Soldiering on for Wesley Clark

My dear friend Gordon Suber writes this insightful analysis of how the battlelines are being drawn over escalation in Iraq:

2007: It’s Clark versus McCain By Gordon Suber January 9, 2007

President George W. Bush will tell the American people why it is necessary to escalate the Iraq war, adding 20,000 American troops.

Writing in the Washington Post last Sunday, former presidential candidate (2000), Senator John McCain wrote that a small, short surge is a terrible idea. He advocates a larger number, for a longer period.

Writing in the Washington Post last Monday, former presidential candidate (2004) and former NATO Supreme Allied Commander, Wesley K. Clark set forth why he believes a surge in troops in Baghdad is a terrible idea. He advocates diplomacy.

None of us knows who will be battling for the presidency in 2008, but what I know now is that when it comes to finding a solution in Iraq in 2007, it's Clark versus McCain.

Sorry, couldn't resist. I heard the "Fried Rice" moniker after the Senate smacked her around on Friday, and thought it right on the money... so I had a yen to use it.

But on to the main course.

In her Congressional testimony of January 11, 2007, Condoleezza Rice said:

“It is bad policy to speculate on what you'll do if the strategy you are working on doesn't work”

OMG, OMG. Did she make that up on the spot, or is that what passes as planning philosophy in the Bush White House? I know she didn't learn if from anyone at State.

Wes Clark was a guest on Hannity & Colmes the evening after Bush's State of the Union address. And soft pudgy too-good-to-enlist Sean Hannity presumes to lecture the four-star general and decorated combat veteran on military strategy?

Un-effin'-believable.

There's a video of the relevant piece at Crooks & Liars, or you can watch the whole interview at WesPAC's website. But here's what Hannity said:

It's not the people trying to bring them home.

The front page of the local rag carried a large photo above the fold two days ago. It was taken by John Moore of Getty Images, and accompanied an article about our military manpower problems. Hard to believe, but I can't find the photo on-line. It's simple to describe though. On a blank wall outside a Marine Corps civil affairs office in Ramadi Iraq was scribbled these words, writ large in an easy blue script:

UPDATE: I found the photo.

(John Moore/Getty Images)

...before it starts?

We are on the verge of war with Iran, and most of America doesn't even know it.

But make no mistake. George W. Bush wants to attack Iran.

The Sunday Times of London reports:

SOME of America’s most senior military commanders are prepared to resign if the White House orders a military strike against Iran, according to highly placed defence and intelligence sources.

Yesterday I wrote,

There is no doubt at all that many many people who could have made a difference [during the Vietnam era], chose not to, and lived to regret it.
I only hope the generals in the Pentagon today won't look back in ten or twenty years and feel the same way.

How ironic that just this morning on C-SPAN's Washington Journal, I hear David Margolick, the author of a new article in Vanity Fair about the generals who spoke out to call for Donald Rumsfeld's resignation in April 2006.

Particularly striking is a quote from Lieutenant General Greg Newbold, who was the Director for Operations on the Joint Staff in 2002. Describing a pre-invasion planning meeting where Rumsfeld had "summarily dismissed [a 500,000 troop estimate because s]urely 125,000 would suffice," Newbold now says,

"I should have had the gumption to confront him. The right thing to do was to confront, and I didn't. It's something I'll have to live with for a long time."

In an interview on Democracy Now! last week, General Clark spoke about closing the prison at Guantanamo and repealing the Military Commissions Act:

AMY GOODMAN: General Clark, do you think Guantanamo Bay should be closed?

GEN. WESLEY CLARK: Absolutely.

AMY GOODMAN: If Congress cut off funds for the prison there, it would be closed. Should they?

GEN. WESLEY CLARK: Well, I think the first thing Congress should do is repeal the Military Commissions Act. I’m very disturbed that a number of people who are looking at the highest office in the land have supported an act which advertently or inadvertently authorizes the admission into evidence of information gained through torture. That's not the America that I believe in. And the America that I believe in doesn't detain people indefinitely without charges. So I’d start with the Military Commissions Act.

Wes Clark is the last American general to win a war, one that was fought entirely within the framework of a true international alliance, and resulted in not a single allied combat casualty. He is also a veteran of counterinsurgency warfare in Vietnam, where he was wounded four times while commanding troops in battle, and awarded both the Silver Star and Purple Heart for his actions which saved the lives of his men under enemy attack.

Jon Soltz is a veteran and former captain, who completed a tour in Iraq, served with General Clark in Europe, and.returned from the Middle East to organize VoteVets.org, an organization dedicated to electing veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to Congress, and in helping candidates pledged to support the troops, both those deployed and the returning vets who are dependent upon military and VA medical care. VoteVets.org produced and aired a number of effective ads during the 2006 election cycle, probably the best known of which is the Body Armor ad which helped defeat Senators George Allen of Virginia, Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, and Jim Talent of Missouri.

Together, they have recorded this video where they tell us about the military implications of an attack on Iran, both from a general's strategic perspective, and a captain's tactical experience.

I hope you'll take a few minutes to watch.
Then sign up to help Stop the Iran War. While there's still time.

Once more mega-kudos are in order to VoteVets, one of the few veterans organizations that puts the welfare of the troops ahead of partisan politics.

Jon Soltz -- Iraq War Veteran, Co-Founder and Chairman of VoteVets -- writes:

The first in the series of three ads features VoteVets.org Advisory Board Member, Major General (ret.) John Batiste, who was commanding general of the 1st Infantry Division from August 2002-June 2005. During this time frame, he conducted combat operations in Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Batiste twice voted for President Bush and is a lifelong Republican. If you like this ad, then you're going to love what we have coming up in about a week, from Major General Paul Eaton. And, then the ad featuring General Clark after that. That's fitting, because it is General Clark who paved the way for other retired brass to speak out.

Now watch the video....

A New York Times Op-Ed by troops from Iraq:

The War as We Saw It

by Staff Sergeants (E6) Jeremy A. Murphy and Yance T. Gray, Sergeants (E5) Wesley D. Smith, Jeremy Roebuck, Omar Mora, and Edward Sandmeier, and Specialist (E4) Buddhika Jayamaha
Published: August 19, 2007

Viewed from Iraq at the tail end of a 15-month deployment, the political debate in Washington is indeed surreal. Counterinsurgency is, by definition, a competition between insurgents and counterinsurgents for the control and support of a population. To believe that Americans, with an occupying force that long ago outlived its reluctant welcome, can win over a recalcitrant local population and win this counterinsurgency is far-fetched. As responsible infantrymen and noncommissioned officers with the 82nd Airborne Division soon heading back home, we are skeptical of recent press coverage portraying the conflict as increasingly manageable and feel it has neglected the mounting civil, political and social unrest we see every day. (Obviously, these are our personal views and should not be seen as official within our chain of command.)