Clark: More Friends Needed
September 12, 2006
By SHELLEY HANSON | The Intelligencer & Wheeling News Register
BETHANY - Retired Gen. Wesley Clark believes the key to winning the war in Iraq is to develop strategic relationships with other governments in the region.
Clark spoke on the Bethany College campus Monday about Iraq, the war on terror and the history and rise of Osama bin Laden on the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
The strategic relationships, he said, would allow governments to work together to solve problems such as global health issues or even global warming. While he believes a military presence will remain a necessity for the foreseeable future in the Middle East, Clark said the United States can learn to work with governments there without changing them or forcing a U.S.-style democracy upon them. He noted Iraq likely will not support a western-style democracy, as there are too many different tribes of people with their own ideas about the country’s future.
“We need to make more friends than enemies in the world,” Clark said.
When it comes to conflicts, military action should always be a last resort, he said. He noted, however, the United States should do everything it can to stop people from teaching others to hate the U.S.
The future leaders of the world, he noted, were sitting in front of him inside Bethany’s Old Main building.
“Your generation needs to step forward ... and provide the ideas and leadership,” Clark said. “Take action and make your dreams a reality.”
Meanwhile, Clark gave a short history of the U.S. government’s relationship with Osama bin Laden during the 1980s and how he eventually became the country’s biggest threat by the late 1990s. While many people could be blamed for not preventing the attacks, he said everyone should take responsibility, including U.S. citizens for not paying enough attention to foreign affairs and the government for not taking action soon enough.
He also noted while the war in Iraq and the war on terror have become known as the same war, people should remember each started separately and for different reasons. The war in Afghanistan was a hunt for Osama bin Laden as vindication for Sept. 11, while the war in Iraq was meant to quash Saddam Hussein as a impending threat, as he was believed to have weapons of mass destruction.
The overall goal of keeping America safe, however, will not be won by bombing every country that may harbor terrorists, he noted. The U.S. must work from the inside out by developing relationships with those countries’ governments and people.
