What a great point dismiss the messenger
I don't know what I was thinking it's not like he has any credentials
He wasn't "the messenger" he was the originator of what he expressed. Personally I don't find that we had such a plan so surprising. We knew long before 9/11 who the primary sponsors of terrorism around the world were. If we plan to end terrorism and the states sponsoring it, then yeah, we had to have a plan. Of course, no plan ever survives contact with the enemy, so any time table was just pure speculation. Further,
"Today we focus on Afghanistan, but the battle is broader. Every nation has a choice to make. In this conflict, there is no neutral ground. If any government sponsors the outlaws and killers of innocents, they have become outlaws and murderers themselves. And they will take that lonely path at their own peril."--George W. Bush
The war on terror was never only about Al Queda, it was about all sponsors of terror and terrorist groups. Perhaps you and others may think that he was referring to only Al Queda, but in fact, it is not what he said. Nor was that the policy of his Administration.
As to his credentials, yeah, he has them, duh, he was a general. Just not a very good one. What you don't know and don't take in consideration is how he actually performed as a leader. He was a manager not a leader and a micro-manger at that. His leadership during the war on terror was almost identical to that of Major General Lloyd Fredendall during the battle of Kasserine Pass in Tunisia during WW II. The big difference is that Fredendall faced an enemy that could actually defeat him. Wesley Clark was a Clinton General, at the start of the Clinton regime, he wanted to cut the military in half in only 1 or 2 years vs a timed step down that G.H.Bush had initiated. When the Generals told him it was impossible to do that level of cuts and still maintain readiness and meet the specified wartime requirements, Clinton bypassed the normal promotion process in order to find Generals that would tell him it could be done. Following that time, Clinton always promoted and appointed Generals primarily based upon their political agreement with him and the ability to actually lead and anyone who placed actual military needs above Clinton's political wants were not promoted. Since a large part of officer promotions are sponsorship based, with this new focus, only those junior officers that expressed agreement were promoted up. This has been a problem since then and is still a problem today because other than Petraeus, Bush did not interfere with the officer promotion system. Petraeus had a working tactic that was effective in Iraq and so Rice brought him to the attention of Bush. Wesley Clark is the General who initiated the failed tactics in Iraq prior to Petraeus taking over. Unfortunately for us and the Army, Petraeus was never given a position worthy of his talents and allowed to "infect" the rest of the officer corps. As a protractor of Obama's policies, he of course was never allowed to have any more influence than was necessary and that only because he was actually effective and even then, he was effectively demoted and moved back to a lower command level after Obama took office.
Clark was in command in Kosovo, but due to the fact that Clinton wanted a zero casualty war, after all, he really didn't care about what happened, he only wanted people to focus on something other than Monica. Because of the zero casualty mentality, Clark did not effectively prosecute the war and many, many more refugees and ethnic Albanians died that did not need to. Of course there is a lot of controversy about the war and what our real objectives were.
Next he Commanded the US for Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan (From a Bunker in Tampa Fl). Him and his subordinate commanders used considerations of potential losses to limit which weapons systems were to be employed. As a result, the most affective airborne systems for supporting ground troops were not deployed. This was also due to some problems in the Air Force which was struggling to fund systems and deciding which to get rid of, however, Clark clearly knew of the systems and allowed it to happen. Undoubtedly, this caused greater casualties for US forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, however just how many additional casualties were endured cannot be calculated and are only a matter of speculation.
For Operation Iraqi Freedom, he did move his bunker location to the middle east but still far out of danger. He only visited there after it was "secured".
Instead of employing decentralized Command and Control procedures he used centralized command and control with everything passing through his command post, thus cause timely delays in decisions. Previous US doctrine was for the commanders on the field of battle to make the decisions and report back when the could, not Clarks style of them having to ask permission before doing anything. Ironically, Clark was using the centralized command and control, the same as the Iraqi doctrine and cause of the collapse and disorganization of Iraqi forces when their command and control links were severed.
