentuck]

17. An important statement...

Everybody accepts the simple statement that "Iraq and the world is a better place with Saddam gone", but the General is saying at best, it's a "net wash" but on the whole, it may be a negative for US security. Somebody needed to say it.