Thread: Did my country really plan this????

Getting back on the thread topic:

Originally Posted by Hanna

[Wesley Clark is] an inside source, not even particularly biased. If Michael Moоre or someone had said it, you might have reason to question the source. But with this man, no.

Clark retired from the military in 2000; this video was from 2007. In between 2000 and 2007, Clark sought the Democratic Party's nomination for the Presidency in 2004, but ultimately withdrew from the race and threw his endorsement behind John Kerry, and subsequently endorsed both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

In short, a significant part of Clark's chosen civilian career has been to work as a booster and loyalist of the Democratic Party, which in our two-party system tends to make him an automatic opponent of whatever the Republican Party is doing and a detractor of major GOP politicians, including any Republican President.

Moreover, far from being utterly unlike Michael Moore, Wesley Clark was (at least when this video was made in 2007) doing the same kind of work that Moore did for much of the Bush years -- namely, trying to get the "radical" left-wing base of the Democratic Party interested and motivated in driving the Republicans out of the White House.

I'm not saying that Clark is a bad person to have his political biases, that Republicans are any less biased and more objective, or that political bias makes a person biased in every single aspect of his life. I'm just pointing out that when this video was made, Clark definitely had at least two glaringly obvious sources of bias against the Bush administration -- namely his Democratic Party loyalism, and also his personal desire to make money selling books and giving interviews. Sensationalism sells!

He's telling the truth about what he heard and saw, and there is not a lot of room for misinterpretation.

Not only is there room for misinterpretation, but (arguably) Clark himself is the one doing the misinterpreting. For example, it seems very plausible to me that the "seven-country takeover/invasion/destruction" memo that he describes was NOT some sort of definitely settled, long-term plan, but only one out of multiple different "contingency scenarios" that had been dreamt up by officers doing PowerPoint presentations.

Remember the climactic scene of WarGames where "Joshua" the supercomputer runs through hundreds of potential thermonuclear-war models in a few minutes? That was fantasy, but the real-life basis is that military planners actually do looove modeling many different "strategic scenarios" and "contingency plans." That's the full-time job for some in the officer ranks.

So in short, Clark may indeed be telling the truth about seeing the memos (in that there actually were such memos), but he's also putting a "spin" on the interpretation and significance of the memos because he knows exactly what his interviewer (and the disproportionate number of "911 troofers" in the interviewer's target audience!) wanted to hear.

Originally Posted by Throbert McGee

In short, a significant part of Clark's chosen civilian career has been to work as a booster and loyalist of the Democratic Party, which in our two-party system tends to make him an automatic opponent of whatever the Republican Party is doing and a detractor of major GOP politicians, including any Republican President. .

I thought there was something fishy about these supposedly explosive revelations, particularly all the Russian language comments and low view count on youtube, like no one else paid it any mind.

By the way, I was thinking more about my "subjective vs. objective" post. It occurs to me that of the three freedoms I listed (freedom of worship, freedom to have gay sex, freedom of the press), I would consider all three to be secondary-level freedoms -- not in the sense that they are less important, but in the sense that they can be derived as "logical consequences" of other freedoms.

I would suggest that the most important "primary freedoms" might include:

• Freedom of individual conscience
• Freedom to own private property
• Freedom of association among individuals

The number of logically necessary "primary freedoms" might be more than just the three listed, but even if one takes ONLY the above three as "axiomatically given," it seems not-too-difficult to develop arguments in favor of inalienable rights to worship freely, to have Weird And Sinful sex as long as it's consensual, and to publish controversial ideas.

But although such rights might be regarded as "inalienable," they are nonetheless non-primary. (You can derive a right to engage in consensual sodomy based on the assumption of "freedom of conscience" and "freedom of association," but not the other way around.)

Originally Posted by Throbert McGee

Getting back on the thread topic:

Clark retired from the military in 2000; this video was from 2007. In between 2000 and 2007, Clark sought the Democratic Party's nomination for the Presidency in 2004, but ultimately withdrew from the race and threw his endorsement behind John Kerry, and subsequently endorsed both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

In short, a significant part of Clark's chosen civilian career has been to work as a booster and loyalist of the Democratic Party, which in our two-party system tends to make him an automatic opponent of whatever the Republican Party is doing and a detractor of major GOP politicians, including any Republican President.

Moreover, far from being utterly unlike Michael Moore, Wesley Clark was (at least when this video was made in 2007) doing the same kind of work that Moore did for much of the Bush years -- namely, trying to get the "radical" left-wing base of the Democratic Party interested and motivated in driving the Republicans out of the White House.

I'm not saying that Clark is a bad person to have his political biases, that Republicans are any less biased and more objective, or that political bias makes a person biased in every single aspect of his life. I'm just pointing out that when this video was made, Clark definitely had at least two glaringly obvious sources of bias against the Bush administration -- namely his Democratic Party loyalism, and also his personal desire to make money selling books and giving interviews. Sensationalism sells!

Not only is there room for misinterpretation, but (arguably) Clark himself is the one doing the misinterpreting. For example, it seems very plausible to me that the "seven-country takeover/invasion/destruction" memo that he describes was NOT some sort of definitely settled, long-term plan, but only one out of multiple different "contingency scenarios" that had been dreamt up by officers doing PowerPoint presentations.

Remember the climactic scene of WarGames where "Joshua" the supercomputer runs through hundreds of potential thermonuclear-war models in a few minutes? That was fantasy, but the real-life basis is that military planners actually do looove modeling many different "strategic scenarios" and "contingency plans." That's the full-time job for some in the officer ranks.

So in short, Clark may indeed be telling the truth about seeing the memos (in that there actually were such memos), but he's also putting a "spin" on the interpretation and significance of the memos because he knows exactly what his interviewer (and the disproportionate number of "911 troofers" in the interviewer's target audience!) wanted to hear.

Interesting what you say.. I did suspect that Clark would have some sort of affiliation to the left - even if for no other reason than, well, after all, when a person has already been aligned with the largely-right american military, is aware of the level of severity of black-ops and internal cleanup operations that this force is capable of, and then wishes to break away from that force and say something they don't want said.. well, I would want friends on the other team, too. [People laugh at the concept that the CIA might have killed Bob Marley (to control societal incitement), just as an example.. but he died of toe cancer two years after donning a boot with a tack point-up in the sole, and an odd-smelling goo inside the toe of the boot. That toe cancer metzed and he died. It's not my goal to convince people things like this are true.. but I do hope some of us keep an open mind to what COULD be true.]

And everything you're saying makes sense.. but some things stick out as largely suspicious. Namely, in 2007 no one had mentioned plans to go to war with Libya (I didn't think we had such plans), there was no large struggle with Gaddafi (in fact, near that time they were shipping him in to "talk" to American schools and organizations; he was doubted for his past, but not vilified) ... Now we find we ARE in a conflict with Libya, or at least aligned to one (i've not followed so closely whether we've already sent troops there, but I would bet that if we haven't yet, we will).. and if any of this is accurate, we're not done! - there's more countries coming!.. Somalia and Sudan were surprises, but the Iran conflict seems to have been lining up to happen for years, if you follow the clues the media leaves you.

And so it's possible you're right, that this is only spin... but sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

Throbert, do you think this will prove to be only spin? Or do you think we WILL be heading to these other countries, after Libya?

And to reiterate the point that Hanna made.. if this DID turn out to be true, wouldn't we be guiltier by association for dismissing it, if the US does go into these places next?