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Wesley Clark to Join Presidential Debate
AP ^ | September 18, 2003

Posted on 09/18/2003 4:20:13 PM PDT by Shermy

WASHINGTON - Retired Gen. Wesley Clark will participate in the Democratic presidential debate next week, party officials said Thursday.

Democratic National Committee spokeswoman Debra DeShong said Clark's campaign confirmed that he will be at the party's debate on economic issues next Thursday in New York City.

Clark was scheduled to give a paid speech on Thursday, the day the nine other candidates were scheduled to participate in the debate that will be broadcast live on CNBC. His aides had said he may have to miss the debate to honor his commitment.

He was criticized by rival campaigns, who said Clark should change his schedule to lay out his position on economic issues.

Several attempts to reach Clark campaign officials who have knowledge of the debate plans were unsuccessful.

Also Thursday, a campaign official speaking on a condition of anonymity said Clark's campaign manager will be Donnie Fowler, who ran Al Gore's field operation in 2000 and is the son of former DNC chairman Donald Fowler.

DeShong said Clark's campaign also confirmed that he will attend the party's fund-raising dinner after the debate, which should please the donors. "People were incredibly anxious to meet General Clark," she said.

The New York debate will be the second in a series of six debates sponsored by the Democratic National Committee. The candidates also have appeared together at several other forums hosted by Democratic interest groups, including a debate last week in Baltimore sponsored by the Congressional Black Caucus.

Clark, a retired four-star general who was head of the U.S. Southern Command and NATO commander during the 1999 campaign in Kosovo, declared his candidacy Wednesday in his home town of Little Rock, Ark.

Mark Fabiani, strategist for Clark, said that Kym Spell, former New Hampshire press secretary for John Kerry, is joining the Clark press office in Arkansas. Spell, who quit the Kerry campaign this week, could not be reached for comment. Spell was deputy communications director for Al Gore's 2000 campaign.

Spell's departure comes one week after Kerry communications director Chris Lehane resigned. Lehane is Fabiani's longtime business associate.


TOPICS: Front Page News; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: 2004; acxiom; balkans; electionpresident; weasely; wesclark; wesleyclark; wesleykanne
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FYI:

Clark quit Jackson Stephens' Arkansas group Stephens Inc. in March this year, to take a job with CNN. But he holds other postions.

For one, he is a director of Acxiom Corp. Thomas McLarty is a director too. Of recent fame, Acxiom appeared to be the top candidate to provide the software for DARPA's "Total Information Awareness" program.

At least earlier this year, he also served on the boards of Entrust Inc. of Dallas; Sirva Inc. of Westmont, Ill.; and privately held Time Domain Inc. of Huntsville, Ala.

This article doesn't mention Clark, but it's a good list of Clinton/Acxiom/Stephens/Arkansas linkages. Even PROMIS software comes into play! (I can't vouch for the details of the article, though.)

Why Quit, Henry Kissinger? Is It Acxiom?

1 posted on 09/18/2003 4:20:13 PM PDT by Shermy
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To: archy; seamole; aristeides; Peach; Mo1
Ping. Clark's connections to "Acxiom" interesting, IMO.
2 posted on 09/18/2003 4:21:06 PM PDT by Shermy
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To: Shermy
Interesting to see people quiting the Kerry campaign. The Rats are jumping off the sinking ship.
3 posted on 09/18/2003 4:28:45 PM PDT by TheExploited (R-Illinois)
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To: Shermy
The debate must be limited to only those candidates polling 10% or more!!

These so-called debates are putting people to sleep.

Doctors are marketing videos of the Dems to insomniacs..............well at least the Dems are good for something after all.

4 posted on 09/18/2003 4:28:45 PM PDT by CROSSHIGHWAYMAN
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To: archy; Uncle Bill; HAL9000; databoss; locknload; Fred Mertz; the irate magistrate; Askel5; Sandy; ..
For more possible Wesley Clark information, here's a February 2000, theory posted on FR mentioning Acxiom, Inslaw, etc.

OUT-SOURCING BIG BROTHER - Systematics - Alltel - Acxiom - Jackson Stephens

5 posted on 09/18/2003 4:34:31 PM PDT by Shermy
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To: Shermy
I was unaware until last evening, (believe it or not) concerning General Clark's involvement in the Waco affair.

The commanding officer who ordered or approved the order for a a tank to attack the Koresh compound should have (in my opinion) been indicted for war crimes. I realize that we were not at war in Waco, but the principle is the same. A thing is either right or it is not. The actions of the Clinton administration, the FBI, the military, and the US government in general was criminal.

The Army made me listen to a lot of stuff concerning the Geneva Convention. It was a serious part of my Army Basic Training. I wondered considerably about such things as I watched a structure full of children and religious fanatics burn in flames. I will not ever forget those images.

It is OK though according to the media because we all know that democrat administrations are concerned about the children. The democrats kill children in order to prove that they are "concerned" for the children's safety.

Clark is a lackey for the Clinton's and his status as a General Officer is in my view, suspect.
6 posted on 09/18/2003 4:39:05 PM PDT by Radix (We ain't perfect, we are simply just the best....BTW, I think that my Puter problem is fixed.)
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To: Radix
What else is out there on Clark we don't know about? Guess it will be up to Freepers to bring it out as the mainstream press is unlikely to go against the Clinton's chosen one!
7 posted on 09/18/2003 5:14:56 PM PDT by PhiKapMom (Alpha Omnicron Pi Mom too! -- Visit http://www.georgewbush.com!)
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To: PhiKapMom; HAL9000; Destro
Wesley is also a board member of a German company Messer Griesheim that makes, for one, industrial gasses.

That's strange.

Stranger, I found links like this below. Apparently, Messer Griesheim has significant Yugoslavian assets. Here's a weak Babelfish translation from the German.

"... Also during the NATO attack on Yugoslavia, in April 1999, Scharping and Djindjic were guest in the political salon of Hunzinger - however not as advisers, but as listeners and Mitdiskutanten. General Klaus Reinhardt, the later Kfor commander in chief held the lecture. With this erlauchten meeting it must have come to concrete agreements over the bomb goals into Yugoslavia. The "Financial Times Germany" represents, how a German restaurant captain could bring himself into bomb planning: Herbert M. Rudolph, formerly boss of Messer Griesheim, a prominent enterprise for industrial gases, "sat during the Kosovo war in Hunzinger's salon and listened to the lectures. In thoughts was it elsewhere: NATO bombarded remainder Yugoslavia and Messer Griesheim had important factories and depots there. In addition, now Secretary of Defense Rudolf Scharping was present and a Kfor commander in chief (the "FTD" Reinhardt, which was at that time however not yet Kfor commander in chief, means obvious, because the Kfor did not give it yet - to Anm. CONCRETELY). Harm ' nix, imagined Rudolph. And it probably also did not hurt that in Hunzinger's supervisory board also sat Guenther Kiessling the former NATO commander in chief. Anyhow the Serbia oil refineries and gasoline depot were destroyed by planes, the plants of Messer Technogas remained intact, although they were important for the steel production of the country. There Rudolph surely gladly paid the expensive reservation ticket in the salon." http://www.free-slobo.de/notes/ko020902.htm

8 posted on 09/18/2003 5:35:12 PM PDT by Shermy
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To: Shermy; Doctor13; *balkans
Very interesting..........
9 posted on 09/18/2003 7:36:39 PM PDT by Destro (Know your enemy! Help fight Islamic terrorisim by visiting www.johnathangaltfilms.com)
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To: Shermy; aristeides; thinden
Good digging, Shermy. I think Clark knows too much and is being used like a wet dish rag.
10 posted on 09/18/2003 7:55:14 PM PDT by Fred Mertz
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To: Fred Mertz; HAL9000; Destro
Thanks.

Warning: the article I linked at #1 makes erroneous connections about Acxiom's history re: Inslaw and other older scandals.

Anyway, the other stuff is worth looking into. the Arkansas angle shines like a bright sun. I say, "follow the anomalies", and one certain one is Clark's connection to the German company. He has no other foreign company connections. The Kosovo article, from the German, is, as Destro says, interesting...
11 posted on 09/18/2003 8:03:02 PM PDT by Shermy
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To: Fred Mertz; HAL9000; Destro
Thanks.

Warning: the article I linked at #1 makes erroneous connections about Acxiom's history re: Inslaw and other older scandals.

Anyway, the other stuff is worth looking into. the Arkansas angle shines like a bright sun. I say, "follow the anomalies", and one certain one is Clark's connection to the German company. He has no other foreign company connections. The Kosovo article, from the German, is, as Destro says, interesting...
12 posted on 09/18/2003 8:03:02 PM PDT by Shermy
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To: CROSSHIGHWAYMAN
Doctors are marketing videos of the Dems to insomniacs..............well at least the Dems are good for something after all.

Unfortunately manic depressive DemocRat voters are committing suicide and going straight to hell after viewing the same videos, which is making them rethink their strategy.

13 posted on 09/18/2003 8:13:14 PM PDT by Jorge
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To: PhiKapMom; Alamo-Girl
What else is out there on Clark we don't know about? Guess it will be up to Freepers to bring it out as the mainstream press is unlikely to go against the Clinton's chosen one!

Wesley Clark's connection to muslum terorists, for one? See following:

Wesley Clark’s Ties To Muslim Terrorists

By Cliff Kincaid

The retired General who had been refusing to declare himself a Democrat or Republican is now declaring himself a Democratic presidential candidate. But more important than his party affiliation is Wesley Clark’s bizarre view on how to fight terrorism. The media refer to Clark’s impressive military credentials but they fail to note that his main accomplishment under President Clinton was presiding over the establishment of a base for radical Islamic terrorism, including Osama bin Laden, in Kosovo.

Clark, who has been making headlines by claiming that the U.S. decision to go to war in Iraq was a misjudgment based on scanty evidence, ran Clinton’s NATO war against Yugoslavia on behalf of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). The House of Representatives failed to authorize the war under the War Powers Act, making it illegal. Thousands of innocent people in Serbia, Yugoslavia’s main province, were killed to stop an alleged “genocide” by Yugoslavia that was not in fact taking place. Investigations determined that a couple thousand had died in the civil war there.

Kosovo was a province of Yugoslavia and the military intervention of the U.S. and NATO, a defensive alliance, was unprecedented. It was far more controversial than the policy of regime change in Iraq, which was a policy of Clinton, Bush and the Congress. Kosovo was never a threat to the U.S., and Yugoslavian President Slobodan Milosevic didn’t even pretend to have weapons of mass destruction.

Clark wrote a Time magazine column, “How to Fight the New War,” in which he said we need new tactics and strategies against terrorists. He also said, “We need face-to-face information collection: Who are these people, what are their intentions, and what can be done to disrupt their plans and arrest them?”

For the answer, Clark should ask his old friend, Hashim Thaki, the commander of the KLA. The 1998 State Department human rights report had described the KLA as a group that tortured and abducted people and made others “disappear.” Yet a photograph was taken of Clark and Thaki with their hands together in a gesture of solidarity.

The KLA’s ties to Osama bin Laden were also well-known and reported.

An article in the Jerusalem Post at the time of the Kosovo civil war had said, “Diplomats in the region say Bosnia was the first bastion of Islamic power. The autonomous Yugoslav region of Kosovo promises to be the second. During the current rebellion against the Yugoslav army, the ethnic Albanians in the province, most of whom are Moslem, have been provided with financial and military support from Islamic countries. They are being bolstered by hundreds of Iranian fighters, or Mujahadeen, who infiltrate from nearby Albania and call themselves the Kosovo Liberation Army. US defense officials say the support includes that of Osama Bin Laden, the Saudi terrorist accused of masterminding the bombings of the US embassies” in Africa.

Another Democratic presidential candidate, Rep. Dennis Kucinich, has tried to prohibit funding for the Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC), the successor to the KLA now being protected by U.N. troops as a result of the outcome of the conflict. Kucinich said an internal United Nations Report found the KPC responsible for violence, extortion, murder and torture.

After the war, Milosevic was ousted and put on trial, where he has been making the case in his own defense that Serb troops in Kosovo were fighting Muslim terrorists associated with bin Laden. At a hearing before the U.N. court trying him, he brandished an FBI document concerning Al Qaeda-backed Muslim fighters in Kosovo.

The FBI document was a congressional statement by J. T. Caruso, the Acting Assistant Director of the CounterTerrorism Division of the FBI, who cited a terrorism problem in Albania, the base for the Muslim terrorists that attacked Serbia forces in Kosovo.

Clark’s presidential decision suggests that he believes the media will not ask him about supporting the same extremist Muslim forces in Kosovo that militarily attacked us on 9/11. He’s right: during interviews on ABC’s Good Morning America and the NBC Today show on September 17, the subject didn’t come up. Clark did say that he would not have gone to war with Iraq, and that he would have turned the matter over to the U.N. There was no “imminent threat” from Iraq, he claimed.

So where was the “imminent threat” to the U.S. from Yugoslavia? And why did the Clinton Administration bypass the U.N. on that illegal war? Clark is counting on not hearing those questions from the same media going after Bush on Iraq. They are all worse than hypocrites.

To comment on this article or express your opinion directly to the author, you are invited to e-mail Cliff at antiun@earthlink.net .

I've never felt particularly sorry for a muslum terrorist leader before. But while looking for the Pic of Weasley Clark with Thaci, I found this:

Poor guy....


14 posted on 09/19/2003 9:40:03 AM PDT by archy (Keep in mind that the milk of human kindness comes from a beast that is both cannibal and a vampire.)
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To: archy
Jeepers! Thank you so much for the article!
15 posted on 09/19/2003 9:44:13 AM PDT by Alamo-Girl
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To: Alamo-Girl
Jeepers! Thank you so much for the article!

Glad to be of some small help. But you might see what all you can dig up on the Thaci/ bin-Laden connections.

16 posted on 09/19/2003 9:56:22 AM PDT by archy (Keep in mind that the milk of human kindness comes from a beast that is both cannibal and a vampire.)
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To: archy
Thank you for the suggestion!
17 posted on 09/19/2003 10:08:52 AM PDT by Alamo-Girl
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To: Alamo-Girl
Thank you for the suggestion!

More on the Clinton/Gore backgrounds of Weasely Clark's new campaign staff in the following AP article from the AP's Ron Fournier. I think you'll find some questionable moments in some of the backgrounds of those so named....

Ex-Gen. Wesley Clark to seek White House

By Ron Fournier, AP Political Writer, 9/16/2003

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. -- Wesley Clark, the retired general with a four-star military resume but no political experience, decided Tuesday to become the 10th Democratic presidential candidate, officials close to him said.

The announcement will be made at 1 p.m. EDT Wednesday in Arkansas, Clark said. Neither he nor Mark Fabiani, a spokesman, would reveal Clark's decision, but officials close to the former Army general said he told his fledgling campaign team that he's in the race.

Clark, who was careful not to confirm that he is a candidate, said in an interview with The Associated Press that there's still room and time for another White House campaign.

"It's not too late to get in the race if I decide to run," he said outside his headquarters.

Asked if he was ready to start telling Americans his positions on domestic policy, Clark said, "I'll do my best, but there will be a lot of things that I don't know right away."

"I want to learn," he said. "I've got a whole period of time. I've got to go around America. I want to talk to people about the issues."

Clark's decision came as Democratic strategists from around the country gathered at his small, low-slung brick headquarters on the banks of the Arkansas river to discuss strategy for mounting a late-starting presidential campaign.

Fabiani, who served as spokesman for former Vice President Al Gore's 2000 campaign, is part of a cadre of former Gore and Bill Clinton advisers, who are now rallying behind Clark. In addition to Fabiani, among those attending the meeting were Ron Klain, a strategist in Al Gore's 2000 campaign; Washington lawyer Bill Oldaker; Vanessa Weaver, a Clinton appointee; Skip Rutherford, a Clinton fund-raiser who lives here; George Bruno, a New Hampshire activist; and Peter Knight, a Washington lobbyist and longtime Gore fund-raiser. Bruce Lindsey, former White House aide and now an Arkansas lawyer, also backs Clark.

Clinton had urged Clark to enter the race, but neither he nor Gore is expected to take sides in the primary fight.

Clark's team was exploring several venues in Little Rock for an announcement, including a park named for World War II Gen. Douglas MacArthur, a Little Rock native. This site would underscore what Clark's advisers consider his greatest strength: his longtime military background.

Clark greeted reporters with a "good morning," as he climbed into a two-seat sports car and left his headquarters. Some of his aides had already gathered for the meeting, including Fabiani and Rutherford. Others, including Klain and Bruno, were still making their way to the Arkansas capital.

Clark, 58, believes his four-star military service would counter Bush's political advantage as a wartime commander in chief, friends say. The retired general has been critical of the Iraq war and Bush's postwar efforts, positions that would put him alongside announced candidates Howard Dean, Sen. Bob Graham of Florida and Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio as the most vocal anti-war candidates.

It would be a long-shot bid.

Just four months before voting begins, Clark would be competing against candidates who have had months to raise money, build organizations in key states and recruit the party's top political talent.

But the strategists assembled in Little Rock on Tuesday are among the party's best. An Internet-fueled draft-Clark movement has developed the seeds of a campaign organization and more than $1 million in pledges.

Clark's team urged supporters from the draft Clark committees to travel to Little Rock for the announcement.

Clark's resume is formidable -- Rhodes scholar, first in his 1966 class at West Point, White House fellow, head of the U.S. Southern Command and NATO commander during the 1999 campaign in Kosovo.

Clark's local office said no announcement was planned for Monday or Tuesday but it was noncommittal about the rest of the week as supporters anxiously awaited his decision.

Nearly 12 years after Clinton announced his first campaign, Arkansans were excited at the prospect of backing another favorite son.

Jean Wallace, a classmate of Clark's from grammar school, has organized Warriors for Wes, a group of Clark classmates named after the mascot at their alma mater, Hall High School. She said the supporters were ready to travel the country to tout Clark's candidacy the way "Friends of Bill" organizations crisscrossed the country campaigning for Clinton.

"We are eagerly awaiting an announcement very shortly. There are thousands of people across the country doing the same thing, people who have put their hearts and time and resources into this effort," Jeff Dailey, spokesman for Draft Clark for President 2004, said.

The group, one of several Draft Clark groups, boasts of 166 coordinators in 50 states.

"In New Hampshire, there are many people ready to move out if they're given the green light," said Bruno, one of Clinton's earlier backers in the key primary voting state.

Clark is scheduled to deliver a speech at the University of Iowa on Sept. 19.

------

Associated Press Writer James Jefferson contributed to this report.


18 posted on 09/19/2003 12:12:02 PM PDT by archy (Keep in mind that the milk of human kindness comes from a beast that is both cannibal and a vampire.)
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To: TheExploited
The Rats are jumping off the sinking ship.

Clark is already the front-runner. If the rest hadn't started so soon, they wouldn't be old, tired news already.

19 posted on 09/19/2003 12:14:21 PM PDT by RightWhale (Repeal the Law of the Excluded Middle)
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To: Shermy
Why does this bunch remind me of the Keystone Kops?


20 posted on 09/19/2003 12:14:38 PM PDT by CheneyChick (Kah-lee-fohr-nyah)
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