Wes Clark: It's The America You Can Help Us Achieve
So, I'm hoping that with your help, the energy that you bring, the contacts you have, the ideas that you take and roll around and work and come out sophisticated and smart and powerful, that you'll be able to reach out and help influence our elected representatives to not only talk about troops and tactics, but to talk about strategies and policies, to give this administration in writing, in legislation a deadline for coming forward with its strategy in the region, defending it, receiving the guidance from the Congress about what it needs to do, because if we don't get at the strategy, we're not taking care of the troops and we won't succeed.
I don't think Iraq is, well I was going to say I don't think it's a total failure, but it's getting pretty down, far down the list. It's clearly not going to be a Western-style democracy. It's not going to have the America flag imprinted on one corner of its constitution. (laughter) It's not going to invite the United States Congress to, or the Presidency to send a representative to sit in permanent session with the Iraqi Assmebly. It's not going to ask to become a member of NATO. It's not even probably going to ask to host U.S. bases. In fact, the majority of Iraqis seem to want us to leave.
But what we can hope for still is a state that holds together, that doesn't break apart. And we can hope for a state that tries to work law and order issues with its own, within its own territory and doesn't become a breeding ground for future terrorist activities or for exporting violence in the region. And we can hope for a state that in some way will allow the wonderful, industrious, smart and capable people of Iraq to make their own way forward. And we can hope for a state in which thousands of Iraqis aren't dying every month.
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Those are pretty modest, those are pretty modest objectives, and as we move toward those objectives, if we do it the right way, I think we can protect the larger U.S. interests in the region and we can withdraw our troops, but we can't do it without a change in the United States strategy of engagement in the region. We must engage people we don't agree with. We must take seriously our responsibilities to help bring peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
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And, and we must do all this soon, because that war in Iraq is costing something like 100 billion dollars a year, and our children need healthcare and our country needs innovation and our roads need repair, and there's a long list of things we need to do for our country and the world that we can't do until we get out of Iraq. And if we are going to get out of Iraq. We got to get out the right way, because history doesn't stop when the last American troop heads down the road to Basra. We've still got our interests there. We need American leadership.
So, I'm looking to you, this community, you Kossacks.
(laughter and applause)
Help put the intelligence in U.S foreign policy. Help put the intelligence in this debate. Help America get its priorities right. Help us recapture this vision of America, this great and noble country that protects human rights, that's generous, that welcomes strangers, that gives to the world its ideals, its ideas, its wealth, its technology, its selfless service. That's the America they're looking for. It's the America we're looking for, and it's the America that you can help us achieve.
Thank you.
(enthusiastic applause)
Thank you. Thank you very much.