I received the following letter today from the director of Wesley Clark's "WesPAC" organization, and thought you might be interested what the General thinks of a "changed" Al Qaeda and the Bush Administration's ineffective strategy for fighting and winning the "war on terror." Once again, here we have an example of an American leader who truly gets it, in stark contrast to the current crowd of right-wing ideologues who manifestly DO NOT get it. All I can say is, it's too bad Wes Clark wasn't nominated and elected President in 2004 instead of George W. Bush. Because if we had elected Wes Clark, America would have been a heck of a lot better off right now, and not just in the "war on terror" either. Dear Lowell,
Like many Americans, I watched the news reports from London on Thursday morning with horror and sadness. And we stand united with the world in condemning this barbaric and disgraceful act of terrorism.
But we must do more than denounce these acts. We must do everything in our power to prevent these acts from ever happening. The reality is that we continue to face the threat of
terrorism in America.
Appearing in yesterday's USA Today, General Wesley Clark's Op-ed "Al-Qaeda has changed; Bush strategy also needs to shift" outlines a framework to help protect America from terrorism. General Clark writes:
...al-Qaeda has evolved since the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001.Relentless pressure by the CIA, Special Forces and many other national intelligence and police efforts has made the old, centralized structure of al-Qaeda unworkable.
And we need to keep up the pressure. But al-Qaeda's new threat is decentralized. Thursday's attacks in London have all the earmarks of such a "franchise" operation, locally planned and
resourced with relatively modest means, emulating al-Qaeda without the vulnerabilities of centralized resourcing and direction.Preventing attacks probably can't be accomplished by the administration's preference for taking out "state sponsors." And it's going to be very difficult to employ military means.
National intelligence efforts, special police activities and local community policing efforts, which focus on identifying and targeting terrorist individuals and organizations, are
required.
I urge you to visit SecuringAmerica.com to read the entire article. Then, please forward this message to your friends and family.
Sincerely,
Catherine Grunden
WesPAC Executive Director