Gen. Wesley Clark: Let's Throw Radical Muslims Into Internment Camps

[DonViejo]

U.S. General Wesley Clark floated a plan Friday for dealing with so-called “lone wolf” terrorists on American soil: imprison them in internment camps before they get the chance to attack the U.S.

In an appearance on MSNBC to discuss the shootings at Chattanooga military sites, the retired general and former Democratic candidate for president said we should be dealing with “disloyal” American citizens who’ve been “radicalized” the same way the U.S. did during World War II – and called on allies to do the same.

“In World War II, if someone supported Nazi Germany at the expense of the United States, we didn’t say that was freedom of speech, we put them in a camp, they were prisoners of war,” Clark said.

He also said: “If these people are radicalized and they don’t support the United States and they are disloyal to the United States as a matter of principle, fine. It’s their right and it’s our right and obligation to segregate them from the normal community for the duration of the conflict.”

Clark suggested that American Muslims could come to embrace radical Islam after losing a girlfriend or if “their family doesn’t feel happy here.”

more
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/wesley-clark-internment-camps-chattanooga-radical-muslims

[antiquie]

1. I thought the general was sane.

How disgusting.

[elleng]

4. He IS sane, and he did NOT say what the headline says.

Watch the video for REALITY, please.

[antiquie]

9. I did watch.

Perhaps I misinterpreted?

[elleng]

13. I think you might have.

Watch again?

Thanks

[Horse with no Name]

2. Truly disgusting. Can we throw lone wolf white people in there too? n/t

[elleng]

5. Not what he said.

Watch the video.

[elleng]

3. That is NOT what he said. Please change the headline, DonViejo.

[DonViejo]

6. No. I used the published headline from the web site responsible for publishing the

article. I rarely, if ever, deviate from doing that.

Feel free to go to TPM, the comment section under this story, and voice your concerns or, here's the email address:

[e-mail]

[elleng]

8. As this is not LBN, it is not necessary to use the published headline here at DU.

Here it does nothing but inflame and misinform, 2 things DU does NOT need.

[m-lekktor]

25. yes this came through my facebook newsfeed with the same headline earlier! nt

[Raine1967]

32. KICKING THIS.

This is what TPM said NOT you, DV.

::grumble::

[Scootaloo]

11. That IS what he said.

“In World War II, if someone supported Nazi Germany at the expense of the United States, we didn’t say that was freedom of speech, we put them in a camp, they were prisoners of war,” Clark said.

He also said: “If these people are radicalized and they don’t support the United States and they are disloyal to the United States as a matter of principle, fine. It’s their right and it’s our right and obligation to segregate them from the normal community for the duration of the conflict.”

The title is not a direct quote, but it is what he's saying. And he says it in the video too.

Also he's wrong, we didn't put people in camps for having nazi sympathies. Father Coughlin never saw the inside of an internment camp. But we DID cram thousands of people whose only "crime" was having Japanese ancestry into the camps, under the assumption that if they're Japanese then they MUST be the enemy. So that's how the US does internment camps.

[closeupready]

23. Correct. He said it.

[madinmaryland]

47. What exactly did he say? I am not able to listen to audio on this computer...

The idea that someone would suggest "internment" camps is scary. Even if it was devoted to teabagging NRA gun nuts, it would still not be right.

[elleng]

48. He didn't suggest internment camps at all, mad,

but, to paraphrase, said we should segregate the people we believe to be a danger/disloyal to america;
do NOT enable them to disrupt in the many ways they do and can; did not reference internment camps at all in any way,
did say "specific people" which is different then say rounding up all the muslims- which is basically what we did in the 1940s re: Japanese.

Sorry that this not smoothly written; don't have a transcript.

[madinmaryland]

49. This is what really scares me about this comment...

"we should segregate the people we believe to be a danger/disloyal to america". Who actually defines what is dangerous or disloyal to America? That sounds like something a Tea Party member might say, and for us on DU to support this is scary. I cannot agree with you on this.

[libodem]

7. Man oh man

Does this ever rub me the wrong way.

Just think if Condoleezza Rice, Don Rumsfeld, Petraeus, Cheney, or Dubya, had uttered these histrionics. It would smack of Nazi concentration camps.

Effing Soylent Green surrealism.

[elleng]

10. He didn't say it, but OP insists on using misleading headline.

Watch the video for FACTS.

[closeupready]

22. Yes he did, starting at 59 seconds.

[libodem]

29. I did

I watched the whole thing. He's worried about radicalized Muslims and and advocates locking them up for as long as we are at war. Which seem perpetual.
Which translates to indefinable detention for perpetuity.

A Gitmo on every conceivable abandoned chicken hatchery.

Job creation.

[HassleCat]

12. Good plan, Herr General!

An we'll tattoo them with a crescent on their wrists to identify them as Dangerous Mooze-lims. And they can have the section of the prison camp right next to all the Tea Party loonies who shoot at federal workers who get too close to their pot plantations. There should be some separation from the section where we keep the religious crazies who show up at military funerals and scream about Jesus punishing sodomites. Yes, General Clark, you have a good basic plan, but you need to expand your horizons a little. There are so many people to be imprisoned, and so few true patriots willing to do the job.

[elleng]

14. Maybe that is what you would like to do, HassleCat,

but it is not at all what General Clark suggested.

[HassleCat]

16. Ok, then

I have noticed your replies defending the general. When I get back home, I will get my headphones and listen closely to what he said.

[elleng]

19. Thanks

[closeupready]

20. Listen at 59 seconds. He says it.

[closeupready]

15. What a disappointment. Words fail me.

Disgusted with him, for the first time.

[elleng]

24. Please listen carefully to what he said, closeupready.

He recognizes the problem we're seeing with 'lone wolves.' my words, and is looking for appropriate solutions.

[closeupready]

31. I know you from here, elleng, and I respect you.

I know you mean well, but I really have to disagree with you. You don't need to respond, just saying. Who knows, he may rethink this in the days to come. And he's a Democrat so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt.

[sub.theory]

36. Serious question

How else should we deal with those who have significant potential for violence? Wait until they kill someone?

I don't think he's saying to lock up every Muslim extremist, racist, right wing militia type or whatever other group. He's talking about those where there is significant risk of violence. What do we do? It's a hard question.

If we wait until they commit a crime lots of people may be dead.

[closeupready]

38. Do you realize what the term 'free society' means?

If so, then you know that constitutionally and even ethically, the government is prohibited from detaining or segregating anyone on the suspicion of 'significant potential for violence'.

And even post-facto, many here on DU will argue that when apprehended, such criminals should be thrown into Supermax, lifelong solitary confinement, key flushed down the toilet, etc. What does that suggest about such people other than they have ZERO interest in finding out why such criminals commit these acts, how these individuals came to choose to commit criminal acts? Therefore, it seems to also suggest that many, even on DU, want to live in a totalitarian state.

What do we do? We find out what we can about these people, find ways to steer them in other directions. It's not at all clear to me that existing law enforcement agencies like the FBI or ATF failed, per se - people can snap, people can be on the fence, and one event can push them over the edge.

Peace, over and out.

[sub.theory]

40. What do we do with the true believers?

It's a nice idea to want to try and understand where someone is coming from and why they believe what they do. It's noble to want to steer them into a different direction. But what happens when they refuse? What happens when they are all in? When they believe that all non-Muslims must be killed. When they believe that black people are the enemy. When they believe liberals are the enemy. How do we handle these cases?

I agree with you that it's not a fully free society. As I see it, it's a choice between two evils, and we have to try and choose the lesser evil. We can either detain people who subscribe to a violent, loathsome ideology, or we can risk that they will act upon that ideology and perhaps kill innocent people. I would say it's the lesser evil to detain the people who think it's ok to kill innocent people.

This is the grim choice that we are facing and it's not an easy one. It's not one that we should take lightly. It is in some ways criminalizing belief. But what do we do when innocent life is at risk?

[closeupready]

41. You subscribe to a solution in search of a problem.

We could detain all men, put them in breeding farms, and stop virtually all violence in one stroke. How about that?

Anyway, I think we are world's apart, and I'm not going to bicker back and forth; this is just a discussion board.

Wishing you well.

[snappyturtle]

45. Aw, why not? We all ready have pre-emptive war.

[hughee99]

17. I'd think Clark would know history better than that.

“In World War II, if someone supported Nazi Germany at the expense of the United States, we didn’t say that was freedom of speech, we put them in a camp, they were prisoners of war,”

That's not what happened. In WWII, there was no "test". It didn't matter who you supported. If you had the wrong ancestry and lived in the wrong place, you got put in the camps. And hell, even your ancestry didn't necessarily matter as they were putting native Americans (Aleuts) in camps too.

[elleng]

26. He KNOWS history,

and is NOT suggesting ANYTHING about ancestry here.

[closeupready]

18. He said it. Watch video beginning at 0:59 seconds.

He asserts that the government has the right to segregate some US civilians from other US civilians on basis of dissenting political views, even though he admits that civilians have the right to those views.

Confusing, but he's getting up there - maybe he's losing his marbles.

[Fred Sanders]

21. He was also talking about white and Christian terrorists in America, the Dylan Roof types:

He also said: “If these people are radicalized and they don’t support the United States and they are disloyal to the United States as a matter of principle, fine. It’s their right and it’s our right and obligation to segregate them from the normal community for the duration of the conflict.”

"These people" was in reference to violent radicals, all radicals, who threaten the foundations of America by wanting to destroy it.

The headline is not the headline which is a distorted, though compact, opinion on the interview, and I personally am the opposite of an Islamaphobe, I am a Distortaphobe.

For instance, reading the paragraphs after and before a quoted quote...is good!

Headlines have one purpose only these days...to press the ever itchy Outrage Button.

If the headline is distorted then repeating the headline is just advancing the distortion, it is no better.

[elleng]

27. Yes, Fred Sanders, and it worked,

outrage here, and little if any discussion of substance.

[HooptieWagon]

28. How does he propose to identify lone wolf radical Muslims?

The implications of that I find disturbing. Gen Clark used to be pretty smart...I wonder if old-age is creeping up on him.

[elleng]

30. He doesn't suggest how such might be done.

Searching for solutions.

He's STILL smart, he's looking for solutions to a problem facing us all, and in the past has recognized the importance of treating problems under criminal justice system rather than military.

[karynnj]

34. Don't think so - he is extremely smart, but he has often had a problem filtering his ideas before

speaking. It was some ill thought out comments that led to him imploding in 2004 - even with his excellent credentials. In 2008, Obama quickly dumped him very publicly as a surrogate when he - in a less egregious manner than Trump - attacked McCain's military record.

I suspect that he was throwing out ideas on how one deals with ISIS supporters in the US -- without considering how to do it and as importantly how to speak of it.

[Raine1967]

33. The title of the TPM article is misleading This is not what he is saying.

And if anyone is paying attention, the government is already dealing with radicalized lone wolf's and arresting them.

FBI Arrests Man in Connection With Alleged ISIS Sympathizer

Man arrested after overseas trip, accused of sympathizing with ISIS

Ohio Man Arrested for Alleged ISIS-Inspired Plot on US Capitol, FBI Says

And this:

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-us-has-an-isis-sympathizer-problem-2015-6

Since ISIS seized and held its first cities and began building its "caliphate" in January 2015, the group has attracted increasing support from individual Americans who have drawn the attentions of US law enforcement. According to the Center on National Security at Fordham Law, the rate of American individuals arrested for connections to ISIS has accelerated as recognition of the militant group's brand grows.

The center found that from March to December 2014, before the group held any territory, an average of one US citizen per month was arrested for ties to the organization. But from January 2015 to June 22, 2015, law enforcement arrested an average of 7 US citizens a month for connections to the terrorist group.

These arrests include US residents who are providing or attempted to provide various levels of support for the organization, from helping ISIS recruit via social media to planning domestic terror attacks to trying to leave the country to become a foreign fighter in Syria or Iraq. The majority of those arrested, according to the center, are US citizens in their mid-twenties coming from a broad range of ethnic backgrounds.



Despite law enforcement's success in disrupting and arresting residents suspected of having ties to ISIS, The Soufan Group notes that there is still a large potential pool of suspects and followers of ISIS within the country. ISIS' nebulous nature and willingness to call on individuals to carry out lone-wolf attacks also makes policing against potential plots more difficult.

We don't need to be all hair on fire, but it is fair to say that this is a problem. I do not fault Clark for pointing it out. The government is not rounding up people.

They are using intelligence to fine the very people that Clark is talking about.

[redstateblues]

35. I agree it's a bad idea but once they identify potentially violent radicals

What do they do with them? I'm sure this latest attack is going to embolden more lone wolves.

[Raine1967]

37. I don't know. Right now identifying them and arresting them seems like the most viable option.

I want to see terror plots stopped before they are in place.

That's the kinda thing that would have prevented a few attacks on our country.

[Glitterati]

43. Oh, I see

so let's just lock up the next generation of George Takei's yes?

Seriously, THINK about what you are advocating!

Just WHERE does it stop? At your front door - the local radical who disagrees with the next Republican President?

Or here:

[quote]Pete Lanteri, the former Marine who's organized a citizen surveillance group to monitor a military training exercise taking place this summer across seven southern states, is a self-described "hothead" prone to Facebook rants about rounding up "commies" and how blacks are a "failed race."[/quote]

I'm astounded that I'm reading this shit on DU!

[Raine1967]

44. Do you really believe that I just said what you think I said when

I didn't say that at all?

Please, take the words that you tried to put in my mouth and return them to where they came.

Seriously, your attempt at slander is really crappy.

This has nothing absolutely nothing to do with the subject YOU INTERJECTED into this conversation.

I never mentioned Japanese internment. IF you want to discuss that go start a thread and ask me about it. You might be really surprised at my response. I will not debate straw arguments.

[ladyVet]

58. If they have broken a law, arrest them.

I don't think we really want to go down the slippery slope of "sympathizing" with whatever the latest out group is, or someone who thinks differently than who ever is in charge being targets of what would amount to life-time imprisonment.

I mean, what if we said that teabaggers are going to hurt somebody? How about fundamentalist Christians? They talk all the time about killing gays and liberals in general. We'd have to round up a good chunk of congress, about half the religious leaders and many people in state and local governments. Not to mention people like the Duggars and the owners of Chik -fil -a and Hobby Lobby.

Where would we put them all? Where would it end?

I'm as scared of people getting hurt as anybody, but I depend on the Constitution to protect me from people who don't think like me or who don't like my views having the right to simply arrest me for my thoughts.

[elleng]

42. Thanks for doing the research, Raine,

and helping to set the record straight.

[Octafish]

39. Like that would ever happen here.

Oh.

Michigan Militia & Friends were to be part of REX-84

In Oliver North's heyday, the idea was that the Michigan Militia and a bad number more of the other right-wing paramilitary groups across the nation would be deputized to do Reagan-Bush's domestic dirty work, in the event of a "national emergency." The idea was that the government would be able to circumvent the posse comitatus laws if there were mass protests against a "hypothetical" U.S. invasion of Central American nations like El Salvador or Nicaragua. Reagan-Bush thought they might need to round up undesirables, foreigners and whoever else they designated as enemies of the state.

Rex 84: FEMA's Blueprint for Martial Law in America

http://www.globalresearch.ca/rex-84-fema-s-blueprint-for-martial-law-in-america/3010

The same people who can intercept any phone call, spy and drone to their heart's content, also control Wall Street and the nuclear stockpile. Other than that, we got 'em where we want 'em: scared of the tumbril.

As for who will survive the right's big round-up: those who can afford it.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=9084342&mesg_id=9084342

It was supposed to be for "protesters," but, unless you have the clearance, you never know who'll qualify.

[brooklynite]

46. I observe that nobody who claims Clark's DIDN'T say what he's accused of saying...

...has posted (either as a transcript or an interpretation) what he DID say.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

50. He's saying that radicalized young men who do not support our country but who

support our enemies (ISIS) should be singled out for segregation (although he also supports the notion that people in their own communities should bring them in and try to reason with them). It's a tough question because we are in a de facto war. Radical Islam is the enemy of western civilization (not to mention the enemy of women, Jews, gays, Shiites, Kurds, scientists and intellectuals and others). I wouldn't like having to take the step of internment camps, but I'll be happy to have them around if radical Islam gets more crazy, religiously zealot nuts with bigger weapons and ever greater murderous intentions. it's not a valid argument to compare this situation to the Japanese internment of WWII. Those people were segregated based on race. This proposal isn't based on race but on radical ideas in support of a movement that is intent on murder and terrorism against civilians throughout the world . I assume even home grown blonde haired blue eyed ISIS supporters would be interred.

[ladyVet]

59. Radical Christians have the same views about the same people.

Are we going to go after them as well?

If we don't want a problem with the Muslims, maybe we should quit interfering with their lands and their customs. But no, that would mean we couldn't control the oil and mineral rights, so that's a bust. How would the MIC keep running, if we didn't have something for them to earn huge amounts of money on?

If people are guilty for their ideas, and not their actions, this country is lost.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

61. Radical Christians aren't killing thousands and thousands of people throughout the world

or flying planes into skyscrapers or attacking innocent civilians in European cities and Arab cities. Radical Christians aren't being called to Jihad for the express purpose of killing innocents for Allah. Radical Christians do not have the views as a group of radical Islamists. Radical Christians aren't calling for the murder of every Jew and another holocaust tor the Jewish State like Hitler did. I haven't seen Christians chopping off the heads of men and women just for converting to another faith. We've tried not interfering with them. For 300 years the Caliphates in North Africa conducted piracy on the high seas of every vessel they could. It's estimated that over one million Europeans were murdered by Radical Islamists during that time until several Europeans went in and stopped it. To me, radical Islam has no redeeming qualities, I will never praise it or defend it and I consider it a cancer wherever it's found.

[Sparkly]

51. "Let's Throw Radical Muslims Into Internment Camps"?! Who said that?

It wasn't The General.

People have always loved to take his words out of context. Whenever I see a headline like this about General Clark, I know there's more to the story.

He is right to think about prevention at this point, with community person-to-person outreach -- far better than the alternative (war).

[Android3.14]

52. "segregate them from the rest of the community"

I can see how someone could infer internment camps from this phrasing.

[Purveyor]

53. Thank you for posting. I knew something just wasn't right with Wesley considering his actions

during the Kosovo conflict.

This confirms it.

[Reter]

54. No suprise

He has ties to BOTH Ruby Ridge and Waco. Martial Law supporter? Certainly seems so.

[Ilsa]

55. kick.

[Erose999]

56. Isn't that what we were supposed to be doing with GITMO?

[marmar]

57. Yikes.

[Le Taz Hot]

60. And there were people on this board in 2004,

salivating for him to be president.

[Rex]

62. They are in this very thread!

Drooling over the idea of a 7 country war, their stocks will surge!

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

63. Operation Pastorius

was an attempt by Nazi Germany to land plain clothes German soldiers by submarine in the United States to engage in sabotage of factories, electric plants, and the like. They were confirmed Nazis and had lived in the United States for years, speaking excellent English. Two of them were U.S. citizens. Before their plans could be carried out, they were apprehended, incarcerated, and executed by the Roosevelt Administration. Too bad we couldn't have done the very same thing with the 9/11 saboteurs.

We're living in a difficult time today, engaged in a de facto war with individuals who are de facto soldiers. These radical soldiers going to and from the middle east don't wear uniforms and fight in enemy lines. They don't get drafted and sign oaths with an enemy government that has formally declared war on the United States because there is no conventional Al Qaeda or ISIS government. There are no lines in this war and no one wears a uniform. But these radical Islamists are every bit as sick and murderous as Nazi soldiers were. How do you fight them? You apprehend them before they kill, the way we apprehended Nazi soldiers in plain clothes, some of them U.S. citizens during World War II. I don't like the idea of internment camps and I would hope their intentions have been very clearly understood and evidenced before we segregate them. Of course ISIS "soldiers" are likely to be of any gender or race, so the isolation of known radical Islamists is not racially motivated. ISIS "soldiers" can come from every walk of life, rich and poor Right now there haven't been that many murders of U.S. citizens at the hands of these radical Islamic murderers. But if it gets worse, we may not even be debating the wisdom of locking up crazies who plan killings of people whose only crime is to not support a medieval set of values. I for one do not want to live in a battleground with enemy terrorist soldiers all around me.