Clark says new U.S. view needed May 9, 2007
Posted by jenmarie in defense, military, national goals, national security, speech.trackback
Former NATO chief tells Union students military might alone not enough
By DENNIS YUSKO, Staff writer
First published: Wednesday, May 9, 2007
SCHENECTADY — – Military force alone cannot win in Iraq or against terrorism. America also needs a new foreign policy based on values like diplomacy if it is to succeed in the 21st century.
That was the message from retired four-star Gen. Wesley Clark to Union College students on Tuesday.
Clark, who served as NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander and led missions in Kosovo and Bosnia during the 1990s, spoke for about an hour in the school’s Memorial Chapel.
The U.S. has lost legitimacy in the world under the Bush Administration, and needs to restore it through traditional American ideals if it is to conquer al-Qaida and other global terror cells, said Clark, a centrist Democrat who hasn’t ruled out another presidential run in 2008.
Toward that end, Clark recommended America move past its fear from the 9/11 attacks and talk without condition to every nation in the Middle East; renounce permanent American bases in Iraq; fully comply with all standards of the Geneva Convention; and do not torture detainees.
“We will never succeed in protecting this country if we become what they are,” Clark told an audience of about 900.
Clark retired from the military in 2000, after 34 years of service, and earned the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Silver Star, Bronze Star and the Purple Heart.
But success in this new age of warfare requires winning battles of ideas, holding alliances together, respecting international law and removing the humiliation and outrage many Arabs feel in the face of American occupation, Clark said.
Incidents like Abu Graib only feed recruitment for al-Qaida, and Iraq has become the overriding political issue across America, he said.
Regaining American legitimacy can’t be achieved “until we can clear the decks of Iraq and the mistaken idea that the global war on terrorism can be won by military force,” Clark said.
Not pursuing Osama bin Laden in Tora Bora, Afghanistan, and entering Iraq was a tragic blunder, Clark said. He called Iraq “a consuming national tragedy.”
“The major threat to the United States is not Iraq, and it never has been,” Clark said.
Clark graduated first in his class from the United States Military Academy at West Point. In 1966, he was awarded a Rhodes scholarship to Oxford University, where he earned a master’s degree.
Reports of American torture breaks his heart, he said.
“It can’t be this way and have us win.”
