Syria, Libya, & Wes Clark on neocons list of countries to overthrow

[yurbud]

Whenever the shit hits the fan in the Middle East, I think of this story Wes Clark has told a number of times over the years, especially when we suddenly become concerned about human rights in one of the countries on the list or their microscopic military is declared a threat to the most powerful military in the history of the world.

It seems like the means of our foreign policy have changed under Obama, but not the ends.

In October, 2007, Gen. Wesley Clark gave a speech to the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco (seven-minute excerpt in the video below) in which he denounced what he called “a policy coup” engineered by neocons in the wake of 9/11. After recounting how a Pentagon source had told him weeks after 9/11 of the Pentagon’s plan to attack Iraq notwithstanding its non-involvement in 9/11, this is how Clark described the aspirations of the “coup” being plotted by Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and what he called “a half dozen other collaborators from the Project for the New American Century”:

Six weeks later, I saw the same officer, and asked: “Why haven’t we attacked Iraq? Are we still going to attack Iraq?”

He said: “Sir, it’s worse than that. He said – he pulled up a piece of paper off his desk – he said: “I just got this memo from the Secretary of Defense’s office. It says we’re going to attack and destroy the governments in 7 countries in five years – we’re going to start with Iraq, and then we’re going to move to Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Iran.”

http://www.salon.com/2011/11/26/wes_clark_and_the_neocon_dream/

Iraq? CHECK
Libya? CHECK
Syria? IN PROCESS
Iran? TRYING WITH LITTLE SUCCESS
Lebanon? I DON'T KNOW
Somalia & Sudan: HARD TO TELL

[sabrina 1]

1. Africom is dealing with Somalia and the Sudan.

The General was right as we found out from reading the PNAC's own manifesto. The countries were listed. I remember someone in a high position calling the Neocons 'crazy' and one of them, Ledeen I believe, one of the 'stupidest men' he had ever met. Nevertheless, they were in power and they started the carnage that has not stopped in over ten years.

When asked how they would accomplish this without destroying several countries, Ledeen's response was something like 'faster please'.

[yurbud]

3. Feith was the stupidest man

[PoliticAverse]

2. They did get the 'New Pearl Harbor' they needed...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century#.22New_Pearl_Harbor.22

[Bucky]

4. I suspect the antiwar movement in the US (along with reality) stopped that list of "liberations"

People complain that protesting didn't stop the Iraq War. True, but it did change the political environment such that other such zany adventures never got started.

Nine years down the line, I don't see how the three countries that had democratic revolutions (inspired by off-the-list Tunisia and Egypt) has anything to do with the megalomaniacal fantasies of the neocons. That's a sort of silly argument. What triggered the revolts in Iraq, Syria, and Libya were the peoples' frustrations with repressive regimes during a time when none of those countries faced any particular security threats.

If anything, Obama's more cooperation-based foreign policy removed any perception of threat, rendering the rationale for having dictatorships hollow. It's also worth pointing out that Libya removed itself from the neocon hit list around 2005 by switching to a more cooperative stance with the Bush administration, including torturing terror suspects for us--the neocon's oft-touted "bloodless victory" in the War on Terror. At that point, the CIA more or less quit bothering Libya. When the people rose up there last year, it was to the neocons' frustration, not their plans.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

5. Not to mention running out of money for the conquests.

[yurbud]

8. I'm not so sure that narrative holds water. If it happened in Saudi or one of the other oil emirates

on our friends list, then I'd believe it wasn't the result of regime change by covert (ie more typical) means.

[Fawke Em]

6. The good General also recognized the "Shock Doctrine's"

role in moving this domino theory along, as well.

We really screwed up when we didn't put him up as either the presidential or vice-presidential nominee in 2004.

[yurbud]

10. he did? When? Got a link?

that would be encouraging news.

[Fawke Em]

11. Not ignoring you, but it might take awhile to find

since it was back in 2003/2004.

[yurbud]

13. thanks! I'll keep an eye out for it.

I might even try to find it with the googles myself.

[Scancast]

7. World War 3 Is Inevitable!

Its all leading up to one event!

World War 3 Is Inevitable!

[yurbud]

9. that will be tough to justify without a superpower on the other side

China and Russia put together spend a fourth as much on their military as we do, and everybody else is in the 1% range.

So if we get in a fight with anyone, they could give us a hard time with an insurgency, but the initial fight would look like Mussolini invading Ethiopia.

You don't exactly look like a tough guy strafing starving kids.

[Dokkie]

12. k&r

They have indeed divided Sudan and separated it from its oil, the next stage will be invasion and conquest with the excuse of saving south Sudanese from aggression from the North

[yurbud]

14. I thought it was something like that