DU's own Editorialist Plaid Adder expresses doubts about Clark and the SOA

[Hoppin_Mad]

-edit spelling - added one sentence

I offer my sincere thanks to The Adder and DU !

This brand new article was ranked NUMBER TWO in Google News for ' Wesley Clark + School of the Americas' ! It will be of great importance in helping educate voters about this extremely important issue.

A very well written piece.

Bravo !

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"I, on the other hand, have always felt that apart from Lieberman, who thankfully does not appear to have a chance in hell of getting the nomination, the one candidate I would most hate to have to vote for is Wesley Clark.


"But not to worry, all is well in the Plaidder home. Last night my partner observed that Clark was "getting scarier." I said, "School of the Americas?" She said, "The nuns, what of the nuns?"

Now, to be fair to Clark, I went and looked at his statement on the matter, and it is full of condemnations of human rights abuses and support for "oversight" and "vetting" to ensure that the School of the Americas (renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation) really does " the way it teaches the Army's values of respect for human rights, for civil institutions, and for dissent." This sincere desire to use the Army as a force for good instead of evil is no doubt what has attracted many of his endorsers, including Moore.

It is his obvious investment in the institution itself - which is perfectly understandable from a career military officer - that makes me extremely nervous. Clark evidently believes that the problem is not that the U.S. is attempting to determine what happens politically in the Western Hemisphere, but that we have not always done it the right way. I personally believe that attempting to install Western-friendly U.S.-military-trained leaders throughout the hemisphere is never going to be a good way to extend "respect for himan rights, for civil institutions, and for dissent." People don't like things that are offered to them at gunpoint. In my humble opinion, what we need after the carnage of Bush and the "preventive war" years is a president who will make an attempt at solving problems using something other than the American military. I don't think Clark is going to be that president, whether or not he's electable. "

http://www.democraticunderground.com/plaidder/04/10.html

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Shut Down the School of Assassins - http://www.soaw.org/new/