Wes Clark - President Bush, Stop Hiding Behind Your Generals
Defend Your Strategy!
August 3, 2007 | Chicago IL
But now, here's our problem. Okay? We- the administration doesn't want to talk about this. What they want to talk about is troops. They want to say they support our troops, and if we question the numbers of troops or their effectiveness, they want to say, 'You people don't support our troops. If you don't support our troops then you're not patriotic, and if you're not patriotic, then you don't have a voice.' I mean, that's what leaks out from everybody from Undersecretary Edelman and Vice President Cheney all the way down in every dialog.
When we argue about troops, what we're doing is we're playing on George Bush's home court. That's what he likes. Now, I'm not up here saying, 'Okay, let's go play on his court. Let's say he's only put 170,000 troops. The Democrats, we should put 270,000 troops in.' Listen, I would've done it if I'd had it at the beginning. I wouldn't have gone into the mission, but having the decision been made, it was clear we didn't, we never've had enough troops to do the job. But you're not going to change the policy by arguing about the troops strength. We've done it. We're on record. We want the troops home, but may I suggest that if we can raise the dialog, take it away from George Bush's safe ground of troops and people in uniform and 'How dare you question these Generals and these people in uniform that are so patriotic,' and say, 'No, we're not questioning the Generals. Mr. President, we are questioning you, you're administration, your leadership!'
(loud cheering and applause)
I want you to say to President Bush, 'Mr. President, stop hiding behind Dave Petreaus and come out here and defend YOUR strategy! This is your war. You defend it.'
(more loud cheering and applause)
I mean, I've been there in uniform, and when your boss tells you, 'Go in there and do the best you can,' (chuckles) you do the best you can, and you try to make it work. And that's what Dave Petraeus is doing, but you can't win it with what Dave Petraeus is doing. The only person who can make a difference is the person who controls the overall strategy in the region.
We need your help. We need you to hammer on the theme of the strategy and the policies. Stop Isolating people we disagree with. Start engaging. Come out with some real American leadership instead of simply leading by sending men and women in uniform into combat.
(applause)