Clark: We have got to identify the people who are most likely to be radicalized. We've got to cut this off at the beginning. There are always a certain number of young people who are alienated. They don't get a job, they lost a girlfriend, their family doesn't feel happy here and we can watch the signs of that. And there are members of the community who can reach out to those people and bring them back in and encourage them to look at their blessings here.
But I do think on a national policy level we need to look at what self-radicalization means because we are at war with this group of terrorists. They do have an ideology. 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 him in a camp, they were prisoners of war.
So, 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. And I think we're going to have to increasingly get tough on this, not only in the United States but our allied nations like Britain, Germany and France are going to have to look at their domestic law procedures.
This is very disturbing to me. I don't know what standing General Wesley Clark has in the Democratic Party - but I am quite certain that he is not part of a lunatic fringe. And here he is, suggesting internment, on what basis? In this nation, we are supposed to have freedom of thought and speech; and only conspiracies or real incitement to violence can be considered to be speech that crosses the line. On what basis are we going to distinguish between a devout Muslim whose intentions are peaceful and a devout Muslim who believes in violence? On what basis can this proposed internment work? We will end up indiscriminatingly "segregating" all Muslims from the "normal community".If someone like Wesley Clark is suggesting this, you can imagine the ideas germinating in the heads of everyone that is politically to the right of him, which is a substantial portion of the country. And that means we may re-enact some of the most unfortunate eras of our history.
That is why, in the face of dailykos members' disapproval, I've been saying that Liberals need to speak up. What do liberals need to do, in my opinion, is below the fold.
