Wesley Clark
Wesley Clark
Wesley Kanne Clark, Sr.is a retired General of the United States Army. He graduated as valedictorian of the class of 1966 at West Point and was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to the University of Oxford, where he obtained a degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics. He later graduated from the Command and General Staff College with a master's degree in military science. He spent 34 years in the Army, receiving many military decorations, several honorary knighthoods, and the Presidential Medal...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionWar Hero
Date of Birth23 December 1944
CityChicago, IL
CountryUnited States of America
What I did warn about when I testified in front of Congress in 2002, I said if you want to worry about a state, it shouldn't be Iraq, it should be Iran. But this government, our administration, wanted to worry about Iraq, not Iran.
China invaded India, and there was a war between India and China in some of the disputed terrain in 1962, and India got hurt by that.
In the 1950s, Pakistan allied with the United States in something called the Central Treaty Organization. We were lined up with, at that time, Iran, ruled by the Shah, and Pakistan and Turkey as a southward shield against Soviet expansion toward the warm waters of the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf. It was part of the containment strategy.
I don't think it was a patriotic war. I think it was a mistake, a strategic mistake, and I think that the president of the United States wasn't patriotic in going after Saddam Hussein. He simply misled America and cost us casualties and killed and injured America's reputation around the world without valid reason for doing so. It's not patriotic; it's wrong.
When you use force, people get hurt, and when you kill people, their relatives don't like it. And usually war has some unanticipated consequences so it's something you shouldn't launch into, on the expectation that this is going to rally the nation. This is not like 'Friday Night Lights'.
War creates its own intensity of hatred... You don't want to use force except as an absolute last resort.
We were really helped when President Ronald Reagan came in. I remember non-commissioned officers who were going to retire and they re-enlisted because they believed in President Reagan. That's the kind of President Ronald Reagan was. He helped our country win the Cold War. He put it behind us in a way no one ever believed would be possible. He was truly a great American leader. And those of us in the Armed Forces loved him, respected him, and tremendously admired him for his great leadership.
One night I walked out of the church when the priest said that we should never have fought the Revolutionary war and every war was bad. It was 4th of July. It was an outrageously political statement. I just never felt right when people in the church would take these overtly political positions especially when I felt like I was a good Christian, I was serving my country, and I just didn't feel like I deserved to be lambasted by the priest on the 4th of July.
Nothing could be a more serious violation of public trust than to consciously make a war based on false claims.
We certainly don't want to do collateral damage. The mission was to take out the bridge. He realized when it had happened that he had not hit the bridge, that what he hit was the train.
We're very concerned about the safety and welfare of the three soldiers, ... We've all seen their pictures. We don't like it. We don't like the way they were treated, and we have a long memory.
and we're working now to see that they're deployed within an effective and unified chain of command.
Europe and America must act together in the face of evil, ... It's high time for Americans and Europeans to restore that unity and be able to take actions collectively together.
We have decided we are going to end this phase of the journey even more full of hope and even more committed to building a better America,