Restore American Leadership Abroad

• Lay out a concrete success strategy for Iraq; win the war on terror.
  
  

• Combat global threats by fostering global cooperation and maintaining
  moral stature abroad.

Create Jobs in America

• Invest in strenghtening America's homeland security, provide relief
  for state and local governments, and provide targeted tax credits for
  job creation.
  
  

• Revitalize America's manufacturing and technology sector by bringing jobs back to the United States.
  
  

• Repeal Bush's tax giveaways for the wealthy and use the money to
  create jobs.

Promote Long-Term Growth

• Reduce the deficit so that we are not passing an enormous debt on to our children.
  
  

• Cut government waste, end corporate welfare, internationalize the Iraq
  effort, and repeal Bush's tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans -- those
  making more than $200,000 annually.

Reprinted with permission.

By Gen. (ret.) Wesley Clark
New York Times
December 6, 2005

Doha, Qatar

While the Bush administration and its critics escalated the debate last week over how long our troops should stay in Iraq, I was able to see the issue through the eyes of America's friends in the Persian Gulf region. The Arab states agree on one thing: Iran is emerging as the big winner of the American invasion, and both President Bush's new strategy and the Democratic responses to it dangerously miss the point. It's a devastating critique. And, unfortunately, it is correct.

While American troops have been fighting, and dying, against the Sunni rebels and foreign jihadists, the Shiite clerics in Iraq have achieved fundamental political goals: capturing oil revenues, strengthening the role of Islam in the state, and building up formidable militias that will defend their gains and advance their causes as the Americans draw down and leave. Iraq's neighbors, then, see it evolving into a Shiite-dominated, Iranian buffer state that will strengthen Tehran's power in the Persian Gulf just as it is seeks nuclear weapons and intensifies its rhetoric against Israel.

By BOB TUKE
a Marine veteran, is chairman of the Tennessee Democratic Party.
Tennessean.com

The president needs a plan to get United States troops out of Iraq. He needs to exercise personal leadership to make this happen rather than pushing the decision-making off onto his ground commanders, as he recently proposed to do. It is an inappropriate responsibility to place on ground commanders because the decision will have political and international diplomacy ramifications as well as military.

The president should direct the Joint Chiefs of Staff to develop a real plan with a specific timetable for U.S. troop withdrawals. Such a timetable need not be disclosed, but it must exist. The plan should be cleared by the Defense and State Departments and implemented honestly and forthrightly.

I am a Marine veteran of the Vietnam War. I fought the war (unlike the president, the vice president or any of his senior cabinet officers) in 1971 during the so-called Vietnamization phase. I was part of President Richard Nixon's "secret plan to end the war." It was a fraud and a failure.

Tomorrow, Americans will sit down together with friends and family across the country to celebrate Thanksgiving. It's the most American of holidays -- a tradition that we trace back to our pilgrim ancestors who gathered with the Wampanoag tribe to celebrate the first Thanksgiving in 1621 near Plymouth, Massachusetts.

Thanksgiving continued to be celebrated occasionally through the 17th and 18th Century, but it wasn't until 1863 when Abraham Lincoln set aside the fourth Thursday of November as a national Thanksgiving Day that the annual holiday formally took root.

I think President Lincoln's words from his first official Thanksgiving Day proclamation, during America's Civil War, are especially appropriate this year as we pause to reflect on the blessings that have been bestowed upon us even while in the midst of our current conflict:

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November 22, 2005
Transcription by Reg NYC

We encourage you to listen to the clip.

Bill Hemmer: Now the future of the US military in Iraq is tied directly to the strength of Iraqi forces on the ground. So then how strong are they today? General Wesley Clark, Fox News analyst and former NATO Supreme Allied Commander is my guest now and General, good morning to you.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Good morning, Bill.

Bill Hemmer: How do you assess those forces in Iraq?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I think they're getting better. I think there's hope that the forces can make a very strong contribution to Iraq's security. The question is how soon and how loyal the forces will be, depending on the government and as the US withdrawal starts.

General Wesley Clark on Your World with Neil Cavuto

November 21, 2005
Transcript by Reg NYC

Neil Cavuto: Even if Zarqawi is not dead, is he as good as dead man walking with Jordanians and now other Muslims turning on him?

Let us ask former Supreme Allied Commander, General Wesley Clark. He is also a Fox News military analyst, former presidential candidate as well. General, good to have you.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Good to be with you, Neil.

Neil Cavuto: What if he were dead?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, I think it would be a help. At least it's a blow publicly against his network. But you'd have to believe that there are back-ups, there are other people, probably who are thirsting with ambition to run it, and they may be as effective as Zarqawi is, and they would take some credit for the actions that are being done. So, I think it's a mistake to count on the fact that a single person can be eliminated and end the problem in Iraq.