Elect Wesley Clark

Local Editorials

Every Vote Counts

Editor, Knoxville News Sentinel:

If the Iowa caucuses taught us anything, it is that a race runs all the way to the finish line and every vote counts. It is all too easy to sit back and read the polls and think that one candidate is unbeatable, so what difference does my vote count? Well, iowa proved that theory dead wrong.

I ask all my fellow residents of east tennessee to make an effort to know the candidates and their issues and then please, please get out and vote upon your decision. This includes all parties and independents alike.

As a democrat, I take advantage of any information i can about all of the candidates. I have been working hard since October for the campaign of General Wesley Clark. But I still want to know what is going on in my party during this important election year.

There is a wealth of information online, as well as some decent media coverage each day regarding this race.

Please look at your vote as both a right and a priviledge. Load up on information on all candidates. I follow my choice daily at www.clark04.com. I welcome you to visit it in the search for your candidate. Then, when you step into that booth, you have the satisfaction of knowing you have just made a powerful decision.

There is no room for apathy. Remember, every vote will count.

BILL KEIMIG, Knoxville , 1/21/04

The 2004 presidential primary in Tennessee Feb. 10 is much sooner than in previous years and thus has greater significance in being able to influence a candidate's momentum going into the so-called super Tuesday of primaries which now follows Tennessee's primary.

East Tennessee voters will have the opportunity to meet and evaluate a leading candidate, retired Gen. Wesley Clark, when he appears at about 6:30 p.m. Friday, Dec. 12, at the Knoxville Expo Center.

In the public eye, Clark is probably best known for his achievements as NATO supreme allied commander when he successfully commanded the Kosovo campaign in 1999, which ended the ethnic cleansing of some 1.5 million Albanians without a single allied combat death.

He is one of the most decorated military officers since Dwight Eisenhower and, for bravery in action, was awarded a Silver Star, two Bronze Stars and a Purple Heart for wounds received in Vietnam.

In 2000, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor.

He graduated first in his class at West Point in 1966 and has a master's degree in philosophy, politics and economics from Oxford, where he was a Rhodes scholar. He has fluency in four languages.

Included in his many prestigious positions during his 34-year military career was service as special assistant to the director of the Office of Management and Budget.

Clark believes "terrorism is a multilateral problem ... you act unilaterally; you lose the commitment of your allies." He has the foreign policy experience, education and qualifications to repair the damage done to our worldwide image and get the country headed back in the right direction, both in domestic and foreign policy matters.

Those in attendance at the East Tennessee Truman Day Dinner at the Knoxville Convention Center on September 13 were treated to a stirring speech delivered by newly-announced presidential candidate and retired four-star General Wesley Clark.

In the public eye General Clark is probably best known for his achievements as NATO Supreme Allied Commander when he successfuly commanded the Kosovo campaign in 1999 which ended the ethnic cleansing of some 1.5 million Albanians without a single Allied combat death.

He is the most decorated military officer since Dwight Eisenhower and the holder of a Silver Star, 2 Bronze Stars and a Purple Heart for wounds received in Vietnam. In 2000 he was awarded the Presidential medal of freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor. He graduated first in his class at West Point in 1966 and has a Master Degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from Oxford where he was a Rhodes Scholar. He has fluency in four languages.

His fluency and intelligence were readily apparent in his Truman Day Dinner speech. These talents have also been apparent in his Iraq war analysis for CNN and in frequent guest appearances on all networks and cable news programs.

In these appearances he expressed concern over our unilateral action in Iraq and prior to our actions he correctly predicted the probablity of the costly mess we are now stuck with.

In the months following Sept. 11, 2001, the international community was with us in fighting the war on terror. Because of the Bush administrations foreign policy blunders, most of our former freinds now dislike us and in the Arab world we have greatly increased the numbers willing to die in terrorist acts.

Wesley Clark believes "terrorism is a multilateral problem...you act unilaterlly; you lose the commitment of your allies". He has the foreign policy experience, education and qualifications to repair the damage done to our worldwide image and get the country headed back in the right direction, both in domestic and foreign policy matters.

General Wesley Clark's forced resignation from NATO will be a primary focus of the opposition. There really isn't much else (that I know of) he can be legitimately criticized for. His record is otherwise exemplary. Notice I said "legitimately". The opposition can always make up stories, or put an extreme spin on some otherwise benign story.

I've done extensive research on this question myself, not wanting to rely on urban legends, media pundits, biased axe-grinders on both sides of the aisle, or a campaign manager's published "talking points". I managed to find some very insightful references from around the time of the event. I've listed them at the end - I strongly urge you to read them for yourself and draw your own conclusions.

First of all, a question as important and controversial as this deserves some context - because knowing the facts revolving around the event lowers the ability of both sides to "spin" it out of control. You should realize that the head of the NATO military wing is as much a political position as it is a military position, and political resignations and firings are always complex and subtle affairs. For example, good people who do good jobs can be axed simply to reward the successor (that's not what happened to Clark).

Clark was told to resign with a departure date of 3 months before his tenure was set to expire. The Clinton administration's official reason was that Clark's chosen successor (General Ralston) was due to retire from the military 2 months before Clark's scheduled exit, and they needed Clark to vacate the position early to avoid a procedural conflict. That procedural conflict actually existed, but not even the most diehard Clark supporter would suggest it was the real reason.

Keep in mind that Clark stayed on for another 8 months after the decision was made to sack him - it's not as if he screwed up one day and got fired. So what were the underlying political reasons?

Because of Clark's superhuman academic performance at Oxford and West Point, and because he was one of the most decorated and competent officers to emerge from the Vietnam conflict, he was on a fast track to the top. During his later years of active duty, he was openly criticized by his peers as being too much of a political officer - certainly he was adept at handling foreign military officers as well as diplomats. But that fact should in no way detract from his bravery and courage as a combat soldier early in his career - he was wounded four times in Vietnam! His ability (and desire) to be a political animal, coupled with the fact that he was promoted very quickly (sometimes ahead of senior officers) created plenty of enemies in the Pentagon long before he became head of NATO forces.

So fast-forward to the Kosovo conflict. Clark had spent many years (off and on) in southeast Europe (what is now Serbia-Montenegro, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Albania, Macedonia, and Kosovo). He is considered an expert in the region, and is personally acquainted with some of the principles there, including Slobodan Milosevic. His expertise in the region was a major deciding factor in his appointment to NATO.

Clark has always been a proponent of what is now called the "Powell Doctrine". (Of course, he was a proponent long before Colin Powell came to power and the doctrine was ascribed to him. Clark even wrote about the concept many years before anyone knew Powell.) The Powell Doctrine says basically: once you decide war is inevitable, send an enormously powerful force to overwhelm the enemy in as short a time as possible. Obviously, this doctrine was created to avoid another Vietnam. Clark is by all accounts a VERY aggressive military commander. When Clinton authorized the aerial bombardment of Serbian positions, Clark repeatedly asked for permission to send in ground troops to finish off the Serbs and take control of the area. When a limited ground war was authorized by NATO, he again antagonized the administration and his superiors by repeatedly requesting the use of attack helicopters. The choppers finally arrived, but too late to be used. He was ordered to let known war criminals, who were caught behind enemy lines, back into Serbia and Bosnia. Clark was increasingly frustrated that a Vietnam-like mindset was creeping into the mission, and the more he pushed against it, the more enemies he made.

Perhaps the defining moment (certainly it is for the Bush camp) was the Pristina airport incident. Even with the end of the cold war and President Boris Yeltsin's friendliness to the west, Russia was increasingly alarmed with NATO expansionism - which would eventually envelope several former Soviet republics. Russian military brass put tremendous pressure on Yeltsin to make a stand in Kosovo, to reassert Russian military power in a region they had once dominated. At the same time, Clinton and NATO were negotiating with the Russians to allow them a limited role in the conflict, including an eventual peacekeeping role. But the US and NATO's insistence that Russian forces would be under the control of NATO (and hence, the US), made that idea unpalatable to the Russians. Historically, the Russians were strong supporters of the Serbs, which were the primary antagonists in the region.

Clark was frustrated with his bosses for not being allowed to put a decisive end to the conflict and limit allied casualties. There was tension between NATO and Russian forces just across the border in Bosnia. The last thing Clark needed was an unnecessary injection of Russian troops on a photo-op excursion into Kosovo while the war was winding down.

But that's exactly what the Russians did. 200 Russian paratroopers stationed in Bosnia, northwest of Kosovo, were sent across the border to occupy the Pristina airport, ostensibly to help "stabilize the region". It was a highly publicized event, carefully staged for the invited camera crews. Clark responded by ordering French and British troops, under the command of British General Mike Jackson, to get there ahead of the Russians and secure the airport. Jackson refused the order, fearing that a confrontation with the Russians could escalate out of control, and replied, "Sir, I'm not starting World War III for you." Once the Russians had arrived, Clark ordered attack helicopters into the area to prevent the Russian's resupply. Again, the order was refused, and the point became moot when Hungary denied Russia the use of its airspace and the 200 Russians were stranded by their own military. The British government backed up General Jackson 100%. When Clark complained to Washington, he was virtually ignored by the White House and the Pentagon, and his fate was sealed.

Although these issues were publicized at the time, in the final analysis they were forgotten by the public as the war (and now the post-war) was successful with zero loss of allied lives. By all accounts, General Clark executed the overall military mission brilliantly, and the end results can be seen today with a peaceful Kosovo.

Sending in Russian paratroopers was absolutely unnecessary and extremely provocative. The area was still very volatile and crawling with Serbian paramilitary units. It would have been very easy for the Russians to be mistaken for Serbs by NATO units, especially at night. The airport had no strategic value - Russian officials were making a purely political statement. By the same token, if the airport had no strategic value, why was Clark so concerned? Especially since the Russians were our quasi-allies in this complicated political conflict.

Many NATO observers suggest that Clark overreacted to the situation, and there was a potential, however remote, for an escalating conflict if Clark's orders had been carried out. However, even back in 1999 Russian military officials admitted they were ill-equipped to fight even a limited engagement anywhere in the world. One general wrote in a contemporary Russian military journal that they would have been hard-pressed to field an army of 10,000 troops at the time. Almost assuredly they would have backed off if NATO had called their bluff. Did Clark understand this weakness better than anyone else, and did NATO miss a genuine opportunity to assert its dominance over the Russians? Isn't that the raison d'etre for NATO?

Think back to Berlin in 1945. General George S. Patton urged Eisenhower to let him drive the Russian army back east across the Russian border. He understood better than the naive Eisenhower and Churchill that Russia had become the biggest threat to the west and was not about to return conquered territory back to the allies or the original governments. He also understood that Russia's army, while victorious over the depleted German army, was in no shape to resist the allies. In a very real sense we missed an opportunity to avoid the cold war entirely. Republicans, conservatives, and hawks generally agree with this hindsight assessment. It highlights the irony of political partisanship that the same people condemn General Clark for essentially the same behavior. Clark very much resembles Patton: aggressive, hard-nosed, a brilliant commander, and despised by his peers and superiors - one would think Republicans would appreciate him for that.

It makes sense that Clark, being the highest ranking military commander in all of Europe and an expert on central Europe, knew better than any person on the planet what the capabilities and tendencies of the Russian army were - that was his job. Clark knew exactly what he was doing and what the risks were. He knew the Russian high command would never risk a humiliating and historical defeat at the hands of the Americans - which even the Russians admit would have been the outcome. Their military machine was on the verge of total collapse in 1999. One strong piece of evidence for that is how the Pristina issue was finally resolved. The 200 paratroopers could not be resupplied and the Americans eventually sent in food and water - essentially a humanitarian mission. That's how pitiful the Russians were. So all in all, I think the doomsday scenario can be discounted, and some contemporaneous military observers agree that Gen. Jackson's "WWIII" comments were pure hyperbole.

In a nutshell, Clark was sacked because 1) he had made powerful enemies who were jealous of his success and fearful of his growing prestige and political power; 2) "chickenhawks" in NATO and the Clinton administration were upset that he had challenged the feeble Russian military, even though that is NATO's primary mission; and 3) Clark was associated with one of the dirtiest human conflicts in recorded history, with numerous atrocities on all sides - sacking him and many of the other principles was a way of cleansing the Clinton/NATO administration.

"Russian Troops Fly Into Pristina", The Guardian, 8/3/99
"Solana and Clark Resign", The Voice of Russia, 8/3/99
"Washington Begins the Post-Kosovo Purge", Strategic Forecasting, 7/30/99
"Robertson's Plum Job in a Warring NATO", The Guardian, 8/3/99
"Airport Grab Not a Victory for Russia", The Russia Defense Journal, 7/29/99
"Russia Moves in to Square Accounts", The Russia Defense Journal, 7/21/99

The rumors are flying on Capitol Hill, and among all of you looking for a new President of the United States, as I am. Perhaps you haven’t heard, but there may soon be a tenth contender for the Democratic nomination. The race began even before New Year’s Day and has become one of the most crowded in history, with nine Democrats fumbling over each other to stand out from the pack. As one might expect, they are united in their criticism of Bush (an easy target as of late); their attacks on each other have been, to say the least, more feeble, though more blood is sure to spill before the year is out. The presidential hopefuls have spent a great deal of their time telling us about their dissatisfaction, but in many ways, they are preaching to the choir. Those who are listening already know the song, and those who aren’t refuse to read the music. The majority of Americans know we aren’t in the best of times, but a closely divided America will need more than critical political rhetoric to change its tune.

In his memoirs, Waging Modern War, Wesley K. Clark discusses one of his first defining experiences on his path to becoming a leader. He recounts a story of how he and several of his other fellow Boys Club camp counselors were swimming in a water hole, when the camp coordinator gives each of them the ultimatum of either diving from the 42-foot precipice of an old iron girder bridge or of returning home, no longer camp counselors. Clark says of his jump on that Sunday morning, “The afterglow lasted a good two weeks, at least. Or maybe forty years. You have to have courage and faith. And you have to expect to go through some trials to be a leader.” Though the book is primarily about the necessary difficulties of diplomacy and multilateralism in international politics, his quest for leadership underlies every page. Wesley Clark went on to graduate first in his class at West Point, earned his Masters degree in Philosophy, Economics, and Politics from Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar, and led a mechanized unit in the Vietnam war, where a bullet took half of one of his fingers. Clark went on to take several top-level military leadership positions, serving in the Joint Chiefs as Director of Strategic Plans and Policy and eventually rising to the rank of Commander in Chief of SOUTHCOM and EUCOM. When Clark retired as a four-star general, he had 37 years of military experience behind him and was the most highly decorated Army officer since Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Three years later, Clark’s career as a leader is far from over. After working with Stephens Group, Inc., Clark has moved on to his own consulting firm, which among other goals, seeks to free America of its dependency on oil. He serves as a CNN commentator and travels the world as a public speaker, discussing critical issues facing our country, among them, the questionable arguments which led us to invade Iraq, the administration’s failure to secure overarching international support, and the Defense Department’s utter failure to plan for how we would handle post-war instability and occupation. His new book, Winning Modern Wars, comes out in September and discusses our war with Iraq and the future of international politics in the modern era of terror.

Over the past year, a groundswell of support has arisen to “draft” Wesley Clark to run for the presidency. Independent PACs (for two examples, see www.DraftWesleyClark.com and www.DraftClark2004.com, which receive thousands of visitors each day) have gathered tens of thousands of signatures on petitions, built campaign infrastructures with regional coordinators and offices across the U.S., and raised nearly $700,000 in pledges and donations, all to encourage the retired general to make a run for the White House. Although to date, Wesley Clark remains a “non-candidate”, he has openly said in various interviews that he will make his decision in the coming weeks. Unlike any of the other candidates in the field, Clark possesses qualities which make him uniquely capable of beating Bush in 2004. First and foremost, his background in international diplomacy and national defense not only would be an asset for any leader of our country, but it will be invaluable in countering Republican assertions that Democrats are weak in these areas. Clark’s experiences as a military leader and policymaker make him far more qualified than Bush for handling the precariously difficult problems that international politics presents. In addition, Clark’s military career has given him a bird’s-eye view of politics while keeping him outside the game of politics proper and has provided him the opportunity to work for leaders of different political persuasions. Unlike the other nine candidates—all politicians through and through—Clark is an outsider with an insider perspective, and his approach is often pragmatic and focused on the issues at hand, rather than driven by political instinct, making him extremely appealing to voters jaded by partisan quibbling. Lastly, though many might claim Clark is a “one-issue” candidate, his resume (military scholar, lecturer on economics, decorated veteran, respected general, pioneering businessman, commentator and political watchdog) reflects an extremely well-rounded individual with leadership qualities which easily surpass those of his nine peers, and Bush. Wesley Clark has all the makings of a great president, and there has perhaps never been a time in America where we have needed him more. But will he run?

It’s not Clark’s camp coordinator urging him to take the leap from that old Red Bridge this time around, but thousands of America’s dissatisfied. It’ll take a lot of courage, and there’ll be a lot of trials, but I can assure you, Wesley Clark, the water’s plenty deep.

Eric Woodiwiss is a Vanderbilt graduate and now volunteers for the Draft Clark 2004 campaign. You can contact him at 322-2209 or eric@tennesseeforclark.com.

He’s got them shaking in their boots – from the hiking-friendly Birkenstocks to the boardroom-acceptable sea-turtle leather of cowboy fare.

But you know Gen. Wesley Clark is on the right path when both staunchly conservative Carl Limbacher and radical liberal Alexander Cochburn are going after him with a verve not seen since Ken Starr courted the “s” word more than 100 times in his written investigation into Bill Clinton.

If we lived our lives as though we were five-second sound bites, we’d all be divided into two camps – the ultra left and the ultra right – and we’d be screaming our heads off a la Sean Hannity to have simple conversations with the neighbors.

The truth is, however, that most Americans are middle-of-the-road, two- or three-issue voters who are working hard (even harder during this bearish economy) to try to take care of the children, the house and themselves.

They rarely stop and ponder the delicate intricacies of the Patriot Act or the public’s right to know versus individual privacy versus national security. Probably because they’re too busy being real battlefield patriots or battling with the need to know our daughter’s dating schedule versus her right to privacy on her first date. At the end of the long day, they’re too tired to consider that “fair and balanced” isn’t a phrase Fox News made up last week.

But, they’re waking up – in massive numbers – and they’re waking up to the fact that hardly any of their elected officials represent them. They’re waking up to see that the George W. Bush Administration – with the help of compliant Democrats in the Congress - used fear and intimidation in post-9/11 America to allow Attorney Gen. John Ashcroft to rape the Constitution. They’re waking up to hear that they may not have jobs tomorrow or anytime in the foreseeable future. But – oh yeah – they’re gonna get those $400 checks for the kids only to have those kids pay back trillions in national debt when they get to be working adults.

Enter Clark, a former NATO supreme allied commander and four-star general; an intelligent Rhodes scholar and a southern gentleman.

Thousands of Americans have pledged their support - and more a million dollars in funding - to Clark’s future campaign. And, a recent Zogby blind-biography poll suggests Clark could beat all the other Democratic contenders in the primary election, and Bush by a margin of about 9 percent in the general election. All this and Clark hasn’t even announced his candidacy… yet.

Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, the current Democratic presidential front-runner, only wishes his self-described grassroots candidacy was as spontaneous in its zeal - Dean put himself into the foray, while Clark’s being drafted by the American people. Dean’s Bush-bashing is received well by the liberals to whom he’s appealing, but without a significant change in his standard-Democratic platform, he probably cannot beat Bush in the general election.

Pit Clark against the other eight Democratic candidates and it wouldn’t be fair to call it a contest.

Pit Clark against Bush and you see that Clark is the reality Bush pretends to be, for example:

Clark is not perfect and we know this because he has a military and foreign-affairs record upon which to base rhetoric. Yes, he had a run-in with a British general when he was NATO commander, but he certainly wasn’t about to start World War III by telling the Brits to fire on the Russians, as both Limbacher and Cochburn allege. Far from it. Clark ordered the Brits to put tanks on the runway at Pristina to keep the Russians from landing. Remember, during the Kosovo mission, Clark’s most legendary military coup, the Russians were the enemy and Slobodon Milosovich actually had weapons of mass destruction. And to refresh everyone’s memory, only ONE, that’s right, ONE, soldier was killed during that mission and it wasn’t even during combat or by guerrilla snipers.

Granted, Clark doesn’t have much of a record when it comes to domestic agendas, but anyone who’s watched him on the talk-show circuit over the summer can see his agenda’s developing. Clark, who has a degree in politics and economics, probably paid attention in class at Oxford and knows how to develop an economic formula that isn’t automatically off-set by tax cuts and running up the national debt.

To the ultra-right, Clark may seem liberal. Afterall, he’s pro-choice and willing to repeal the tax cuts Bush gave to all his rich friends. But how does any conservative, pro-military, gun-owning sportsman have any sort of argument at all when Clark, an avid hunter, says that if Americans want to play with semi-automatic assault rifles, they should just join the Army? Are you listening, Wayne LaPierre?

To the ultra-left, Clark may seem a bit arrogant and scary. Understandably, it goes against the grain of most people on the far left to see sanctimonious harmony in a potential American leader who wore this country’s uniform and, oh my goodness, actually fought in wars. But, arrogant and scary? The fact that the ACLU tries to protect the rights of the North American Man/Boy Love Association is very scary and it’s arrogant of the ultra-left to think otherwise.

Most of the Americans who have joined the Draft Wesley Clark campaign – a real grassroots campaign started earlier this year by a Democrat and a Republican fed up with the lack of intelligent choices in presidential candidates – are average, ordinary, every day citizens. Moms and dads struggling to raise children, college students dismayed that their $50,000 plus in education bills isn’t helping them get a job, working poor and middle class heroes who live one paycheck away from homelessness, the soldier stuck in Iraq, the old lady down the street and the trucker in the greasy spoon. These are regular Joes and Josephines who fear that the Bush Administration is taking America down the road to fewer jobs, greater debt, a greater economic divide and onto future, and more devastating, terrorist attacks. And then there’s the lament that the county has already lost worldwide credibility and that America’s own citizens are losing their civil liberties in something so misnamed as The Patriot Act – an act Clark thinks should be reviewed since it was passed during a horrible time of grieving, just after 9/11.

These are people who want their country BACK. They want to take it back from the ultra right and back from the ultra left and put in back into the center where the majority of Americans once spent a happy existence.

And these are the people who want to send to the extremists in both the Democratic and Republican parties a pair of boots made for walking. Because the only boots these average Americans want to see are a pair of combat boots, stained with grass roots, walking away with the presidential election in 2004.

Shifting the argument is a popular tactic among Bush supporters. The comment "Bush lied to Congress about Iraq's WMD" is frequently countered with "he liberated the Iraqi people". "Staggering deficits threaten the nation's long-term health" might draw the response "Americans deserve tax relief". In this poisoned political climate productive debate is difficult enough without constantly changing the subject. The odd thing about this phenomenon is that all the above quoted statements are true. But does waging successful war let the President off the hook for months of carefully orchestrated lies? Will our children forgive us for the impending Social Security crisis because the immediate gratification of a vote-buying tax relief scam is an American principle?

Iraq and the economy are noisy issues these days - a convenient fact for the administration. But for a brief moment, let's set aside those important issues.

Remember 9/11? It's easy for me to recall the mind-numbing horror I felt when I first saw the twin towers collapsing. Horror turned to grief, grief to anger, and the nation looked to the President and our military for justice. Bush invaded Afghanistan, but Bin Laden escaped. Bush then fabricated a link between al Qaeda and Iraq (among other lies), and invaded again. So far, no 9/11 conspirators have been found in the looted ruins of Baghdad.

The official 850-page Congressional report on 9/11 contains 29 pages of redacted information that the administration claims would compromise intelligence gathering if revealed. But "government secret" is an oxymoron - the contents of the 29 pages were leaked by intelligence sources. The leak and the contents are obvious because of the public "outrage" that Saudi diplomats have expressed.

At least two Saudi government officials are implicated in the conspiracy. One of them worked for the Saudi aviation ministry and funneled Saudi government funds directly to the terrorist network that attacked New York and Washington, DC with aircraft. The other is the wife of the Saudi ambassador to the U.S., who sent money to the U.S. to support the hijackers already in the country. The deleted 29 pages also suggest that Saudi intelligence agents were at least monitoring the terrorists' activities in the U.S., if not directly supporting them, and that staff members of the Saudi diplomatic corps in Washington assisted the attackers with infiltration and living logistics in the U.S.

Bin Ladin is an expatriate Saudi. The Bin Ladin family is a wealthy and prominent Saudi family. Most of the 19 hijackers were Saudis, the rest were Egyptian, none were Iraqi or Afghan. The world has since been educated about the world-wide anti-American terror infrastructure that is funded and fomented by the powerful fundamentalist Islamic Wahabi movement that originates in Saudi Arabia - a movement whose primary goal is to overthrow any and all non-Islamic governments.

In a very real and tangible sense we were attacked by Saudi Arabia - or at least the Saudi government was much more involved than either of the governments in Afghanistan and Iraq. So it's a relief that, as with Afghanistan and Iraq, President Bush is threatening the Saudi government with economic and military action to bring those responsible for 9/11 to justice and reign in the Wahabists.

For some reason that's not happening. In fact Bush is protecting the very people that carried out those horrific attacks on American soil that killed almost 3,000 U.S. citizens. Two questions immediately come to mind. One, why is he protecting the 9/11 attackers? Two, since this information has been made public, why haven't Americans expressed outrage towards the administration and demanded the real perpetrators be brought to justice?

Close your eyes for a moment. Visualize the fire and smoke and dust and twisted metal as the towers collapsed on those thousands of terrified innocent people. Conjure up those painful emotions again. Then ask yourself, "How have we forgotten justice?"

The tragedy of the ongoing death and maiming of our physically and emotionally drained troops in Iraq is well publicized. Less well-known is the tremendous costs to the American taxpayer and its impact on economic recovery.

The Bush administration recently released the fact that the current fiscal budget deficit will be an all-time record of $455 billion. It is important to recognize that this deficit estimate does not include any war costs - about $3.9 billion per month ($47 billion per year) to maintain our military on the ground plus a possible like amount for the enormous task of repairing infrastructure destroyed by our bombs, looting and sabotage.

It was first proposed that oil revenues would pay for the needed reconstruction. Prewar oil production was 2.5 million barrels per day.

Now, more than 100 days after the war was declared over, production is a small fraction of what it was. A major reason for this is that millions of dollars worth of intellectual property, equipment and materials were either stolen or ripped apart.

In its hyped rhetoric and rush to war, the Bush administration managed to alienate most of the rest of the world.

It is time to abandon the weak, phony "coalition of the willing."

Countries such as Russia, Germany, France and India, among others, stand ready to provide substantial aid in troops and money but only with a United Nations resolution.

To staunch this unacceptable flow of American blood and money, it is essential that the Bush administration swallow its pride and seek this resolution.

The Iraqi people are rebelling against American occupation. A truly multinational presence should be much more acceptable. It may be the only way out.

ED FLOCKHART, Maryville, 8/3/2003