Wes Clark takes O'Reilly to school

Big ups to BuffaloGeek for finding this.

Former NATO SACEUR and retired 4-star General Wes Clark is now a Fox News Analyst, and he appeared on Bill O’Reilly’s show recently.

First of all, let me just reiterate what a phenomenal job Stephen Colbert does imitating “Papa Bear” O’Reilly. When I watch the “Factor” now, it seems like a parody of itself.

I haven’t posted about it yet, but apparently a horrible, inexcusable mass murder took place in Haditha, Iraq at the hands of US Marines. When we start acting like the enemy, we lose the ability to claim any sort of moral or ethical high ground. What happened there is now under investigation.

Representative John Murtha, a Democrat from Pennsylvania who in 2005 withdrew his support for the Iraq war and instead demanded an immediate pull-out, has been vocal in his demand for an investigation of the Haditha murders. O’Reilly doesn’t like it at all, but Wes Clark defends it.

He defends it on the grounds that it’s the proper function of the legislative branch. Separation of powers – what a quaint concept.

He defends it strongly and he defends it well, without losing his cool. O’Reilly seems shrill and out-of-touch. As BuffaloGeek notes, on the military history that O’Reilly cites to try and back up his point that massacres are no big whoop, Wes Clark pwn3d him.

Bill O’Reilly: Murderers, if, if they’re deemed guilty in a, in a military court of justice have to be punished. But to draw a wider implication, General, when 95%, and I think you’d agree with that figure, of American forces overseas under tremendous stress are performing heroically every day, to draw a wider implication at this juncture brutally unfair, both to our forces and to our country. What say you?

General Wesley Clark: I say that, first of all, you’ll have to show me and prove to me that there were ever any American soldiers in Belgium and Normandy or in Iwo Jima who murdered civilians. Secondly, I think you’re too low when you say 95% of the forces are performing effectively. I’d say 99.5% of the forces are performing effectively, maybe higher. But when you have incidents like this, and you have chains of command under enormous stress, that is an indicator that things aren’t going right. You’ve got to be sensitive to those indicators. You’ve got to fix the problem, otherwise it’s going to get worse.

That’s just a small part of it.

Every time I see the guy; every time I read something he says, I remember why I supported him in the first place. Although he had very strong policy positions on domestic issues, back in 2003-4 and now, the biggest and most pressing issues had to do with international and military affairs.

Right now, we have an administration that acts based on ideology and dogma, rather than evidence and competence (sounds like a speech I heard yesterday). We can see the results day after day in Iraq.

You can see the video here at Clark’s PAC’s website.

I remain intrigued by the idea of having a former 4-star General running the country. To have someone at the top who has led soldiers in war, and who had helped negotiate peace, and who has spent his entire adult life as a leader wouldn’t be bad at all. To elect someone who sees what is happening around the world and has an idea how to address it is refreshing.

What does your candidate have to say about Darfur? How about Kosovo? Or even Iraq? Hell, we’ve been part of a UN operation in Kosovo since 1999; who from our government has gone there to check up on things lately? When did Bush or Cheney go to Prishtina?

Clark helped to win that monthlong battle to halt Milosevic’s ethnic cleansing of Kosovo, and seven years later, there has been progress made there.

Of course, given our current administration, “progress” can be counted as anything that doesn’t involve multiple daily car bombings or the regular killing of US troops by IEDs.

In his Memorial Day message, Clark said:

[Kosovo] was an example of how we CAN do it right: diplomacy first, strong leadership, working with others, and using force only as a last resort. We had a plan for what to do after the operation before we began air strikes.

I’m proud of the fact that Clark remains in the public arena beating this drum. I’m satisfied that he knows what he’s talking about.