Gen. Clark: Saddam Not a Criminal

NewsMax.com ^ | 9/21/03 | Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff

[kattracks]

In a little noticed interview with Fortune Magazine last week, presidential frontrunner Gen. Wesley Clark defended Saddam Hussein against charges that he was engaged in crimes against his own people at the time the Iraq war started, contending instead that the Iraqi dictator should have gotten a pass because his atrocities took place ten years ago.

Asked why it was right for President Clinton to use military force to halt Slobodan Milosevic's crimes against humanity in Kosovo, but not for President Bush to do the same thing against Saddam, Clark said that in Iraq, "The imminence of stopping a guy from committing a crime in progress - it wasn't there."

"In Kosovo you had ethnic cleansing actually unfolding, and we had intervened to stop it," the ex-NATO commander insisted, without commenting on the torture chambers, rape rooms and mass graves discovered in Iraq by coalition forces.

Instead, the Democratic frontrunner suggested that the Iraqi dictator deserved a pass by outlining what Fortune described as Clark's "Statute of Limitations for Genocidal Thugs."

"It was ten years ago that Saddam brutalized the Shiite Muslims in the south," he argued. "And he used chemical weapons 15 years ago."

Instead, said the retired military man, Saddam brutality was really no worse than crimes committed by leaders in China more than a decade ago, telling Fortune:

"We still deal with communist China, right? During the Cultural Revolution they had cannibalism in China. And the same guys that ran over the students in Tiananmen, they're still there."

Fortune writer Bill Powell pointed out, however, that while China is still a police state, "the recently departed General Secretary Jiang Zemin, to take but one example, was promoted from mayor of Shanghai to succeed Deng Xiaoping in part because he avoided bloodshed during Tiananmen. . . . Have you ever heard of Saddam promoting someone because he avoided killing somebody?"

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:

2004 Elections
Saddam Hussein/Iraq

[Wolverine]

Yes, I want the details too. Clark was among the youngest when he was selected for BG...with 22 years service.

[exDemMom]

Thanks for the clarification. I also saw some more details on another thread, "Clinton welcomed as hero in Kosovo" (sorry I don't know how to post a link). The whole affair is stomach-turning, to say the least.

Some of the truly oddest twisting of truth I have seen comes from the "anti-war" left, who would have us believe that Bush and every other Republican are war-mongers by default, while they have absolutely no problem with Klintoon's massive and mostly unjustified (or outright wrong) use of the military. Klintoon actually ordered more military actions than the previous 3 or 4 presidents combined.

[exDemMom]

There was an exodus of Kosovars after we started bombing

I had forgotten. Thanks for the reminder.

[.cnI redruM]

Barrack Emporer Wastely Clark has his Patricia Murray (D-Microsoft) moment.

[WhistlingPastTheGraveyard]

Be afraid---be very afraid. Is Clark running for anti-Christ?

This guy has sent a continuous chill up and down my spine since the first time I heard him speak.

In the version I've heard, the anti-Christ wins the election. You're damn right I'm afraid.

[OldFriend]

I only read the story on Clark. It chilled me to the core.

[OldFriend]

That's the article. How chilling. The man is truly insane.

[OldFriend]

It is my understanding that Ann Richards asked Reno for a waiver of the posse commitatus act. She acquiesced and Clark, in charge of Ft. Hood supplied the tanks and personnel.

[headsonpikes]

"Fluorides?"

I think Generalissimo Weasley 'flies the black helicopters', as he monitors the 'contrails' program.

You realize, of course, that fluoridation impacts one's precious bodily fluids like nothing else; luckily, we've got the Generalissimo on the case!

[DaughterOfAnIwoJimaVet]

LOL

[PeoplesRepublicOfWashington]

Bring this maroon on!

[Vinnie]

In the case of the Waco massacre, the executive branch of government in charge of enforcing Posse Comitatus became the violators. We have a constitutional mechanism for dealing with this situtation and it is called impeachment.

That may be so but the potential exists for thousands of US citizens to be murdered by our own government before having to answer any charges.

It's my understanding that Posse Comitatus can only be suspended during a declared National emergency.

But then Clinton thought of himself as omnipotent and looking back, for all practical purposes, was.

[Tom Bombadil]

Wait, I'm confused. Is it Ramsey or Wesley running for president?

exactly my point.

[Don Carlos]

It's my understanding that Posse Comitatus can only be suspended during a declared National emergency

You are probably right, but then wasn't the clinton presidency a national emergency?

Oh, yeah. It was never "declared" such!

If guys like Clark can sweep to the front of the pack in Dem politics, its just more proof that the whole democratic party is a corrupt organization.

[maxwell]

Does the voting military sector know about these statements?

[Old Sarge]

Does the voting military sector know about these statements?

Betcherass we do!!

[woofie]

“I would have been a Republican,” Clark told them, “if Karl Rove had returned my phone calls.”

This shouuld make the Democrats a bit uneasy...The strangest thing of all is to see Bruce Lindsay and all the Clinton pals on his team....Whats up with that?

[OldFriend]

Psychopaths, ALL.

[kattracks]

The strangest thing of all is to see Bruce Lindsay and all the Clinton pals on his team....Whats up with that?

Control, and the clintons have it.

[Free_at_last_-2001]

....when an american shills for a deposed socialist dictator ? it's known as being a good democrat!