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Lafayette Journal and Courier Clark calls for new strategy America is a great, powerful nation. But simply being "coarse, strong and cunning" won't get us anywhere, says a retired four-star general of the U.S. Army. Instead, we need to be wise, generous and visionary. This statement from Wesley Clark prompted cheers and loud applause from a packed audience Tuesday night at Purdue University, where Clark kicked off the university's 2006 Sears Lecture Series. This year's theme is "Do We Really Care About Human Rights?: The Balkans, Afghanistan and Africa." In his keynote address, "The Balkans: A Strategic Vision," Clark said the country's policy has been on a downward spiral since 1989 -- when the Cold War ended and the Berlin Wall came tumbling down. "It goes beyond just exceptionalism. We have to know how we got here," Clark said. "We got here because we lost our strategy. We did the best we could under the circumstances, but we never put in place a strategy -- to replace the Cold War strategy -- that the American people can understand and support." Clark, the first of three speakers in the biennial lecture series, said friends of his in Europe have warned that tolerance of U.S. exceptionalism has reached its breaking point. The 2004 candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination has been vocal in his criticism of President Bush and the war in Iraq, and his talk Tuesday was no exception. Clark said he questioned invading Iraq, instead believing that Iran is the bigger threat. "You can't win the War on Terror by killing people. You just can't do it," Clark said. "It may be true that we have to kill some people in the process, but you must win the battle of ideas. You must respect other people." Clark retired as a four-star general in 2000 from the Army and served as Supreme Allied Commander of NATO forces in Europe from 1997 to 2000. He pointed out that no allied soldiers were killed when the United States and its NATO allies helped bring peace to the Balkan region during the 1990s. Purdue sophomore Adam Hines, a member of the College Republicans, said he left the nearly two-hour lecture at Stewart Center's Loeb Playhouse "not disappointed." "He brought out larger issues that shouldn't concern us as Republicans or Democrats, but should concern us as Americans," Hines said. "They're real issues we face as Americans. ... He opened up an interesting dialogue." Hines, one of about 1,000 people in attendance, said he wanted to hear Clark speak in person to get a better understanding of the man often seen on television. "In his heart, he has the desire to make America a better place," Hines said. Like Hines, West Lafayette resident Ivan Nayama said he hopes people will use Clark's words Tuesday to see their own point of view from another angle. "I didn't agree with everything he had to say," Nayama said, referring to Clark's view on the war in Iraq, "but what he had to say should get more people talking." The lecture series, named for late Purdue historian Louis Martin Sears, is sponsored by the Department of History.
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