John F. Kennedy’s book Profiles in Courage emphasizes that leaders have
their moments–when through a combination of courage and clarity they
can rise to make a difference.
General Clark is able to credibly challenge Bush administration
approaches to war making and diplomacy. In particular, General Clark
has been very convincing when arguing that preemptive military strikes
and a stated strategy of such strikes tends to work against our
long-term US interests. Far from stabilizing the world scene, the
evidence to date is that the doctrine of preemption encourages
terrorism and other forms of aggression against us.
The Daily Kos has a remarkable piece on this topic. In the comments section, Best in Show offered this Wesley Clark quotation from last week’s debate:
CLARK: Judy, I think what people want is they want straight talk and they want leadership.
I think the question that Candy raised about Iran is a very serious question.
And just to pick up on what John
Kerry said, this administration’s preemptive doctrine is causing North
Korea and Iran to accelerate their nuclear weapons development.
Now, there are some of us who aren’t
in Washington right now. But I’d like to ask all those who are — let’s
see some leadership in the United States Congress. Let’s see you take
apart that doctrine of preemption now. I don’t think we can wait until
November of 2004 to change the administration on this threat. We’re
marching into another military campaign in the Middle East. We need to
stop it.
BTW, General Clark seems to be asking John Kerry and Dick Gephardt to
make a stronger stand against the doctrine of preemption. If they
did, it might restore some of my faith in the whole group!