Wesley Clark, the world's savior
By glazou on Saturday 7 February 2004, 11:47 - Bushisms - Permalink
excerpt from his official orkut's profile:
" After 34 years of military service (rank of 4-star General), including being the Supreme Allied Commander of Europe and saving 1.5 million Albanians from ethnic cleansing, I am now running for President of the United States under the Democratic ticket. I am a brand new grandfather. "
Only 1.5 million Albanians. Ah. Because there was ethnic cleansing in Albania. Or is he making no difference between Albania and Kosovo, which his quite crazy for a man proposing his name for the presidency of the USA (well, at least he knows the name of Albania, I guess Bush calls it Banania). And he carried them one by one on his shoulders I presume. Ahlalala... American state men have a real problem with geography, diplomacy, and even often History...
Comments
Can you stop your anti-American rhetoric?
You French have nothing on us.
We could kick your ass if we wanted too:P
Kosovars <em>are</em> Albanians, according to the nationalists among them.
That was a cheap misinformed shot. :p
(By the way, you set a background color for your input tags, but no color -- not everyone uses black as default color!
lame troll attempt@comment 1...
We, are the nicest people in thw world and all you can do is complain.
You'll have to forgive me, but you don't seem very nice. Let the man have his opinion, for crying out loud.
Wes Clark is an extremely bright man. Rhodes Scholar, 1st in his class at West Point. He cares deeply about saving lives, which is why he went into Kosovo and why he fought for intervention in Rwanda and Bosnia.
He risked his career to save those people. He holds a very high standing among many countries around the world for how diplomatic he is.
Believe me, he knows the difference. He could possibily be the most knowledgable leader the past century for any country.
Next time you try to insult someone, know the facts.
Who said Clark is not a nice man ? I am criticizing the facts AND the form here.
a) the bombings in Yugoslavia did NOT stop mass killings of Kososavars AT ALL; just get UN reports.
b) those bombings were described by all military observers as having poor effects; even Pentagon's reports after the end of the war give a ratio number of bombs / hits so poor than many observers could not believe it.
c) he was not alone there, and it was not HIS personal decision; he was __only__ a military, and in a normal democratic country, the politicians order, the militars obey. He was not the primary decider here.
I am criticizing the form "he save 1.5 million kosovars". It's not an insult to say this is not factual. Facts would have been "he helped saving 1.5 million kosovars".
For one thing, it's quite doubtful that Wesley Clark himself sat down at the computer and wrote those words. Orkut isn't the place to go to pick up votes, so Clark would have to be an idiot to waste his time on it.
That being said, Clark isn't an idiot, and I have no doubt that he knows his geography well. Have you actually heard him speak? Do you know anything about his foreign policy ideas? He is the only candidate with whom I feel totally comfortable in foreign policy. He knows how tough it is to work with other countries, and he still thinks it's worth it. He's also realistic enough to admit that we still will put our desires first (as all nations tend to do). Other candidates like Dean would have us being so multilateral that the public would never support it.
(In other words, Clark is the best one (FP-wise) because he would have the U.S. being as multilateral as it realistically could be.)
When people call you anti-American, it's because they feel that you're misrepresenting the facts. I feel often that you have something against us, since the international criticism here always seems to go against the U.S. Yes, I'm embarassed by Bush, but your comment about American statesmen being poor with geography was unwarranted. Bush is the one who needs to read some more. Not Clark.
> For one thing, it's quite doubtful that Wesley Clark himself sat
> down at the computer and wrote those words. Orkut isn't the place to
> go to pick up votes, so Clark would
> have to be an idiot to waste his time on it.
That's a very very VERY bad excuse. Clark is a "public" person and his profile at Orkut is explicitely described as "official". I just don't mind if he wrote himself or hired someone to do it. It represents Wesley Clark, and he should care about the precision of the data he releases as a politician. No politician should ever let imprecise data reach the public with his/her name on it.
> That being said, Clark isn't an idiot, and I have no doubt that he
> knows his geography well. Have you actually heard him speak? Do you
Yes I have.
> know anything about his foreign
> policy ideas? He is the only candidate with whom I feel totally
Clark is not a bad man. I can admit he's probably one of the best candidates for US presidency I have seen so far. But he is also a man whose political choice and orientation was not obvious to describe just a few months ago. Hey he found himself to be a democrat quite recently, remember?
On a more personal note, I don't like seeing militars getting a political mandate. That's just me, and it's totally independant from W.Clark or the US.
> comfortable in foreign policy. He knows how tough it is to work with
> other countries, and he still thinks
A lot of other countries think it is tough to work with the US
Especially these days. Don't even ask French administration about
it :-))))
> it's worth it. He's also realistic enough to admit that we still
> will put our desires first (as all nations tend to do). Other
> candidates like Dean would have us being so
> multilateral that the public would never support it.
>
> (In other words, Clark is the best one (FP-wise) because he would
> have the U.S. being as multilateral as it realistically could be.)
I am like Saint-Thomas : I believe what I see. For the moment, we can only speculate on what Clark would do as a US President.
> When people call you anti-American, it's because they feel that
> you're misrepresenting the facts. I feel often that you have
> something against us, since the international
> criticism here always seems to go against the U.S. Yes, I'm
Well, the US are a bit more present on the international stage and have a bit more impact than other countries. Quite natural that you get more reactions IMHO... One cannot want to be the only world superpower _and_ remain closed eyes and ears to the rest of the world. Hey wait, I just described G.W.Bush, isn't it ?-)
> embarassed by Bush, but your comment about American statesmen being
> poor with geography was unwarranted. Bush
> is the one who needs to read some more. Not Clark.
We'll see. For the moment, rare, very rare are the US politicians who did not make very big mistakes about european basic geography or History.
I read your post and it seems that it is your geografi knowledge that is faulty. Quite a lot Kosovars are indeed albanians culturally and ethnically even though they are not part of the state of Albanian. You have to remember that a lot of the Balkan countries are ethnically very mixed and the former Yougoslavia is perhaps the archtype of this fact.
However, I agree that arguing that he personally saved all those people is quite dumb and pretentious. Even as a general you are but a part of a larger military operation.
I'm not sure how to quote text for a reply, so I'll respond to your points:
You are right that a politician should care about the accuracy of the data that he releases. However, Orkut is so new and so obscure that I would never take what I read there too seriously (espcially when it comes from the non-technical, like most politicians). I would not expect Clark or anyone who knew him particularly well to visit Orkut, and if you found this description in a more public setting then I would be much more perturbed. But it seems your point about geography is contestible anyway.
About Clark being a psuedo-Democrat: I said I liked his FP, not his domestic policy. I would not trust him as president because I don't see why his domestic policy should be any better than my own. And the flip-flopping is troubling.
Clark for Secretary of State or Defense, 2004. That is my position.
Yes, the US is "a bit more present on the international stage." But that doesn't warrant your criticism of its domestic policies, does it? The post making fun of the people seeking to ban the words "evolution"? Why put that one up there instead of a post about some idiots in Britain? Because you like to make fun of the U.S.? That's how it comes across.
And where are all the politicians (besides Bush) making these egregious errors? (As I don't support this administration and its disastrous foreign policy, I hope you name a few who aren't on Bush's side)