Reply #75: radical Islamicist terrorists exist and are real, and target Americans

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

"Bush and Clark both want to say the boogie men are coming and they'll be here any time to get us because they hate our freedom so much... when in fact the terrorist threat is something that exists because of the actions of people like Bush and his partners and Clark as well."

That's just not true - Clark has NOT said that. Show me some quotes. It's true that US actions have caused a lot of resentments that cause terrorism, and stopping those actions is the number one step to stop it. But the best lies are based on truths, and Bush's boogieman terrorist is based on REAL, ACTUAL terrorists, and Americans are concerned about it.

"A hell of a lot of terrorists use actions like the murder of civilians by American forces in Kosovo to get new members and encourage hate for the US. These hawks, regardless of if they say they are dem or repuke are fostering this problem. They make it worse so they can take advantage of the fear.

There is no military hawk driven blow shit up solution to terrorism. The solution to terrorism is to remove their incentive for wanting to kill us... not by upgrading to an even bigger higher ranking war hawk to protect us from the evil terrorists."

Sure, and Dean and Clark are nearly exactly the same level of "hawkishness" - both supported the war in Afghanistan (and I shed no tears over the destruction of the Taliban) and were against the "sideshow" in Iraq. Just because Clark is military doesn't mean he's more of a hawk. Seems to me the danger is privlidged civilians with power to send us to war, without having to deal with the consequences themselves.

"The solution, as Dean has said, is to build up strong middle class in these nations and to stop raping their countries for profit. Clark has touched on this idea somewhat, but he's still playing the military protector card and that's just not going to fly"

Dean gave a good speech here, but more NAFTA, more WTO, more multinational corporations aren't going to create a middle class in other countries, nor is it meant to. Unfortunately, neither Dean nor Clark will do much about this.

Clark isn't playing the military protector card, I think you are just completely misreprenting what he's said and what his campaign is about.

Regardless of anything else that Clark has done, and regardless of whether he wins or loses, the fact that a establishment, high ranking military general, with the image that Clark has, is stating openly and publically that civil rights do not end under wartime is a very good thing, because that is the exact OPPOSITE of what Bush and Ashcroft and Franks have been saying.

I want union members voting Democratic, I want soldiers voting Democratic. I want leaders of those groups running for office in the Democratic party, if they can inspire members to vote Democratic, and promote Democratic principles.

There are many things to criticize Clark about, but this is not one of them.