I've edited this extensively. I hope DU'ers who don't have time to read or watch the full speech enjoy it!
Edit: link to full text of speech below.
October 13, 2006
University of Alabama
"There was a man named Paul Wolfowitz...And I remember going to Washington right after the Gulf War in the spring of 1991, and he asked me to come into his office for a visit...He said..We've got a window..I was a One-Star General. I wasn't working for him. I wasn't even thinking about those kinds of things...You see what Paul Wolfowitz was saying was that it was time for a new strategy, to move away from the strategy that had kept us safe during the Cold War, a strategy of deterrence, of not using force, of containment, into a strategy of using force, of invading countries, of overthrowing governments."
<snip>
"they would invade Iraq and settle an old score and move into that strategy that Paul Wolfowitz had described to me in 1991. There was no public debate. There was no discussion of what this meant. There was obfuscation. I went through the Pentagon a week after 9/11. One of the Generals called me in, and he said, "Sir," he said, "come in here in my office... He said, "Sir, we're going to invade Iraq." I said, "We're going to invade Iraq!?! Why?" And he said, "Because," he says, "I don't know why. Really," he said, "It doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but," he said, "I guess they don't know what to do about the problem of terrorism, and if the only tool you have is a hammer, then every problem has to look like a nail." He said, "We don't know what to do about terrorists, but we can take down governments. So, I guess they're looking for a government to take down. Meanwhile we started bombing in Afghanistan. So well, I came back to see the same General in early November. I said, "Are we still going to invade Iraq?" He said, "Yes, Sir," he said, "but it's worse than that." I said, "How do you mean?" He held up this piece of paper. He said, "I just got this memo today or yesterday from the office of the Secretary of Defense upstairs. It's a, it's a five-year plan. We're going to take down seven countries in five years. We're going to start with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, then Libya, Somalia, Sudan, we're going to come back and get Iran in five years. I said, "Is that classified, that paper?" He said, "Yes Sir." I said, "Well, don't show it to me, because I want to be able to talk about it." And I begin to see what wasn't being explained to the American people, which was the overall drift of where the policy was. We still didn't have a strategy, but we were driven to take action."
<snip>
"A friend of mine sent a note to Secretary Rumsfeld, a retired Four-Star, said, "Rummy, you need to put some troops in Afghanistan" He said, "I can't. Can't spare 'em. Saving 'em for Iraq. That was early 2002. We've pulled intelligence out of Afghanistan, Special Forces out of Afghanistan, and we lined up. The Military was told to prepare to invade Iraq as early as October of 2002. Turned out we didn't invade until 2000- spring of 2003, but the decision had been made long before they went through the charade of going to the United Nations and all that. And there were people actively pulling inside the administration for the failure of diplomacy, because they didn't want anything to stop the invasion."
<snip>
"War us ugly (pounds the podium). It is unpredictable. And when you kill people's relatives they hate you forever."
<snip>
"There was no strategy. If there was, it was incoherent and it was counterproductive, because what it did was serve as a recruiting magnet for Al Qaeda. Those images of American troops killing Iraqis, they're flashed all over the world every day, and they make people's blood boil."
<snip>
So, what do we do? Got to go back to first principles here. Our power comes because of who we are as a nation, what we believe in, what we've stood for, what we've done. We protected nations against invasions. We stood for international law. We built alliances. We talked to people we didn't agree with. President Johnson talked to Premiere Kosygin during the Cold War. President Reagan talked to Gorbachev during the Cold War. We've got to talk to the leaders of countries we don't agree with - Iraq, sorry, Iran, Syria, North Korea.
We've got to meet Iraq's neighbors. We've got to fashion a way out, lower the objective. They're not going to be a Jeffersonian Democracy. It's not their culture. It's not their way. They don't understand it. We're discovering new things about Democracy every day ourselves. How do we expect to transplant it when it's not fully grown here? I was down in Birmingham today for the commemoration of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. That was only 40 years ago, in America. We think we're going to fix Iraq and make them a Jeffersonian Democracy like that? Come on, it's not real. Lower the objective, talk with the neighbors, work the politics, and back our troops out of there step by step in a way that preserves America's credibility, keeps Iraq together as a nation, and ensures that Iraq doesn't become another threat to the neighborhood. It can be done if we show the kind of leadership and respect for principles.
And then, we must talk directly to North Korea. They want a peace agreement with us, but they don't know how to get it. When they talk nice to us, we ignore them. When they talk tough, we threaten them. They want to come in out of the cold on their terms. We may not agree with those terms, but are we so weak that we're afraid to talk to North Korea, that all we can to is hide behind China and threaten them?
And we must talk to Iran. The Iranian leader, he's got a real bad mouth on him. He's real ugly. He plays to his right-wing. When he talks tough to America, he gets lots of people saying, 'Way to go Ahmadinejad! You the man!' And when President Bush threatens him, people come in and pat him on the back and say, 'We're behind you. Keep talking tough. We're with you.' It's the way politics works, and he's a political leader. He was actually, you may remember, elected. So, why is it that we can't talk to Iran? Maybe find some common interests. They probably don't want a big war in Iraq either. Now, they want what they want, which may not be what we want, but how are we going to know that if we don't talk to them?
We've got to use our power to build relationships. To win the war on terror you have to have more friends than enemies in the world. There are 50,000 people out there who support Osama bin Laden. That's about two and a half time more than signed up with him on 9/11. That's a pretty good indicator we're not winning, but on the other hand, there's not a single country that supports Osama Bin Laden, not one. So, why is it again that we don't want to work with these other countries? I'll tell you what Osama bin Laden's strategy is. He want's to encourage us to invade Iran and Syria. He wants war. His strategy calls for the creation of zones of chaos and savagery. He wants more Iraqs, where there is no government, no police, and where he can go in and mastermind civil conflict and beheadings, because he thinks from that chaos that he can emerge with leadership. Why do we want to play his game when it's totally against our interests?
What we need is a new strategy that puts us right in the world, that looks at what's important for America's future. We want to back out of Iraq, talk directly to the people we disagree with who are governments, work together with those governments using information exchange, law enforcement, economic development and, only as a last resort, military force to eliminate the hardcore terrorists who can't see the light and come over to our side. It's fundamentally a battle of ideas, and we've got great ideas and theirs, theirs are throwbacks. Most people don't support them. There's probably, there's 6.4 billion people in the world. There's probably 3, 3 billion people who know about the United States of America and there's hardly any of those who don't say they agree with what we stand for, which is protection of the individual, right to have a family, to raise your children to do better. Surely we can win this battle of ideas against 50,000 hardcore fanatics who want to take the world back to the seventh century. Surely that's doable. It's not even a major object of American strategy.
What we have to worry about is our economic future in a global marketplace - how to compete, how to bring jobs to America, how to protect our economic security, how to make sure that the next generation of Americans and the generation after that have Social Security and medical care and great educations, how to keep us on top economically, scientifically in a world where there are major powers like China and India who have more people and will eventually maybe even have more money. That's the strategic problem for America.
We've got to face reality. The time is now. We had no strategy after 9/11. We were taken on a mistaken journey. It's not too late to set the course right, but we must do it now. We must do it here in America's heartland, here in places like Alabama, where Americans every day go about their ordinary lives, and they get a glimmer of it on the television, here through discussion with neighbors, here through your voices, through talking to your elected Representatives and yes, through the ballot box. Here. Now. It's the time that we've got to put our country on the right course.
Thank you.
(applause)
Thank you very much. Thank you.
(continuing applause)
Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you.
Moderator: General Clark has agreed to take a few questions from the audience. So, if you have a brief question, he will offer a brief answer. (laughter) So, we'll have time for lots of questions.
<snip>
Audience member: General, I would like to ask a question that doesn't call for a lot of debate. Your presentation has been so thrilling and so refreshing, so thoughtful. I want to ask whether you have given consideration or will give consideration of running for President of United States.
(enthusiastic applause)
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, I have to answer it the way I've been answering that question. I say, I haven't said I won't. (laughter) That's all I can say. Look, it's not about me, and it's not about 2008. It's about you, and it's about right now. It's about this country. We're on the edge of a disaster in foreign relations. We can have a war with a billion Muslims. It's possible to make that many people hate you, but there's no reason to. And we can have a blow-up in the Korean Peninsula that will definitely effect the price of oil and your stocks and your employment and your future. All of that's possible, but we don't want it. So, I don't want to get it mixed up with me. Everybody knows I ran as Democrat. We probably got a lot of people here who are Republicans, and God love 'em, and I hope they believe in who they are and, and vote. It's about you. It's about the American people. It's about whether you see the issues clearly enough and feel strongly enough to have a voice, because we're in a Democracy, and your voice counts. And it doesn't just have to be about crime in the neighborhood or taxes for road improvements. It has to be about the most, single most important thing we're facing in America in this year which is: How do we keep America safe? We need your voices out there. We need this debate, and we need to carry it to the highest levels of government.
Thank you.
(Applause)
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