If you have a problem with the Kosovo war, isn't your beef with Clinton?

[WilliamPitt]

It strikes me as singularly strange to go after Wesley Clark for the Kosovo war, especially if you disagreed with the premise for that war. Doesn't Bill Clinton merit your anger on this one? Soldiers like Clark go where they are told to go. This is my understanding of military affairs. If he used depleted uranium or bombed places where civilians were, that strikes me as being the fault of the civilian commanders who sent him there to fight. War is messy, even without depleted uranium. Was the war Clark's fault, or Clinton's? I think it's a logical frog-hop to knock Clark for Clinton's war.

Just mho.

[WoodrowFan]

1. geeze Will

start a flamewar why don't ya! (It's a good point, however). Now we get MORE posts from the pro-Serb Genocide corps...

[Trajan]

I have no problem with the basic premise of the War in Kosovo ....

Which was to cease the slaughter of muslim Kossovars by the fascist Yugoslavian War Machine .....

I am not pleased by every aspect of that operation, from the conduct of the bombing campaigns in Rump Yugoslavia to the lukewarm post war efforts since then: .... but overall: I believe that action succeeded in its goal of stopping the slaughter of innocent human beings ..... if even imperfectly ....

[Ardee]

57. Trajan sums it up quite nicely

in my opinion...thank you.

I saw only one reference to an action by Wesley Clark wherein he attempted to confront Russian troops at an airport that, if true, seemed more than a bit extreme for a potential president.

[0rganism]

95. The Pristina airport has been pretty well misconstrued by anti-Clarkies

Clark asked the Brits to put some vehicles on the runway to keep additional Russian forces from flying in. The "unofficial" Russian contingent occupying the airport were bumming food and water from the UK troops.

The clarkmyths site has a detailed debunking:
http://www.clarkmyths.com/myth4.html

[TLM]

116. You are the one that has misconstrued the facts...

The helicopters on the runway was the second thing Clark ordered, AFTER his order to have Russian and French paratroops take the airport by force was flat out refused by British command. His order for the helicopters was also refused. And it s a damn good thing it was because the russians were the key to ending the war. While Clarks bombing campaign managed to kill 1500 civilians and wound 10,000 more... it took out all of about a dozen Serb tanks. The Serbs continued killing. Fully 80% of the genocide victims, died AFTER Clark started his campaign.

Not only were Clark’s methods of targeting civilians, civilian infrastructure, residential areas, markets, hospitals, schools, and a TV station filled with journalists inexcusable, it was totally ineffective.



http://www.guardian.co.uk/Kosovo/Story/0,2763,208123,00.html

Having helped Nato out of its predicament, Moscow was embroiled in arguments with Washington about the status of Russian troops in the K-For operation. For reasons to do with efficiency as much as power politics, the west insisted the Russian contingent must be "Nato-led". With or without Yeltsin's say-so, on June 12 a group of some 200 Russian troops drove out of Bosnia - where they were serving with the Nato-led S-For stabilisation force - and in full view of the world's television cameras made for Pristina airport where Jackson had planned to set up his K-For headquarters guarded by British paratroopers.

The Russians had made a political point, not a military one. It was apparently too much for Clark. According to the US magazine, Newsweek, General Clark ordered an airborne assault on the airfield by British and French paratroopers. General Jackson refused. Clark then asked Admiral James Ellis, the American commander of Nato's southern command, to order helicopters to occupy the airport to prevent Russian Ilyushin troop carriers from sending in reinforcements. Ellis replied that the British General Jackson would oppose such a move. In the end the Ilyushins were stopped when Washington persuaded Hungary, a new Nato member, to refuse to allow the Russian aircraft to fly over its territory.



http://www.guardian.co.uk/Kosovo/Story/0,2763,208056,00.html



A month later, with Nato getting increasingly frustrated about Milosevic's refusal to buckle, Mary Robinson, the UN human rights commissioner, said Nato's bombing campaign had lost its "moral purpose". Referring to the cluster bomb attack on residential areas and market in the Serbian town of Nis, she described Nato's range of targets as "very broad" and "almost unfocused". There were too many mistakes; the bombing of the Serbian television station in Belgrade - which killed a make-up woman, among others - was "not acceptable".

Nato, which soon stopped apologising for mistakes which by its own estimates killed 1,500 civilians and injured 10,000, said that "collateral damage" was inevitable, and the small number of "mistakes" remarkable, given the unprecedented onslaught of more than 20,000 bombs.

Y et once Nato - for political reasons, dictated largely by the US - insisted on sticking to high-altitude bombing, with no evidence that it was succeeding in destroying Serb forces committing atrocities against ethnic Albanians, the risk of civilian casualties increased, in Kosovo and throughout Serbia. Faced with an increasingly uncertain public opinion at home, Nato governments chose more and more targets in urban areas, and experimented with new types of bombs directed at Serbia's civilian economy, partly to save face. By Nato's own figures, of the 10,000 Kosovans massacred by Serb forces, 8,000 were killed after the bombing campaign started.

Nato does not dispute the Serb claim that just 13 of its tanks were destroyed in Kosovo - a figure which gives an altogether different meaning to the concept of proportionality. Nato fought a military campaign from the air which failed to achieve its stated objectives.

[Kool Kitty]

2. Yep.

I would think so.

[bloom]

If I have to blame Clinton also because Clark

defended the killing of journalists, etc., I will.

It sounded like something that Clark was more directly involved with. But you are right - he didn't fight that war all by himself.


""NATO justified the bombing of the Belgrade TV station, saying it was a legitimate military target. 'We've struck at his TV stations and transmitters because they're as much a part of his military machine prolonging and promoting this conflict as his army and security forces,' U.S. General Wesley Clark explained - 'his,' of course, referring to Yugoslavian President Slobodan Milosevic. It wasn't Milosevic, however, who was killed when the Belgrade studios were bombed, but rather 20 journalists, technicians and other civilians..."

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0923-08.htm

[AWD]

3. Stop being logical

Stop being logical, Will. You know better than that.

Hang on, everybody...I know how to distract him.

LOOK! THERE'S PEDRO! GO SOX!

OK, everybody. Will is now neutralized.

-----

Just kiddin', buddy.

[WilliamPitt]

6. Wha? Where? Ahhhhh duuuhhhh pzzzzzcheeeeeeeezzzzz...

:crazy:

[papau]

13. Will - you've got 2 hours to sleep - get off the Board! - The game is

120 minutes away!!!!!!

:-)

[Qutzupalotl]

4. Indeed, Clark lobbied for sending ground troops vs. bombing

which would have caused fewer foreign casualties (but more American)--but he was overruled.

[Wetzelbill]

5. Yeah, Clark is a soldier, Bill was the boss

Whether you support a war or not it is essential to understand that when a volunteer soldier gets ordered to do something they do the job they are trained to do. The leaders of governments instigate and involve their countries in wars, soldiers just fight them. It makes no sense to blame a guy who is dutifully following orders in this instance when his civilian boss chucked him into a shitty situation. Depleted Uranium is a war crime, it's nasty, as well as knowingly smoking up civilians. Wes Clark didn't make the decision to fight, though. Morally reprehensible as these messes are, the end result of the blame definitely goes to the guy who makes the decision to send soldiers to do his fighting. That would be Bill Clinton, not Wes Clark.

[bloom]

8. There are examples of soldiers and generals NOT following orders

Because they believed them to be morally wrong.

Some Israeli military have doing this.

And there is the story that I love of the German (general?) refusing to burn Paris (WWII).

[boxster]

7. Yep, it's funny how all-of-a-sudden, the entire credit/blame

for Kosovo goes to Clark.

It's become the insta-response for many posters who want to summarily dismiss him as being pro-war, not to mention its secondary benefit of being the basis for the ever-popular "Clark killed civilians" posting and related responses.

How many of the people blaming Clark for Kosovo had ANY clue who Clark was at the time? My guess is a very, very small fraction.

[Julien Sorel]

15. If it were Clinton running against Dean,

then Clinton would be the war criminal. And all of a sudden, Lewinsky would be perfectly fair game, as 'it's only a taste of what the Republicans will do.' It's the utter lack of scruples of these people that disgusts me more than anything.

[boxster]

I think maybe it's more laziness or ignorance,

rather than a lack of scruples.

It's simply much easier to just dismiss Clark as a Republican or a war criminal than to actually research and/or provide documentation for those beliefs.

It's similar with the other candidates. Dean's labeled a hothead or a conservative(read that one today). Lieberman's a traitor (to the Dems, not the US) or a Republican. Kucinich is just an activist who happens to be running for president. Anyone to the right of Kucinich is the "establishment" candidate, and so on.

All are silly, yet all have been used by the candidates' opponents. It's easier than discussing the pros of their candidates or the differences between their candidate and the others.

Edit: fixed rather funny typo.

[Julien Sorel]

33. I think it's Dean people, terrified that Clark will win

the nomination that their person deserves, who will do anything possible to attack Clark. There are 4 or 5 people who have been consistently against Clark since before he was a candidate, but since he's become one, and done well in the polls and fundraising, there are several Dean people who have joined them and now do nothing except attack Clark.

[Padraig18]

39. Please emphasize *some (few) * Dean people

Most of the Dean folks I am in contact with on a regular basis find this Clark bashing/flaming over Kosovo just as nasty and baseless as do the rest of you.

[stickdog]

142. I'm not on the "war criminal" train. I'm on the defense contracting

criminal hunt, as in lobbying for the Acxiom/CAPPS II/Big Brother Piece of Shit "no fly" list, and whoring himself out to the Markle Foundation:

http://www.markletaskforce.org/

[seventhson]

17. Deleted

[Brian Sweat]

131. Hell, haven't you heard? Clark is responsible for Waco

because some equipment that belonged to units under his command were used in the failed raid. Nevermind that it was Koresh and his followers that started the fire.

[gully]

9. Most people who have a problem with Kosovo

consider Clinton, Clark, Albright and the gang responsible for war crimes.

[Tinoire]

12. lol Gully- Check out my post

You have us down pat!

You must admit, we are at least consistent :)

[gully]

19. he he...

;)

[WilliamPitt]

16. Well, I'll be meeting Albright in Amsterdam on the 14th

I'll be sure to pass that along.

[gully]

115. It's not MY opinion Will. It's the collective opinion of many

So don't shoot the messenger ok?

I have "Green" friends who've been telling me Clinton was a war criminal for years. *Not speaking for all Greens here*

It should be noted that Ramsey Clark, (who now has the vote to impeach site against Bush) was touting the same "rhetoric" against Bill Clinton. He has some credibility as the former Attorney General of the United States however.

*NOTE, I do not necessarilly agree with Ramsey Clark, am again providing information. I don't personally feel qualifed to make a decision on this, as I'm not an expert in international law...

http://www.thesunmagazine.org/bully.html

He founded this group...

http://www.iacenter.org/

BTW, I don't think you'll have to pass it along to Ms. Albright as I'm sure she's aware. See the link below for more information.

Poke around here...
"WAR CRIMES TRIBUNAL FINDS U.S. AND NATO GUILTY"
http://www.iacenter.org/warcrime/wct2000.htm

The case against Bush here.
http://www.votetoimpeach.org/articles_rc.htm

As I said, I am simply providing information, not touting it as truth...I think we all need to be aware of this information, as Clark may be our nominee.

Also, on a more personal note...
You seem to hold a 'higher' regard for Kerry and Clark then the other candidates? I can only surmise it is because of their military service... You appear to take offense at questioning Clark, but I don't see you interject much when Dean is slammed? I know you've made a plea for us to appreciate all of our candidates, but I recall an "I'm worried about Dean" thread not to long ago as well. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I sense a bias. :shrug:

I personally hold a high regard for ALL our candiates for serving the country via running for President. But, at the same time I will question each and every one KWIM?

BTW, I respect you much, and I hope you don't mind my candor here.;)

Unfortunately, I think we can expect to hear more about the war criminal situation in the months to come...

CLARIFICATION in case there is any doubt: I'M ABB, ALWAYS HAVE BEEN, ALWAYS WILL BE. THAT INCLUDES VOTING FOR THE GENERAL IF HE IS THE NOMINEE.

[Tinoire]

10. No Will. They are both to blame

Albright and Clark pushed for this war. Clinton wanted to send peacekeeping troops to Rwanda but Clark not only advised him against an intervention to stop the genocide there but actively pushed for a war in Yugoslavia.

I have already posted several articles here about members of Congress who were shocked because Clark was waging the war against the Serbs as if he had a personal vendetta against them.

Also, the CIC does not decide which shiny new toys to use in war- those are soldiers' toys and soldiers, generals decide.

Both are responsible and both are to be held responsible.

Remember Nuremberg? 'I was just following orders' is no excuse.

[Evanstondem]

18. Support please

Can you direct me to these posts and articles?

Based on what I know I believe we should have intervened in Rwanda as well as Kosovo.

[Tinoire]

44. Give me some time- I am at work and those bookmarks are at home

This evening will post them for you. What are you most interested in?

[Evanstondem]

49. The statements from members of Congress

About Clark's conduct of the war.

[Tinoire]

83. Don't have a ton there and am still not at home but here's something

<snip>
But the four-star "Clinton general" appearance before Congress stood in absolutely stark contrast to the standing ovations given by Congress to the last returning American war commander, General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, who delivered a stirring 20-minute tribute on May 8, 1991 to both houses of Congress. By comparison, Clark suffered through the indignity of being caught in Washington traffic and then entered a huge Senate hearing room a few minutes late to find only six of the 19 committee members at their seats. (13 eventually appeared.) And when Clark finally answered the last question more than three hours and no ovations later, only two senators were left. Spectators numbered 11.

Senator James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma said: "I do think that we have abused and we have lied to the public as to the atrocities" that were taking place in Kosovo.

Senator Olympia J. Snowe, a Maine Republican, questioned Clark's battlefield damage assessments. A Globe reporter, in two weeks of extensive travel throughout the province, saw only three destroyed Yugoslav military vehicles - two tanks and one armored personnel carrier. "I stand by the figures that we released on confirmed battle damage," Clark said. "That was 110 tanks, 210 armored fighting vehicles and 449 artillery and mortar tubes." He did say that pilots hit some "dummies," or fake military equipment built by Yugoslav troops as decoys.

<snip>

Clark answered his last question close to 1 p.m., and stayed for a few minutes to discuss the Pristina airport situation with Senator John Warner of Virginia and Senator Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat. The general threw his arms in the air and had a hard time keeping his voice down, despite the presence of reporters nearby, the Globe said.

It must have rankled him. "Oh, I don't know," Clark said, ducking his head into his chauffeured black sedan. "I think some nice things were said. Maybe the difference here was that we didn't have the buildup that we had leading to Desert Storm. Maybe I need to provide greater clarification in the days ahead."

http://www.truthinmedia.org/Kosovo/Peace/ps13.html

This is a little lagniappe:
Here are some additional excerpts from the Works report.

"Most of the Congressmen speaking loudest against Serbia and Serbs are those receiving money from Joe DioGuardi's PAC. Some have simply been beguiled, others may be more disingenuous. Recipients come from both sides of the aisle but are mostly members of the House or Senate Foreign Relations Committees: Joseph Lieberman and Jesse Helms, Benjamin Gilman and Tom Lantos. These records do not reveal monster sums of money, but demonstrate the tip of the iceberg, where 'soft money,' individual declared contributions and bags full of $100 bills also find their way to select candidates. <...>

http://www.truthinmedia.org/Kosovo/Peace/ps13.html

April 21, 1999

Obviously frustrated with increasing signs that Russia is definitely going to send an armada of warships to protect their legitimate interests in the Balkans, Clark told NATO personnel (and a few journalists as well) that we (meaning NATO and the U.S.) 'Should just bomb any Russian warship that sets foot in the Mediterranean.' In an attempt to spin this gaffe, one staffer immediately tried to qualified Clark's outburst by proclaiming that Clark 'obviously needs some sleep.' <snip>

http://www.siri-us.com/backissues/1999/SIT-4-23-NATOvYugoslavia.html

WASHINGTON -- Members of Congress who during their spring recess met in Brussels with Gen. Wesley Clark, the NATO supreme commander, were startled by his bellicosity.

According to the lawmakers, Clark suggested the best way to handle Russia's supply of oil to Yugoslavia would be aerial bombardment of the pipeline that runs through Hungary. He also proposed bombing Russian war ships that enter the battle zone.

The American general was described by the members of the congressional delegation as waging a personal vendetta against Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. "I think the general might need a little sleep," commented one House member.

<snip>


April 17, 1999
http://www.newsmax.com/commentarchive.shtml?a=1999/4/17/071704

Yeah the quote was reported by Novak

----

With the sleight of hand of a true briefer, Clark left the impression in the minds of the press corps that in each of these 67 strikes the targets had actually been destroyed. But the "methodology" meant merely that the target was added to the score so long as two or more sources-i.e. the pilot's claim, plus perhaps video footage or a report from someone else in the area-indicated that the weapon had hit the target. With such casuistry, Clark was able to inflate the total figure to 93-not far from the wartime boast of 110 such kills.

Even the paltry claim of 26 destroyed targets in this category should be viewed with skepticism. An alert friend of CounterPunch in the defense community points out that slide # 27 in the briefing features a "tank" destroyed by a U.S. Navy F-14 mission. Actually, slide #27 shows not a tank but a second world war U.S. tank destroyer known as the M-36, famously ineffective even when introduced in 1943, and later donated to Yugoslavia some time in the 1950s. Perhaps, our friend suggests, "The Yugos took one look at what they got, and then put the things in front of the nearest VFW-equivalent meeting halls. Then, along come and the word goes out: 'we need hulks to serve as decoys for the Americans to blow up.' Wes Clark & staff collect the imagery and proudly display their 'kill'".

This same observer notes that the Pentagon is working on what will be a "lying, cheating, thieving" after-action report, basing his description on news that the work is being supervised by deputy defense secretary John Hamre, a noted time-server and catspaw of the uniformed military.

Among the many issues the report is not expected to address is the sudden disappearance, half way through the conflict, of the $2 billion B-2 stealth bomber, described by Clark as one of the "heroes" of the war. Forty-three days into the conflict, the B-2 was reported as having flown "nearly fifty" sorties. When the war ended after 78 days of bombing, an authoritative report stated that the B-2 had flown a total of 49 missions, indicating that it "fell out of the war" half way through. Presumably, the costly behemoths were deteriorating at such a rate that the Air Force decided to relegate the plane to its alternative mission as backdrop for President Clinton's demonstrations of martial resolve on TV.



One of many expensive US AGM-88 HARM anti-radar missiles that missed their targets in Yugoslavia. Many HARMs attacked microwave ovens modified to operate with the door open. A $50 oven vs. a $750,000 missile...

Another topic on which we may expect Hamre to remain diplomatically silent is the ingenuity with which the Serbs diverted the anti-radar Harm missiles launched in enormous numbers by Nato's planes. Early on, the Serbs discovered that a microwave oven, adjusted to operate with the door open, appears exactly like an air defense radar to the $750,000 missiles - a very cost-effective exchange.

http://www.counterpunch.org/genclark.html

You can see photographs of the "decoys" here: http://www.aeronautics.ru/nws001/counterpunch01.htm

[Evanstondem]

99. Thanks for the sources

I don't have very high regard for Counterpunch or Newsmax, but I'll take a look at some of these.

[Tinoire]

111. Not from Congress but from Newsweek

Remember Hugh Shelton's words about Clark's integrity... What Clark used to do as a game at the NTC )National Training Center) at Fort Irwin, CA is exactly what he did in Yugoslavia- he fudged military reports to make his successes seem greater than they were. Military officers do NOT speak against other military officers unless there is a compelling reason and if there's one thing Hugh Shelton is, it's a professional. No military person, Democrat or Republican would ever question Hugh Shelton's integrity. Clark was not abruptly brought back from Yugoslavia, 3 months early, with no welcome home fanfare just on a fluke... Just think about that and...

----------------

Newsweek Exclusive: Suppressed Air Force Report on Kosovo Bombing Shows Little Damage Done to Milosevic's Forces, Contrary to Early NATO and Pentagon Claims

Serbs Faked Bridges, Artillery, Missile Launcher
NEW YORK, May 7 /PRNewswire/ -- A suppressed U.S. Air Force report obtained by Newsweek shows that the number of targets verifiably destroyed by high-altitude bombing in the Kosovo War was a tiny fraction of what top military officers publicly claimed. The report shows there were 14 tanks destroyed, not 120; 18 armored personnel carriers, not 220; and 20 artillery pieces, not 450. And instead of the 744 ``confirmed'' strikes by NATO pilots during the war, the Air Force investigators, who spent weeks combing Kosovo, found evidence of just 58 strikes. The damage report has been buried by top military officers and Pentagon officials, who, in interviews with Newsweek over the last three weeks, were still glossing over or denying its significance.

Gen. Wesley Clark, the top NATO commander during the war, tried - at least at first - to gain an accurate picture of the bombing, Newsweek reports in the current issue. At the end of June, Clark dispatched a team to do an on-the-ground survey in Kosovo. The 30 experts were known as the Munitions Effectiveness Assessment Team, or MEAT.

The bombing, they discovered, was highly accurate against fixed targets, like bunkers and bridges. ``But we were spoofed a lot,'' said one team member. The Serbs protected one bridge from the high-flying NATO bombers by constructing, 300 yards upstream, a fake bridge made of polyethylene sheeting stretched over the river. NATO ``destroyed'' the phony bridge many times.

In addition, artillery pieces were faked out of long black logs stuck on old truck wheels. A two-thirds scale SA-9 antiaircraft missile launcher was fabricated from the metal- lined paper used to make European milk cartons. ``It would have looked perfect from three miles up,'' said a MEAT analyst. The team found dozens of burnt-out cars, buses and trucks - but very few tanks, and no indications that hit tanks had been hauled away.

When Clark heard this news, he ordered the inspectors to walk the terrain, report National Security Correspondent John Barry and Assistant Managing Editor Evan Thomas in the May 15 issue (on newsstands Monday, May 8). They came back with 2,600 photographs and briefed the commanders. ``What do you mean we didn't hit tanks?'' said Gen. Walter Begert, the Air Force deputy commander in Europe. Clark said, ``This can't be. I don't believe it.''

The Air Force was ordered to prepare a new report and in a month, Brig. Gen. John Corley was able to turn around a survey that pleased Clark. It asserted that NATO had successfully struck 93 tanks, close to the 120 claimed by Gen. Shelton at the end of the war, and 153 armored personnel carriers, not far off the 220 touted by Shelton. But Corley's team did not do any actual field research. Rather, it looked for any support for pilots' claims. ``The methodology is rock solid,'' said Corley, who strongly denied any attempt to obfuscate. ``Smoke and mirrors,'' is more like it, according to a senior officer at NATO headquarters who examined the data, Newsweek reports. NATO sources also say two of Clark's officers cautioned him not to accept Corley's numbers. The U.S. intelligence community, too, was doubtful. ``Nobody is very keen to talk about this topic,'' a CIA official told Newsweek. Over-rating the Kosovo bombing could lead to fundamentally flawed strategies in future similar conflicts, Newsweek notes.

from TPDL 2000-Jun-10, from Insight Magazine:

http://www.mega.nu:8080/ampp/yugoslavia.html
-----------------------------------------------

The Kosovo war will be earmarked in history as the beginning of the end of historical NATO. From the start, the Greeks, French and Italians did not support the American commanders.

NATO Commander Gen. Wesley Clark and U.S. Air Force commander Lt. Gen. Michael Short advocated an immediate air strike over Belgrade's strategic and economic infrastructure. In the BBC documentary, the two generals appeared to be frustrated by the political micromanagement of the air campaign by the Europeans. Their target was the juvenile Gaullist Jacques Chirac and his foreign minister, Hubert Vedrine, who rejected the wise and necessary strategic advice of the American generals. Reading between the lines, it was quite clear that the American generals were furious at the European political intervention. ((More similarities to Iraq anyone??))

http://www.mega.nu:8080/ampp/yugoslavia.html

Lots more to read at this site and all of it sourced. Highly unpleasant. The more I research this, the more, as a retired NCO, I get disgusted with Clark and with Clinton- someone I used to admire so much. I am not sure I admire him anymore when I look at Yugoslavia, WTO, GATT, NAFTA and welfare reform. And I certainly do not admire the politicians and civilians who pushed for this and other wars for the sole purpose of greed.

Today, I would blush to see some of my previous posts defending Clinton's actions.

[neverforget]

20. So Clark was against stopping genocide in Rwanda but for stopping

it in Kosovo? So he stopped one genocide but not the other? What's your beef? That he's not consistent with stopping genocide or the fact that he waged a war to stop one?

[Julien Sorel]

25. Clark supported sending troops to Rwanda.

[neverforget]

28. I know he supported going into Rwanda. I was checking to see

what the poster was getting at.

[Tinoire]

47. No- at the time he didn't. He is now saying that he regrets his decision

Retired Gen. Clark used to feel that way, too. It's a view he shared with many in the Pentagon when he came to Washington in 1994. As a top Pentagon advisor then, Clark said he advised Clinton against an intervention to stop the genocide in Rwanda. Without U.S. or other support, U.N. peacekeepers withdrew. Without international protection, more than 800,000 innocent people were massacred. Clark said he feels complicit for his role in doing nothing to stop the killing, and that he hopes the experience will convince new foreign policy leaders that the U.S. has a unique role in the world, not just to make life more comfortable and secure for Americans and their allies, but to make the world a less horrific place to live.

http://archive.salon.com/news/feature/2000/12/22/kosovo/index1.html

[Julien Sorel]

26. dupe

[Tinoire]

42. The war against Yugoslavia

for it was much more than a war against Kosovo, this war was against the entire country and went all the way to Belgrade, was for O-I-L and for the Military Industrial Complex.

There was NO genocide in Kosovo, just as there were no WMDs in Iraq.

There was however a genocide, a massive, undisputed genocide in Rwanda but there was no oil there and no lucrative mineral mines.

The war against Yugoslavia was a fraud- that is my beef.

----

CRISIS IN KOSOVO
A new book exposes NATO's dirty tricks
WILLIAM DORICH

For those wanting a second opinion, or in the case of Kosovo, any opinion other than Madeleine Albright's and her compliant media spin doctors, Kosovo Crisis: A Study in Foreign Policy Mismanagement by Dr. Vojin Joksimovich is a first. It's the first book authored by this nuclear scientist, the first comprehensive detailed volume about the war in Kosovo as told from a non-NATO perspective. It's also the first "no-holds barred" attack on the NATO propaganda machine and their dirty little illegal war.

<snip>

Joksimovich pulls no punches in Kosovo Crisis, and if anyone deserves to be candid about his feelings toward the blatant violations of international laws, the UN charter, the NATO charter, the Helsinki Final Act, the Geneva Conventions, the American Constitution and the War Powers Act, it's Vojin Joksimovich. He is an eyewitness to German and Anglo-American bombing of Belgrade, the city of his birth. Joksimovich is the sole survivor of Nazi bombing which instantly killed seven members of his family. As a teenager and young adult Joksimovich lived under three successive totalitarian regimes, first Hitler's, then Stalin's and finally Tito's. He has a natural aversion for the brainwashing tactics of lying leaders of whom he now adds, Clinton, Albright, Cohen, Clark, Blair and Cook.

The dust has not even settled over Kosovo, but Joksimovich refuses to allow the Clinton administration and NATO leaders to put away their smoke and mirrors tools of deception. He exposes in Kosovo Crisis the real damage to his people in which they were used as pawns in a deadly game of political and multi-national corporate interest that resorted to ecological poison and now genocide by sanctions. A process in which the Serbs will to robbed of their land and the mineral wealth, the cruelest hoax of all against humanity at the end of the 20th century, a century in which 70 million perished in the name of creating a better world.

<snip>
Joksimovich turns the mirror square into the face of American "humanitarianism" and "human rights" values that was used to incite a war and to deliberately demonize an entire nation with collective guilt. The reflection is not a pretty picture, it reveals the face of outrageous hypocrisy by politicians who spent billions of taxpayer's dollars to support Albanian insurrection and guarantee their return to their homes while continuing to ignore the 1.2 million Serbian refugees cleansed from Croatia and Bosnia 4 years ago. NATO went to war to protect Albanians, but do not give a damn that the result is a reversed ethnic cleansing in which 330,000 non-Albanians have been cleansed from Kosovo and robbed of their rights, their property, and land on which Serbs have lived for a thousand years. Joksimovich also reveals that this was not just another Muslim land grab in the Balkans but the creation of yet another NATO base in Europe as a disguise to defend Caspian oil routes through the Balkans. Kosovo Crisis reveals that the biggest prize of all was the Trepca Mines in Kosovo with enough coal to last 400 years, a prize worth billions. ((Now in the hands of George Soros))

<snip>

We now know the truth: Forensic teams from more than 15 countries found 187 bodies, not 44,000 as NATO claimed, not even the 10,000 of their revised figure. Even The Hague has resorted to half-truths and outrageous omissions. In their body count of 2,081 victims they fail to reveal that half were killed by NATO bombs or that one-third are Serbian victims. Even the so-called "mass grave in Pristina" promoted by NATO officials to contain 350 bodies contained only 5 bodies. So, it appears that Bernard Kouchner, the UN's chief administrator turns out to be just another liar, too. His ability to disarm the KLA has become a mockery of the peace agreement signed by both sides. Kouchner's repugnant ability to stand in stark silence as the KLA burned 2 million Serbian books reveals the level of duplicity of his mandate.

<snip>

Since the arrival of KFOR some 77 Serbian churches have been blown up. According to Joksimovich, "more than 1,300 Serbian churches survived 415 years of Ottoman slavery, two Balkan wars in this century and two World Wars, but it appears they cannot survive 120 days of KFOR occupation." Yet KFOR still will not allow the Serbian police to return to protect these historic sites, part of the peace agreement and UN Resolution #1244 signed by both parties and ratified by the Serbian parliament. Revealing the horrific duplicity of the Clinton administration who bombed the Serbs into signing this agreement then betray its content at every turn.

<snip>
http://www.towardfreedom.com/1999/dec99/crisis.htm

Waged a war to stop one? That's a pretty asinine comment!

What did we win? We won more war.

NATO's victory talk only sets the stage for the next war, creates a false sense of security about its power, puts faith in arms instead of negotiation, and covers up the endless series of blunders in the execution of the war.

Dennis Kucinich on the War Against Yugoslavia

http://www.progressive.org/kuc899.htm

[WilliamPitt]

45. There was no genocide in Kosovo?

So all that stuff on TV I saw, the sniper alley in Sarajevo and the rest, was all Hollywood? I'm in Europe, so be sure, because I can ask around right down on the street below me.

[Tinoire]

54. No Genocide Will, No babies thrown from incubators, No WMDs!

Google: Yugoslavia "no genocide" The results will amaze you. This is common knowledge in Europe and was known here.

Vets for Peace protested this war the same way they protested Iraq. As a matter of fact, they even had a huge protest in Chicago one day when Clark was speaking. Please don't ask me to find the link. If you insist, I have it book-marked at home and would be happy to provide it.

The answer to your question is yes... Hollywood- all media and hollywood... Just like Bush took Hollywood to Iraq, Clinton took Hollywood to Yugoslavia. C'mon Will, that's the oldest trick in the book...

Fresh-minded but jaded, yepper ;)

----------------------
It is worth scrutinising Nato's newspeak and the seven leading lies of the Western propagandists:

<snip>

4. "This is a humanitarian war." It is a funny sort of humanitarianism which goes to war in Kosovo but leaves people massacred and cultures exterminated in East Timor, Burma, Rwanda, Kurdistan and Tibet. Only a chillingly selective humanitarianism rates white lives more highly than those clad in skins of other colours. Exposure of the inconsistency invites a counter-presumption fatal to Western credibility: this war was inaugurated not to save lives but to save face. Milosevic called Nato's bluff and the Nato leaders were left with no choice but to enforce their threats or withdraw them.

5. "This war was started to stop 'genocide' or 'holocaust'." The wickedness of this language is that it warps the facts about the real holocaust; yet it is one of the Government's most hackneyed phrases. Last week, Robin Cook used the word "genocide" six times in a five-minute BBC interview, following the principle from the Scam-man's Handbook: if you repeat nonsense often enough, people will believe it. Serb policy in Kosovo is repulsively vicious and we should do everything possible, short of war, to stop it. But it is not genocide. The sufferings of the Jews in the Second World War were special: effectively without precedent, almost without parallel. Serb war objectives are depressingly commonplace: at first Yugoslav forces sought to crush the KLA by a policy of terror so thorough that the guerrillas' natural consituency would be cowed into submission. Gradually, and with increasing intensity under the Nato bombardment, the policy has hardened into an even more lethal form of extremism, which is unhappily traditional in south-east Europe. Most Serbs probably now think - even if they do not declare it explicitly - that the only way to ensure Yugoslavia's hold on Kosovo is to drive out or kill as many Albanians as necessary and replace them with Serb colonists.

6. "Nato did not foresee that the bombs would encourage the death squads." No one believes this. In reality, Nato knew what would happen but was willing to accelerate slaughter rather than back down. Last week, the spin-doctors realised their claims were preposterous and hurriedly primed Jamie Shea and Robin Cook to say instead that Nato was "shocked" by the scale of the slaughter that the bombing unleashed. It was now clear that Nato sent in the bombers without making preparations for the refugee problem which was bound to ensue.

<snip>
Crimes Against Truth

The Independent, April 4, 1999
The relentless propaganda war is trivialising epic suffering, says Felipe Fernandez-Armesto
http://www.diaspora-net.org/food4thought/fernandezarmersto.htm

----

Clark, who has been making headlines by claiming that the U.S. decision to go to war in Iraq was a misjudgment based on scanty evidence, ran Clinton’s NATO war against Yugoslavia on behalf of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). The House of Representatives failed to authorize the war under the War Powers Act, making it illegal. Thousands of innocent people in Serbia, Yugoslavia’s main province, were killed to stop an alleged "genocide" by Yugoslavia that was not in fact taking place. Investigations determined that a couple thousand had died in the civil war there.

http://www.aim.org/publications/weekly_column/2003/09/17.html (Accuracy in Media)
-----

WHO'S COUNTING?
The source of the distortion appears to be the KLA. The Trepca mines, where KLA promised the discovery of 700 bodies, contained none whatsoever. A grave in Ljubenic, said to contain 350, held seven corpses. The satellite image of purported freshly-dug tombs at Pusto Selo was not of graves after all. No mass graves were located at Izbica or Kraljan nor at Klina, where 328 were supposedly massacred. But a grave of 22 civilians was discovered at Klecka -- Serbians killed by KLA. They don't count. Thirty-six ethnic Albanian "Serb sympathizers" were shot by KLA and thrown into the Radonjic canal. Neither do those bodies "count" for Tribunal purposes. Pacifica Radio's Jeremy Skahill reported that two municipal employees told him the mass grave located in their jurisdiction contained the bodies of 40 Serb and KLA soldiers, killed in uniform in a firefight, whom the municipal workers had themselves buried. Yet they refused to tell this to Tribunal investigators for fear of retribution by the KLA. Better for world opinion if the dead are "Serb-massacred civilians".
Throughout last summer and fall, forensic experts from 15 countries combed Kosovo for the dead. Genocide is difficult to conceal; in Germany, Cambodia, and Rwanda massacres left massive, undeniable evidence. But half of Kosovo's reported graves have been exhumed and the body count is "disappointingly" low, under 1,000. Since the "most promising" sites were excavated first, investigators now expect to find less than 2,000 Kosovar dead, and many of those from bombing raids. (Toronto Star, Richard Gwyn, "No Genocide, No Justification for War on Kosovo," 11/3/99)

Los Angeles Times correspondent Paul Watson stole back into Kosovo after bombing began and the press was expelled. The only Western journalist to experience the entire bombardment (on the receiving end), Watson recalls: "I was able to reach all of Kosovo's main cities and towns. I saw a much more complicated picture than the one relayed by refugees fleeing across the border... I lived with constant fear of my own country and its allies, and festering doubts about their claim to the moral high ground... It seemed like calling a plumber to fix a leak and watching him flood the house... No independent witnesses ever managed to see Serb atrocities... Even in Kosovo, I couldn't escape the sound of Shea's voice on satellite TV, denying things I knew to be true, insisting on others I had seen were false". (L.A. Times, "A Witness to War," 6/20/99)

The western world is primed for the vilification of Belgrade only. This mass-mailed funding appeal from Amnesty International must have proved lucrative during the war. "URGENT: EYEWITNESS ACCOUNTS OF HORRIBLE HUMAN RIGHTS ATROCITIES WILL...BRING THE GUILTY TO JUSTICE IN THE HAGUE... THESE ARE CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY!...AMNESTY'S PRESENCE IN THE BALKANS...IS PUTTING A SEVERE STRAIN ON OUR BUDGET. PLEASE HELP!"

http://www.newmex.com/amistad/yugo4.html

MR. RUSSERT: Would President Buchanan try to convince an American mother that she should risk her son’s life in Kosovo?

MR. BUCHANAN: No, I would not because there’s no vital American interest in Kosovo. Tim, the Serbs, while their tactics are appalling—ethnic cleansing—are fighting for a sacred province that has belonged to them for generations. They’re fighting and dying inside their own country for their own land. It has never been a vital interest to the United States whose flag flies over Pristina. And what are we doing bombing and attacking this tiny country that has never attacked the United States to rip away from them a province that does not belong to us? I believe it is an unjust war. I think we have failed in our strategic objectives, and it is now becoming basically no longer a war for Kosovo but a war to save NATO’s credibility and NATO’s face. And that does not justify sending an army of 100,000 American ground troops into the Balkans.

MR. RUSSERT: Senator Lieberman?

SEN. LIEBERMAN: Well, it pains me to hear Pat’s answer because with all respect, it reveals a lack of learning the lessons of World War II and, indeed, of the Cold War. I mean, Ronald Reagan did not lead us to victory in the final battles of the Cold War for us less than a decade later to allow a Communist dictator to commit aggression and genocide in the heart of Europe. Those are the lessons. Those acts assault our values. America is more than a piece of real estate. America is a series of moral principles that begin with the right to life and liberty that the Declaration says our creator gave us. That is being grotesquely violated, those values, in Kosovo today.

Also, the Second World War taught us that if you don’t stop a smaller conflict in Europe early it’s going to spread and we’re going to get into a world war. So now is the time for us to stand by our principles, to stand by our allies in NATO, who reaffirmed our friendship and partnership with one another this weekend here in Washington, who will stand with us when we are tested around the world in the future, and they’re in Kosovo. American principles and American security interests are on the line.

MR. BUCHANAN: It pains me to disagree with my friend, Joe Lieberman. But Ronald Reagan, when he put troops into Lebanon and to stabilize that government, it was a just cause. But when the 269 Marines died, Ronald Reagan looked at that and said, “It is not in our vital interest. I made a mistake.” He had the moral courage to pull them out. With regard to Kosovo, there was 2,000 killed in 1998 in a low-grade civil war. There was no genocide going on. It was an ugly little war. The massive ethnic cleansing has been caused—is a consequence of air strikes and Rambouillet. We ourselves have ignited this debacle. Now, in my judgment, the ideal is to stop the killing, to stop the suffering. And the way to do that is to work toward a negotiated peace. Milosevic apparently has agreed to have international troops in there as long as they’re not NATO. We want NATO troops in there. That is not a cause worth sending an American Army into the Balkans.

With regard to Tony Blair—excuse me, but this last week he has literally been the mouse that roared, talking about the United States or Britain going to a ground war in the Balkans. It is not going to be British troops humping up that road to Belgrade but American kids, U.S. Marines, airborne divisions. And that is not a vital interest of this country.

MR. RUSSERT: Would you partition Kosovo, give Mr. Milosevic...

MR. BUCHANAN: I would—look, if the Serbs—this is their holy place. It is their sacred territory. If they want to keep that, they’ve had it for generations and even centuries. Why are we trying to go to war to take it away from them? Of course...

MR. RUSSERT: Isn’t that appeasing Mr. Milosevic?

MR. BUCHANAN: Look, it is not appeasement. It is his—Kosovo is his province as much—how would we react if down the road they said, “You got to give up Texas and the Alamo”? How would Ariel Sharon react if an Arab League and the Europeans said, “You’ve got to give up Jerusalem and get out”?

MR. RUSSERT: But we didn’t drive out a million Texans in train cars and buses and make them refugees?

MR. BUCHANAN: Look, Tim, you’re telling me that the tactics have been appalling and disgusting and you are exactly right. What triggered the massive ethnic cleansing of Kosovo? It is my belief that it was the NATO air strikes that began this whole episode, and if we had—is there anybody here who would not accept immediately the status quo ante? Is there anyone who thinks the Kosovar Albanians are better off now than they were 32 days ago?
http://www.diaspora-net.org/food4thought/liebermanbuchanan.htm

---

Toronto Globe And Mail
November 3, 1999

Richard Gwyn
No genocide, no justification for war on Kosovo

This discovery - more accurately, this non-discovery - first was made public three weeks ago by the Texas-based intelligence think tank, Stratfor. Stratfor estimated the number of ethnic Albanian dead in Kosovo at 500.
Last weekend, the story was broadcast for the first time by the TV Ontario program Diplomatic Immunity. (Last Sunday's New York Times was still using the ``10,000 deaths'' figure.)
The story has begun to appear in European newspapers. Spain's El Pais has quoted the head of the Spanish forensic team, Emilo Pujol, as saying he had resigned because, after being told to expect to have to carry out 2,000 autopsies, he'd only had 97 bodies to examine - none of which ``showed any signs of mutilation or torture.'' Because 250 of 400 suspected mass graves in Kosovo remain to be examined, it's possible that evidence of mass killings will yet be found. This is highly unlikely though, because the worst sites were dug up first.
No genocide of ethnic Albanians by Serbs, therefore. No "human catastrophe.'' No ``modern-day Holocaust.''
All of those claims may have been an honest mistake. Equally, they may have been a grotesque lie concocted to justify a war that NATO originally assumed would be over in a day or two, with Milosevic using the excuse of some minimal damage as a cover for a surrender, but then had to fight (at great expense) for months.
There's no question that atrocities were committed in Kosovo, overwhelmingly by the Serb forces, although the ethnic Albanian guerrillas were not innocent. Quite obviously, these forces, acting on Milosevic's explicit orders, carried out mass expulsions of people, terrorizing them and destroying their homes and property.
Acts like these are inexcusable. That they occur often in civil wars (far worse are being committed by the Russians in Chechnya), is irrelevant to their horror. But they have nothing to do with genocide. No genocide means no justification for a war inflicted by NATO on a sovereign nation. Only a certainty of imminent genocide
could have legally justified a war that was not even discussed by the U.N. Security Council.
No genocide means that the tribunal's indictment of Milosevic becomes highly questionable. Even more questionable is theWest's continued punishment of the Serbs - the Danube bridges and the power stations remain in ruins - when their offence may well have been stupidity rather than criminality.
The absence of genocide may mean something else, something deeply shaming. To halt the supposed genocide, NATO bombed targets in Serbia proper. Because of ``collateral'' or accidental damage, such as the bombing of a train, some 500 civilians were killed (Belgrade claims almost 1,000 deaths). NATO very likely killed as many people as were killed in Kosovo.
The number of these dead isn't large enough to justify NATO's actions being called a ``human catastrophe.'' But, unless proof of genocide can be produced, NATO's actions were clearly a moral catastrophe.

http://web.tiscali.it/no-redirect-tiscali/Controcorrente/nogenocide.html

The NATO powers had plenty of reasons to rush charges of genocide into the headlines. For one thing, it was becoming embarrassingly clear that the bombing had inflicted no significant damage on the Serbian army. All the more reason, therefore, to propose that the Serbs, civilians as well as soldiers, were collectively guilty of genocide and thus deserved everything they got. Teams of forensic investigators from 15 nations, including a detachment from the FBI, have been at work since June and have examined about 150 of 400 sites of alleged mass murder.

There's still immense uncertainty, but at this point it's plain that there are not enough bodies to warrant the claim that the Serbs had a program of extermination. The FBI team has made two trips to Kosovo and investigated 30 sites containing nearly 200 bodies.

In early October, the Spanish newspaper El Pais reported what the Spanish forensic team had found in its appointed zone in northern Kosovo. The U.N. figures, said Perez Pujol, director of the Instituto Anatomico Forense de Cartagena, began with 44,000 dead, dropped to 22,000 and now stand at 11,000. He and his fellows were prepared to perform at least 2,000 autopsies in their zone. So far, they've found 187 corpses.

A colleague of Pujol, Juan Lopez Palafox, told El Pais that he had the impression that the Serbs had given families the option of leaving. If they refused or came back, they were killed. Like any murder of civilians, these were war crimes, just as any mass grave, whatever the number of bodies, indicates a massacre. But genocide?

One persistent story held that 700 Kosovars had been dumped in the Trepca lead and zinc mines. On Oct. 12, Kelly Moore, a spokeswoman for the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia, announced that the investigators had found absolutely nothing. There was a mass grave allegedly containing 350 bodies in Ljubenic that turned out to hold seven. In Pusto Selo, villagers said 106 had been killed by the Serbs, and NATO rushed out satellite photos of mass graves. Nothing to buttress that charge has yet been found. Another 82 Kosovars allegedly were killed in Kraljan. No bodies have been turned up.

Although surely by now investigators would have been pointed to all probable sites, it's conceivable that thousands of Kosovar corpses await discovery. As matters stand, though, the number of bodies turned up by the tribunal's teams is in the hundreds, not thousands, which tends to confirm the view of those who hold that NATO bombing provoked a wave of Serbian killings and expulsions, but that there was and is no hard evidence of a genocidal program.

Count another victory for the Big Lie.

http://www.converge.org.nz/pma/sevid.htm

---

Substantial evidence has emerged refuting the central justification for NATO's war against Serbia—the claim that the Milosevic regime was conducting "ethnic genocide" against Albanians in Kosovo.

During the conflict, the NATO powers asserted that somewhere between 100,000 (according to US Defence Secretary William Cohen) and 500,000 (according to an April 1999 statement of the US State Department) Albanian Kosovars had been killed by Serb forces. Such far-fetched claims were already being discounted by the end of the war last June.

But now the much-reduced official estimate of 10,000 Kosovar deaths has been discredited by the results of investigations carried out by the Hague war crimes tribunal and other agencies. Most post-war surveys estimate the actual number of deaths attributable to Serbian forces at less than 2,500.

The October 31 Sunday Times of London reported that an all-party committee of MPs had asked Britain's Foreign Secretary Robin Cook to answer for having misled the public over the scale of civilian deaths in Kosovo. Labour MP Alice Mahon, who chairs the Balkans committee, said, "When you consider that 1,500 civilians or more were killed during NATO bombing, you have to ask whether the intervention was justified.”

The November 3 Toronto Star ran an article by Richard Gwynn that drew the conclusion, "No genocide means no justification for a war inflicted by NATO on a sovereign nation. Only a certainty of imminent genocide could have legally justified a war that was not even discussed by the UN Security Council."

The US State Department claims that some 1,400 bodies have been recovered from 20 percent of suspected massacre sites. But priority was given to those sites assumed to contain the most bodies. The Texas-based publication Stratfor last month noted that "evidence of mass murder has not yet materialised on the scale used to justify the war". This is despite the fact that there are teams from 15 nations conducting investigations.

<snip>
http://www.wsws.org/articles/1999/nov1999/koso-n09.shtml

[maha]

66. I never cease to be astonished

at the fantasies people will concoct when the real world doesn't conform to their ideologies.

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

67. how many were killed, maha?

Can you tell me how many Albanians and others were killed by the Serbians?

[Terwilliger]

81. Iraq lie: Iraqis taking babies from incubators

http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/3589/us-iraq-lie.html

OnEdit: wrong subject

[Astarho]

69. Sarajevo is in Bosnia (nt)

[neverforget]

50. What Will said. Everything is a fraud perpetrated by the PNAC

though Clark :eyes: Oh yeah, and the Serbs are innocent too. :eyes:

[Padraig18]

51. Where can we get...

... our "Free Slobodan NOW!" t-shirts? :eyes:

[Tinoire]

55. Whatever. America right ot wrong right? My president right or wrong?

Ah the beauty of the 2-party system where both parties are working for off the same agenda, both for the advancement of the military industrial complex.

Only fools believe their party to be pure.

This is as sad as the Freepers believing Yugoslavia was wrong but Iraq was ok.

What a game! And what spectators!

Oh the scent of blood as long as it's the other team's right?

Ah... the company of warhawks... And you wonder why Pacifists, Leftists, Progressives and Greens tell you we will not support certain candidates?

[Padraig18]

59. Excuse me?

I do not believe my party to be 'pure', but I *do* happen to believe there was genocide, and the war was thereby justified.

[TLM]

125. The genocide when the air campaign began...

was about 2000... the Number of civilians clark killed in his bombing was 1500.

So according to your posion... 2000 people being killed in a civil war is genocide, worthy of going to war to stop.


But killing 1500 and wounding 10,000 civilians is perfectly Ok?

Bascialy the difference in your mind between a war ero and a genocidal mad man, is 500 people.


Oh and BTW, 8000 more people were killed by the serbs AFTER the bombing campaign started.

[neverforget]

60. Wow!

"Only fools believe their party to be pure." And Pacifists, Leftists, Progressives and Greens wonder why their candidates never win? With purity the objective, no one is pure.

[Tinoire]

113. You only support my point

Some are able to look at this with more open eyes because they do not believe their party to be pure. They do not whip out the age-old, tired partisan politics battle-cry everytime some unpleasant truth about their party surfaces.

Nor do they bury their heads in the sand pretending that all is well and that only a wee-bit of tweaking is required.

This applies to die-hard supporters in all parties.

This would actually be a plus for me re Wesley Clark if I thought he was who he was presenting himself as.

The objective is not purity- the objective is to face the truth so that we know which way to go, who to support, to best start rectifying the major problems.

The way we're going, ping-pong, ping-pong, between Republicans and Democrats and nothing ever really changing except that the people get a few more crumbs to eat under our Party, will never lead to change.
Ah the joys of being trapped in a 2-party system!

[kiahzero]

110. What about this article?

http://www.salon.com/news/2002/02/14/milosevictalks/index_np.html

I'm not a Salon subscriber, so I can't read any more than the abstract. However, it was written by the same woman that wrote this article:
http://archive.salon.com/news/feature/2000/12/22/kosovo/index.html
that you used as evidence Clark didn't lobby for action in Rwanda.

She seems to think the UN made a compelling case, and you seem to trust her news judgement.

On edit: a post of the original article:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/humanrightsnews/message/3360?source=1

Isn't google fun?
It seems to be talking more about his atrocities in Bosnia than the atrocities in Kosovo, though. It does bring up civilian casualties - around 500, which is, while 500 more people than deserved to be killed, not terribly high for an air war (Afghanistan - between 3 and 4 thousand). It probably would have been lower if Clark had gotten his way and had ground troops.

[Tinoire]

119. I trust the judgement of very few

I only search for facts, quotes & incidents.

God did not give any of us our own brains to blindly trust other people's judgement. If we did that, we'd be so easily be controlled... by... the media.

In the first article you mentioned, all she did was report facts about the trial- it's nothing that hasn't been reported elsewhere or that you can't read at the jurist sites following the trial.

A cursory glance at her articles (http://www.prospect.org/authors/rozen-l.html and http://archive.salon.com/directory/topics/laura_rozen/ ) gives me no reason to deny her professionalism. If anything she seems to courageously tackle controverial subjects which most reporters prefer to ignore. Did you see something specific that alarmed you?

[kiahzero]

124. Good answer

My point was that she appeared to believe there was genocide; after actually finding a full version of the article, it appears she was referencing the atrocities in Bosnia.

However, after rereading your information dumps about Kosovo, I am not swayed - I don't feel that the case was made strongly enough. Too much cognitive dissonance, I suppose.

I won't flat out say that you're wrong, because you've done more than I could ask in terms of research. However, I disagree with you, and I don't know what I would have to see to change my position on the issue. I will say that I appreciate your bringing facts to the table - the thing that annoys me about the Clark bashers is that many a time, it seems like there is little substantiation for their claims.

If you find something more compelling, please let me know. I'd be happy to read it.

[Tinoire]

128. I will gladly do that !!

I also think that if you're willing to keep reading the differing points, you'll find it on your own but I promise you to immediately bookmark anything I think just might meet your criteria.

The problem is that Clinton and the media really did a thorough job of spinning this incredibly complicated situation that there's not that much in the American media (so I'll look in the reputable British sources for you). It took me years to catch on to what was going on over there... It wasn't until I lived in Berlin, watching this night after night on the news, with graphic newsreel, while at the same time watching the spin on AFN (Armed Forces Network) & CNN that I realized what a hoax was being perpetrated on us.

We are a kind people- a good people- the first to open our closets and pantries anytime there's a disaster somewhere. It breaks my heart to see our goodness, our trust in our leaders so abused.

Peace and I will gladly do that. Thanks :)

[wyldwolf]

23. BZZZZZZ! WRONG! Clark lobbied to intervene in Rwanda!

try again!

[papau]

31. True - problem was 800,000 dead in 3 weeks - it was to fast to respond to

But that is just a detail I guess.

[Padraig18]

35. Everything is just a 'detail' or an irrelevancy to the Clark haters... n/t

[Character Assassin]

40. No, three months, not three weeks. It would have been easy to respond.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/evil/etc/slaughter.html

And, no, it's not just a detail.

[Padraig18]

43. Then you SUPPORT coup d' etats?

Because for Clark to have acted unilaterally, that's what it would have been (mutiny, technically). We let CIVILIANS make those decisions, you know?

And you're right, it's NOT a detail--- it's an irrelevancy.

[Character Assassin]

52. What are you babbling about?

Then you SUPPORT coup d' etats?

Yes, but only against countries run by mimes.

I'm sorry, but could you point out where I stated that Clark should have (or even could have) acted alone, against the orders of the Commander-in-Chief?

Because for Clark to have acted unilaterally, that's what it would have been (mutiny, technically).

No shit. The problem is, I'm not suggesting that he should have. Hell, he couldn't have. A 'renegade' member of the JCS is laughable.

We let CIVILIANS make those decisions, you know?

Yes, I know.

And you're right, it's NOT a detail--- it's an irrelevancy.

Rather like the entirety of your ridiculous, assumptive post.

[Padraig18]

53. You wrote:

"http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/evil/etc/slaughter.html

And, no, it's not just a detail."

The clear inference is that the 3 months is somehow not a 'detail', but relevant. That is NOT 'babbling', it is responsive. 3 weeks, 3 months, 3 years makes no difference, hence making it an irrelevncy.

[Character Assassin]

56. You seem to be experiencing severe reading comprehension problems

The clear inference is that the 3 months is somehow not a 'detail', but relevant. That is NOT 'babbling', it is responsive. 3 weeks, 3 months, 3 years makes no difference, hence making it an irrelevncy.

The post that I was responding to stated (and incorrectly) problem was 800,000 dead in 3 weeks - it was to fast to respond to.

If one reviews the historical record, and also possesses even the most rudimentary concept of time, one would see that a period of roughly 100 days is far longer than 21 days, and, accordingly, that there was greater potential to have acted, had the party in question been so inclined.

If one is familiar with military logistics and tactics, one would also understand that, indeed, 3 months was enough time to deliver troops into the area to prevent further slaughter.

The party in question,hoever, was indeed not so inclined, did not act, and, as such, these comparative time frames are employed in what is often referred to as 'speculation', something you seem unaquainted with.

Glad I could clear that up for you.

[Padraig18]

58. If you could read contextually...

... you would see where your post prompted my response.

Pleased to be of help.

[Character Assassin]

76. Contextually, as in, 'Then you SUPPORT coup d' etats?'

And, 'Because for Clark to have acted unilaterally, that's what it would have been (mutiny, technically)'?

Or contextually, as in responding to an inaccurate statement in regards to the time period of a specific event and indicating that the conclusion reached was illogical due to said inaccuracy?

I stated that an assesement of the situation based on correct data indicated a certain course of action was indeed possible. You then inquired as to whether I somehow, magically, supported a mutiny by a renegade member of the JCS, bent on carrying out a policy contrary to his orders.

Righto, Sport.

[wyldwolf]

41. Here are a few sources...

"While working for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he urged U.S. intervention in Rwanda."

http://www.azstarnet.com/star/sun/30928chapman-Clark.html

As he writes in his memoir, Waging Modern War, "One of life's greatest gifts, I've found, is the opportunity to fight for what's right." He adds, "There is so much more to be done."

Throughout the 90s, he bridled at U.S. inaction, particularly in Rwanda, where rampaging Hutu militiamen murdered 800,000 Tutsi in 100 days. The response from Washington was worse than nothing: Secretary of State Warren Christopher urged a "full, orderly withdrawal" of U.N. peacekeepers, lest the United States be called upon to relieve the rump force, a prospect the Pentagon adamantly opposed. Clark, then Shalikashvili's policy director, was ashamed. He later observed to author Samantha Power, "The Pentagon is always going to be the last to want to intervene." In Waging Modern War, Clark implies that the military dishonored itself "when we stood by as nearly a million Africans were hacked to death."

A year later, Clark risked his career to confront the uniformed reluctance to use force in defense of human rights....

http://www.farcaster.com/mhonarchive/hauserreport/msg00467.html

This was the new world order. I watched over the next few weeks as various events unfolded: a near-war with North Korea, an undeclared war in the skies over the former Yugoslavia, a problem with refugees and immigration -- with people taking to the seas in anything that would float and dying en route to Florida -- that would lead to an invasion of Haiti.


I watched as Canadian General Romeo Dallaire, locked up in a soccer stadium with 1,000 African troops and 100 Canadian communicators , stood by helplessly as 800,000 people were hacked to death by machete in Rwanda -- hacked to death by priests, neighbors, school teachers, and by police who were there to protect them -- while begging for their lives.


The United States in the meantime was examining UN contingency plans. I remember going in and talking to General John Shalikashvili -- Samantha Power has detailed this very elegantly in her Pulitzer Prize-winning book, A Problem from Hell -- saying, "Sir, there's a UN plan and they're proposing to send a couple thousand more troops."


He said, "Do you think that will stop it?"


"No, sir, not in a country like that. I mean, a couple of thousand troops is not what you need."


"How many do you think you need?"


"We've looked at it. Maybe 20,000."


"Wes, do you believe that this Congress, after what happened in Somalia, is prepared to put 20,000 Americans on the ground in Central Africa? What is our interest there?"


It was a practical, as well as profound, question. In the end, we never answered it. The genocide ended, and we were still arguing back and forth about war plans.


WESLEY CLARK, speaking at the 2003 Morgenthau Lecture at the Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs

[Tinoire]

61. BZZZZZZZZZZZ- Will Clark supporters NEVER stop spinning??!

At the time he did NOT. He is now saying that he regrets his decision


Retired Gen. Clark used to feel that way, too. It's a view he shared with many in the Pentagon when he came to Washington in 1994. As a top Pentagon advisor then, Clark said he advised Clinton against an intervention to stop the genocide in Rwanda. Without U.S. or other support, U.N. peacekeepers withdrew. Without international protection, more than 800,000 innocent people were massacred. Clark said he feels complicit for his role in doing nothing to stop the killing, and that he hopes the experience will convince new foreign policy leaders that the U.S. has a unique role in the world, not just to make life more comfortable and secure for Americans and their allies, but to make the world a less horrific place to live.

http://archive.salon.com/news/feature/2000/12/22/kosovo/index1.html

I do, at home, have a direct quote of his book-marked... I will post it here later just so you can lay your mind at rest...

What Clark is saying now and what he said and did then are two completely different animals.

I was in the military at that time. Eager to go and watching this closely- appalled that Clinton who owed his election to the Black vote because of the vigor with which the Black had pushed and registered voters for him, could do this. I watched this closely and it was Clark who advised against it.

[kiahzero]

65. Interesting

And thanks for posting with actual information, something that's been lacking in some of the attacks on Clark.

From reading this, it seems as if Clark didn't lobby for involvement in Rwanda, or didn't feel he lobbied hard enough, and later used that to base his devotion to using military power to stop humanitarian abuses.

That's just my take on it though, and I can understand your discomfort with such a position.

[wyldwolf]

71. .

.

[Tinoire]

85. Thanks for a bright note in an otherwise discouraging thread n/t

[Tinoire]

68. This is from someone who asked Clark re Rwanda

A session with the man himself
Over the past few months, C-SPAN occasionally showed a class from the University of Arkansas-Little Rock about the Clinton presidency. I saw it once a while back when General Wesley Clark spoke to the class, which was quite interesting. He did a pretty convincing impersonation of Milosevic a couple of times, which must have been honed from the many meetings they had together. Last night must have been the last session of their semester, as the Billster himself came and talked to them. One of the students asked him if he had any regrets about the Rwandan genocide, and he seemed pretty honest in accepting blame for it. He said that they could have saved about half the people who were killed, i.e. more than 300,000 lives, if they had sent about 5000-10,000 troops when the genocide campaign started up. He explained that at the time, since he was trying to get support for a more active Bosnia policy and since the Somalia debacle was so fresh in everyone's minds from just half a year earlier, they didn't think they could get support for any active intervention. When they realized after a few weeks that they had made a mistake, it was too late to do anything about it. He expressed regret for not having taken action right when it started. It was at least a more honest take on that incident than Bush, who while he was trying to get support for the Iraq war resolution blamed the UN for having not intervened in Rwanda, in spite of having said during the 2000 campaign that he would not have supported a Rwanda intervention if he had been President when it happened.
3:11 PM Comment

http://elitzur.blogspot.com/2003_05_18_elitzur_archive.html

[wyldwolf]

73. Four sources, including Esquire and the Atlantic Monthly, say Clark WANTED

To intervene:

From the Arizona Star:

"While working for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he urged U.S. intervention in Rwanda."

http://www.azstarnet.com/star/sun/30928chapman-Clark.html

From The Hauser Report:

Throughout the '90s, he bridled at U.S. inaction, particularly in Rwanda, where rampaging Hutu militiamen murdered 800,000 Tutsi in 100 days.

http://www.farcaster.com/mhonarchive/hauserreport/msg00467.html

From Esquire Magazine:

The United States invaded Haiti. The United States, however, wouldn't invade Rwanda, although Clark pushed his mentor, General John Shalikashvili, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, to push for an intervention. Shalikashvili declined after Clark told him twenty thousand troops would be required, and as Clark says now, "I watched as we stood by as eight hundred thousand people were hacked to death by machete."

http://www.esquire.com/cgi-bin/printtool/print.cgi?pages=9&filename=%2Ffeatures%2Farticles%2F2003%2F030801_mfe_clark.html&x=57&y=9

From The Atlantic:

Lieutenant General Wesley Clark, who later commanded the NATO air war in Kosovo, was the director of strategic plans and policy for the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon. He frantically called for insight into the ethnic dimension of events in Rwanda. Unfortunately, Rwanda had never been of more than marginal concern to Washington's most influential planners.

http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2001/09/power.htm

[Tinoire]

89. Another odd discrepancy between pre-election and election statements

between what was said in 2000 (my quote) and the 2003 election spin articles. How many other stripes is this tiger going to try to change?

By the way, your first link isn't working (not that I doubt the veracity of your quote- just a btw).

The only article you quote from pre-election times (the Atlantic) only points out that they had no idea about anything having to do with Rwanda- kind of the like the Bush guys the days before the war who had no idea about sh'ites and other designations. It says nothing about urging an intervention.

Lieutenant General Wesley Clark, who later commanded the NATO air war in Kosovo, was the director of strategic plans and policy for the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon. On learning of the crash, Clark remembers, staff officers asked, "Is it Hutu and Tutsi or Tutu and Hutsi?" He frantically called for insight into the ethnic dimension of events in Rwanda. Unfortunately, Rwanda had never been of more than marginal concern to Washington's most influential planners.

[wyldwolf]

91. I don't see the relevance of the articles' timing...

I might see your point if these were interviews with Clark, but they're not. And, with the internet readily available, I doubt many people would try to rewrite history.

In each instance, the writer researched and wrote the article.

[kiahzero]

102. Here's the way I see it as a Clark supporter

If the man is saying now, and it appears to be saying then, that he didn't do enough in Rwanda, that's probably what the case is. Let's not forget how his reaction to the IWR was spun as a flip-flop when it was quite consistant, or the phone call story.

I'm inclined to say that Clark regretted his actions before Rwanda (whether he didn't press at all, didn't press hard enough, or just was ineffective, I dunno), and this pushed him towards acting more proactively towards other human rights abuses. That's just my take on the issue though.

[stickdog]

135. Revisionist history?

Wow. Yet another thing neo-Clark has in common with Bush!

[TLM]

109. This seems to be a pattern with CLark...

He says one thing then does a total 180.



ANd watch, all these Clark Corps folks will ignore the quote you just posted from salon. Two days from now they'll be right back to calling someone a liar, RNC, or military hater for saying Clark advised Clinton against an intervention in Rwanda.

[Tinoire]

129. It's not just Clark though- they all do it.

It's the number one skill of a good politician... sadly :(

[Evanstondem]

112. Thanks for correcting the record Tinoire

I'll take him at his word in saying that he now regrets his advice at the time. People can learn and change -- well, Bush and his pals can't seem to, but normal people can.

[Tinoire]

130. I believe that too

People can and people do. On this, I think I believe Clark.

[bicentennial_baby]

24. Back this up please

"Clinton wanted to send peacekeeping troops to Rwanda but Clark not only advised him against an intervention to stop the genocide"

Do you have a source for this? A neutral source?

[Tinoire]

63. Post number 47 and will bring you more later n/t

[wyldwolf]

74. Here are four sources that disagree with Tinoire...

From the Arizona Star:

"While working for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he urged U.S. intervention in Rwanda."

http://www.azstarnet.com/star/sun/30928chapman-Clark.html

From The Hauser Report:

Throughout the '90s, he bridled at U.S. inaction, particularly in Rwanda, where rampaging Hutu militiamen murdered 800,000 Tutsi in 100 days.

http://www.farcaster.com/mhonarchive/hauserreport/msg00467.html

From Esquire Magazine:

The United States invaded Haiti. The United States, however, wouldn't invade Rwanda, although Clark pushed his mentor, General John Shalikashvili, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, to push for an intervention. Shalikashvili declined after Clark told him twenty thousand troops would be required, and as Clark says now, "I watched as we stood by as eight hundred thousand people were hacked to death by machete."

http://www.esquire.com/cgi-bin/printtool/print.cgi?pages=9&filename=%2Ffeatures%2Farticles%2F2003%2F030801_mfe_clark.html&x=57&y=9

From The Atlantic:

Lieutenant General Wesley Clark, who later commanded the NATO air war in Kosovo, was the director of strategic plans and policy for the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon. He frantically called for insight into the ethnic dimension of events in Rwanda. Unfortunately, Rwanda had never been of more than marginal concern to Washington's most influential planners.

http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2001/09/power.htm

[Tinoire]

90. See post 89 n/t

[kiahzero]

27. Um...

Given that that's the opposite of everything that's been said about Clark's position on Rwanda, do you have sources to back that up?

Nevermind the fact that Clark pushed for ground troops, and was told 'no'.

[Character Assassin]

29. You have that completely backwards...

Albright and Clark pushed for this war. Clinton wanted to send peacekeeping troops to Rwanda but Clark not only advised him against an intervention to stop the genocide there but actively pushed for a war in Yugoslavia.

While working on the Joint Chiefs of Staff it was Clark who recommended sending troops to Rwanda, and Clinton and Albright who were against it.

In '94 the US didn't just decide against sending troops to intervene in Rwanda. Under instructions from Clinton and Warren Christopher, then US Ambassador Madeleine Albright did her utmost in UN Security Council debates to prevent other countries from sending troops. She fought to hold the number of UN troops to a minimum, to delay any potential arrival and to limit them to a defensive mandate at the very most.

[Tinoire]

64. Albright and Clark - see post # 47

Albright and Clark were two peas in a pod- both pushing for Yugoslavia and both urging against Rwanda

[wyldwolf]

75. Not according to these sources...

From the Arizona Star:

"While working for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he urged U.S. intervention in Rwanda."

http://www.azstarnet.com/star/sun/30928chapman-Clark.html

From The Hauser Report:

Throughout the '90s, he bridled at U.S. inaction, particularly in Rwanda, where rampaging Hutu militiamen murdered 800,000 Tutsi in 100 days.

http://www.farcaster.com/mhonarchive/hauserreport/msg00467.html

From Esquire Magazine:

The United States invaded Haiti. The United States, however, wouldn't invade Rwanda, although Clark pushed his mentor, General John Shalikashvili, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, to push for an intervention. Shalikashvili declined after Clark told him twenty thousand troops would be required, and as Clark says now, "I watched as we stood by as eight hundred thousand people were hacked to death by machete."

http://www.esquire.com/cgi-bin/printtool/print.cgi?pages=9&filename=%2Ffeatures%2Farticles%2F2003%2F030801_mfe_clark.html&x=57&y=9

From The Atlantic:

Lieutenant General Wesley Clark, who later commanded the NATO air war in Kosovo, was the director of strategic plans and policy for the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon. He frantically called for insight into the ethnic dimension of events in Rwanda. Unfortunately, Rwanda had never been of more than marginal concern to Washington's most influential planners.

http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2001/09/power.htm

[Evanstondem]

117. Some of these sources disagree with the Salon article

But Tinoire is right about The Atlantic -- I see nothing about Clark's position on intervening in Rwanda.

[stickdog]

136. And who was the source for each of these sources?

Neo-Clark himself or neo-Clark's new image makers?

[maha]

62. I don't believe this one.

"Clark not only advised him against an intervention to stop the genocide there but actively pushed for a war in Yugoslavia."

Sources? Links?

[Tinoire]

101. Clark pushing for the war in Yugoslavia

During an appearance on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal program, veteran New York Times correspondent David Binder was asked who in the Clinton Administration was pushing American involvement in Kosovo. He named Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Ambassador to the U.N.-designee Richard Holbrooke, and a few others. Asked who in the Pentagon opposed it, he replied, "Virtually the entire Pentagon except for Wesley Clark."

http://www.usasurvival.org/nato_&_nwo.html

------------------------------------------------------------

[kiahzero]

105. And?

Wouldn't this be a logical outgrowth of what you posted above about Rwanda? If he had regrets about how the U.S. handled that instance of genocide, wouldn't he be motivated to handle another instance better?

[Tinoire]

140. No He pushed for Yugoslavia over Rwanda

the two were at the same time before we were committed to either place. Don't totally quote me though- that's how I remember it because I was on alert to forward deploy to both places but hoping on Rwanda.

Going to Rwanda would have meant fewer troops for Yugoslavia... I'd have to look this up...

[imhotep]

11. peas in a pod

one picked the fight, one did the killing.
Both are to blame for the crimes.

[seventhson]

22. I agree. There WERE crimes

NOT as bad as the crimes of Bush.

But crimes of the DLC presidency.

Which is why CLARK should never be OUR candidate.

He is just as guilty for carrying out the crimes.

[Padraig18]

30. I see

And Gen. Clark was indicted by the International War Crimes Tribunal at The Hague for these 'crimes' when, exactly? Since that body has jurisdiction to indict and prosecute war crimes, I would accept their action as definitive regarding the subject matter... :eyes:

[Evanstondem]

32. The US does not accept the Tribunal's authority

So don't hold your breath waiting for any American to be indicted by The Hague.

That said, I have yet to see anyone provide any support for their claims that Gen. Clark committed any war crimes.

[Padraig18]

37. I agree

I know they don't, but seriously doubt that they would, even if it were possible. People forget how closely the Sec. Gen. consulted with the various heads of the NATO member states before, during and after the war.

[Padraig18]

14. It's not fair to use reason and logic, Will!

How will the Clark bashers ever post about Kosovo, if forced to use reason and logic? :P

[seventhson]

21. Orders are Orders/ Clark was ONLY following Orders

Therefore when he used depleted uranium without question he bears no responsibility

None at all...

for the birth defects and civilian casualties they caused


When Clark was running the southern command and he had right wing paramilitaries who were killing civilians under his control in Columbia and defoliation techniques were killing civilians and causing birth defects and destroyinmg subsistence crops...

Without question.

Without objection.

Without any conscience.

Without guilt or contrition.

He's blameless.


Right?


He was NOT responsible for carrying out orders which were inhuman and arguably crimes against humanity.

He was NOT selected by the rightwingers in the Pentagon because he would be a GOOD Citizen and Question orders which violated human rights and international conventions. No he was NOT responsible for his actions. No 0 he was a good soldier for the right wing. And he still is.

Clinton, the DLC-flavored Demublican who nurtured through welfare deform and plan columbia --- he is respoinsible. He alone.

Because Clark was doing what he does best. Following orders.

No matter WHAT they are.


(Will, you are simply amazing. Unbelievably amazing. You manage to slam Clinton, bolster the DLC candidate and start a flame war all in one unsupportable military-corporate sounding IMHO breath)

I Blame Clinton. I blame Clark. I blame Congress. I blame Kerry. I blame US the American citizens who let them get away with that sh*t in our name.

Clinton was a DLC (right wing Democrat) President. Clark, if he isn't really a republican, would be too.

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

34. and so is Dean

Dean's a long time DLC-er, and supported Clinton's war, so did Kerry and everyone else who was in office at the time...

If you want a clear alternative to the DLC, vote Kucinich.

[seventhson]

77. I disagree. Dean was NOT in a position to have any authority over that...

You CANNOT hold Dean accountable for Kosovo.

My belief is that the fighting in Ksosovo was over uranium and control over the mines (keeping it in NATO's hands). The humanitarian issues were a myth. The crisis was precipitated by IMF policies which turned the people against each other when the resources dried up in strict economic policies. In the chaos created by wall street the miltary-fascist enterprises could step in and seize the mines. Like in Iraq, where it is about OIL - I believe Kosovo was about Uranium. But that is top secret so there is little to prove that.

Brown coal is found there and brown coal is often associated with uranium. THAT you can check. The mines (like the oil fields in Iraq) were secured FIRST (Just like the mines in the Congo and the oil pipelines in Columbia).


As a governor, Dean WAS a DLC'er at the time of the rise of Clinton. But NOW Dean is NOT the DLC candidate: Clark, Lieberman, and Kerry are the DLC candidates: conservative, centrist dems who will preserve the status quo for corporations.

DEAN is independent of the DLC. He is the people's candidate. That is why they had to recruit Clark when Kerry was tanking.

And I believe that if Dean is elected and picks General Clark (or Kerry) as VP that Dean will be assassinated and the DLC-PNAC-BFEE axis of evil will control the white house again.

For this reason i do not understand for the life of me why the Dean folks defend Clark.

I think Clark was sent in to try to destroy Dean.

As for Kucinich - I agree more with him than with anyone else, in truth, but the reality to me is that he can not win in the US today any more than Nader can.

Dean is pure enough for me right now.

I want Dean and Edwards as VP. They are the anticorporate candidates who can win.

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

82. just a few things

Obviously Dean is not responsible for Kosovo, except as yet another DLC cheerleader.

As for your reasons for the war, I pretty much agree...now as for this:

"As a governor, Dean WAS a DLC'er at the time of the rise of Clinton. But NOW Dean is NOT the DLC candidate: Clark, Lieberman, and Kerry are the DLC candidates: conservative, centrist dems who will preserve the status quo for corporations.

DEAN is independent of the DLC. He is the people's candidate. That is why they had to recruit Clark when Kerry was tanking."

That's biolerplate, and I have never bought it and don't now. The only reason Dean isn't the choice of the DLC is because they don't think he's electable. Dean is not in any way shape or form "anti-corporate" he is a pro-NAFTA, pro-corporate centrist, and has a long record as governor to prove it. People's candidate? Give me a break, that may work on naive college kids, but not me.

This is the fun part though:

"And I believe that if Dean is elected and picks General Clark (or Kerry) as VP that Dean will be assassinated and the DLC-PNAC-BFEE axis of evil will control the white house again."

How in the world did Wall Street Dean, Mr. Park Ave, convince so many people he's an "outsider" "progressive" and "anti-corporate" despite ALL facts to the contrary?

In some way, I can buy your theory though - Clark was sent to bring down Dean, just like Dean was sent earlier to make sure Kucinich and Sharpton didn't win any headway. It's more plausible than Dean being a "populist" that's for sure!

[WilliamPitt]

84. "Dean will be assassinated and the DLC-PNAC-BFEE axis of evil..."

Heh. Nice to know my good friend Ignored is up to his/her old tricks. :) Vindication is righteous.

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

you miss so much on ignore

true, it's hard to resist responding at times, but you really miss some of the most creative, if outlandish, ideas :)

If Dean picks Clark or Kerry as VP, the BFEE will kill Dean to put Clark and Kerry in power, thus extending the power of Bush/PNAC. And people thought I was pushing conspiracies because I don't like the idea of Skull vs. Bones.

[seventhson]

94. You ignore this at your peril: Assassination is more a likelihood than a .

reason to shout" "Tinfoil hat alert! Take your meds!!!"


Only a fool would discount the possibility of political assassination in this political climate.

The BFEE has almost 70 years of crimes to answer for and they will stop at nothing to protect their brutal global crime syndicate.

I happen to believe that Wellstone, JFK and RFK were all political assassinations associated with that crime syndicate. here are boatloads more. Infiltrating the dems and positioning candidates as their pawns is a perfectly reasonable possibility.

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

98. actually I agree with you 7thson

Assassination happens all the time in the US, and I don't really think it's implausible that someone at some point will try or succeed in assissation.

I don't see why anyone would assassinate Dean, since he is no threat to the establishment.

[seventhson]

120. If you can't see it you must have blinders on

obviously it would be to get the BFEE protector in office.

Dean is no protector of the BFEE

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

88. dupe

[seventhson]

92. "Dean the People's candidate?...that may work on naive college kids, "

Dean is the people's candidate because the grassroots across America support him and because the corporations/DLC do NOT support him.

Kerry is THE corporate candidate IMHO - along with Lieberman. Clark is the military-industrial-media complex candidate.

Dean may be too centrist for my liking in many respects. But he is to the left of Kerry,Lieberman and Clark and he can WIN because of his people-powered candidacy.

As for naive college kids, you are full of it.

My brother, a former military doctor who has been a Republican all his life was wearing a Dean button. He is a liberal repub who supports the environment and women's rights.


I would have to say that Kucinich is the REAL people's candidate in that he has NO corporate support.

But if we want to win the election we need to be realistic. The candidate the corporations do NOT want is Dean.

Regular people want Dean and that is where his support comes from. Liberal, progressive, unrepresented, disenfranchised and fed up people who want reasonable change and honesty in government. They are not too far left nor more right than centrist. They occupy the left of center and the agenda for the people first.

[wyldwolf]

93. Dean IS NOT to the left of Kerry... and stands about even with Clark...

Are you basing that statement on the war or would you like to go down the issue list one by one and compare Dean's record with Kerry's?

[seventhson]

96. Kerry is the Corporate Status Quo

I base this on my view of Kerry's whole record.

Skull and Bones is a right wing organization with ties to the intelligence community, to Hitler and to the military industrial complex. Kerry
refuses tyoi resignb or renounce his affiliation with this membership in a secretive aoth-driven organization with the Bushes.

Kerry's record of supporting Bush cannot be compared to Dean's because Dean did NOT vote for the Iraq war, the Patriot (sic) Act OR the Homeland Security (sic) act.

I do NOT TRUST Kerry words.

I TRUST Dean's.

There is no real comparison.

[wyldwolf]

97. Well, you should have no problem comparing the issues point by point...

Would you like to start with the environment?

[wyldwolf]

100. Well? Kerry vs. Dean? On the issues?

?

[wyldwolf]

104. Yoohoo! Seventhson? Smackdown! Kerry vs. Dean... on the issues...

...did you run away?

[seventhson]

122. Not at all. I think Kerry is a liar

so whatever he says cannot be trusted.

But I believe Dean would be much better on the environment because I believe that Kerry would be pro-corporate and pro status quo and Dean would be a proponent of meaningful change.

Kerry talks a good game as the loyal opposition to Bush, but I think he is lying.

I believe Dean is sincere and sincerely on the side of the people and therefore his environmental programs would be better - but I believe he would take a more aggressive and proactive stance to improve the environment globally. As a doctor I think he would have a better grasp of environmental issues.

[Scoopie]

103. "Regular" people want Dean?

Um... not in my stratosphere.
Regular people want Clark.

[TLM]

127. Notice there was not one specific refutation of fact...

just general insults and dismissive statments.

"The only reason Dean isn't the choice of the DLC is because they don't think he's electable."

I can think of 15 million reasons you're wrong. Dean is not DLC, sicne he broke with them some time back as they continued to push this party to the right. Dean speaks out against that shift and was attacked by the DLC over it.


"Dean is not in any way shape or form "anti-corporate" "

No, he is anti-corporate crime, corporate tax loopholes, and corporate abuses.

"he is a pro-NAFTA,"

He is also pro reforms to nafta to apply environmental, labor, and safety standards... or didn;t you want the debates. Dean's positions of trade reform were some of the point most attacked by the DLCers.


"pro-corporate centrist, and has a long record as governor to prove it."

And I'm sure you'll be happy to cite something specific in that record to prove this? ANd please don;t barf up that tripe from the any development is overdevelopment crowd.

"People's candidate? Give me a break, that may work on naive college kids, but not me."

Can't refute te point that Dean has more popular support than any other candidate, so attack the act of saying it.

Dean has riased almost 15 million this last quarter from 188,000 contributors... average people sending in an average of 100 bucks.

Where has Clark's money come from... is he even in touch enough with his supporters to tell you where his money comes from? I wonder how many of the companies or groups he used to lobby for have givin him money?

[TLM]

126. Very well said, and i agree... The more i see of Clark

the less I want him anywhere near the white house in any way.

[TLM]

114. When they can't defend Clark... attack Dean.

Since they can not refute the fact Clark did these horrible brutal vicious things… all they can do is try to say… well well well you have to blame Clinton too… or that Dean is just as dirty as Clark because he once said he supported action in Kosovo.


As I already said about this meme, saying that because Dean supported intervention in kosovo that means he supported Clark's methods, is like saying that because you support spanking a child, you're OK with infanticide.

[neverforget]

36. So who will save us from ourselves? Who's your perfect canidate

that is pure?

[Old and In the Way]

38. Amazing............

I thought most here understood that our intervention in Kosovo was to stop the "ethnic cleansing"....I don't recall that we had ulterior motives like grabbing their resources or handing out fat no-bid contracts to Democratic contributors. And if we hadn't interceded, it's obvious to me this would have escaleted into WW3 and maybe a real war between cultures isn't factored in? That intervention probably saved countless lives.

I think it's extremely sad that we have people here who will say anything to promote their candidate at the expense of the others....of course, I'm not convinced that there aren't a few here who hide behind their avatar to smear the Democrats running for the nomination.

Pretty pathetic.

[Evanstondem]

46. Amen, Old and In the Way

There's a big difference between the motives for Kosovo and those for Iraq II.

[no name no slogan]

48. I did, and did

Clinton's handling of Kosovo/Serbia was another one of the main reasons I lost all respect and support for him, and his little errand boy Al Gore, too.

But look on the bright side: heroin traffic thru the Balkans is now safe for the foreseeable future, Kosovo has been ethnicly cleansed of all Serbs and non-Albanians, and Serbia is still trying to rebuild from the "shock and awe" airstrikes that destroyed civilian targets.

Oh wait, almost forgot: The "Albanian Liberation Front", a noted terrorist, drug-trafficking organization, now has a state of their own. Hoooray!!!!! :eyes:

[aquart]

70. I have one problem with the war in Kosovo.

I cannot figure out why depleted uranium was ever considered a good idea.

Anywhere.

My objection to Clark is that I do not want a general in the job at this time.

I do not want a strongman.

[Padraig18]

72. It was considered 'good' because...

... it has an enhanced ability to penetrate armor, essentially.

[KoKo]

78. Yeah Will! Let's get "down and dirty" and TRASH CLINTON!

Yeah.....let's do it....let's do it now! Isn't there a Rap Song that would get the lyrics for "what you say!"
Let's DO IT! GET DOWN! It's CLINTON.....Let's DO IT!....and I could do the "background" but need the "fill in" from fellow DU'ers./

LET's DO IT! KNOCK DOWN.....LET's DO IT! COUNT DOWN!" ......oh yeah "Let's DO IT!" Oh YEAH.....let's do it.............

[WilliamPitt]

79. Erm

Wasn't quite my point.

[KoKo]

86. Jesus Christ! (and, since I'm a Cxtian) I will take name in Vain! There's

so much here in posts contradicting...and maybe a few verifiying "what you say" it would take a LONG Night reading! Yikes!

But, that's what DU is about.....many "long nights reading." BUT NO CLINTON TRASHING! Yeah...I can't take that stuff.....we've moved beyond Clinton...and to bring him up "externally" only fans the flames of the RWingers, imho.

But, internally (for DU folks)...well the "Clinton Matter" can wait.

NO ONE IS PERFECT! Bush REFUSES TO COMPROMISE! CLINTON DID.....NUFF SAID?

We are going to have to "compromise" again.....Much as I would wish otherwise. But still hoping, I won't have to. :-(

BUSH doesn't have a Chimp's comprehension of the words: Diplomacy/Compromise.

Hence WAS his GREATIST FAILING! Chimp's that is...NOT CLINTON! who compromised to the "MAX!"

[Terwilliger]

80. Clark has a long way to go

He will not simply supplant people's current choices...he's got a lot to prove.

[seventhson]

87. I have Beefs with a LOT of people. Including those who absolve Clark of

crimes against humanity.

The Toxic uranium bombing of civilians (including children and pregnant women) makes him a war criminal. And I supopose it makes Clinton one too. Deformed babies resulted and many long term casualties.

But WHY were they committing crimes against humanity?

In a post above I mentioned one of the causes I believe was at issue: uranium in Kosovo. It was all about power and greed (and global positioning).

Here's one article close to this subject:

http://www.pacificnews.org/jinn/stories/5.09/990428-greece.html

[JI7]

107. how about al gore ?

i believe al gore supported actions in kosovo just as bill clinton did.

[seventhson]

118. Gore was not the president

so we have no way of knowing how he would have handled it or who he would have placed in command.

The question has no relevence

[Old and In the Way]

108. Much better to stay out and let WW3 happen, right Seventhson?

The proof is in the results....we aren't stealing their natural resources, the DLC didn't have a PNAC plan for the Balkans. The ethnic cleansing stopped.

We should have gone into Rwanda, too. Sure, we would have killed some innocent people, but we might have helped avert the slaughter that enveloped that country. But you'd probably be using that against Clark, too...

[TLM]

106. I do not disagree with the premise of the war...

I disagree with bombing civilians, journalists, civilian infrastructure, and showering civilian areas with DU rounds.

Yes, this was a huge black eye for Clinton in my view, the most shameful chapter of his presidency.

However I also do not think Clinton was designating bombing targets. Clinton gave orders to stop the genocide... Clark was the one who decided to accomplish it by bombing civilians, journalists, using DU rounds etc.

While the war was justified, Clark's methods were not.

[JasonBerry]

121. You bet! I blame ALL of them!

That doesn't get the SAUCER during the war on Serbia a free pass. Military leaders have always been held to account on their military judgment. Clark is no different.

Who are you supporting, Will? Why the lack of discussion about that? Most people around here state some kind of interest in the candidates. (Kucinich for me!) Or, does writing a book and publicly stating allegiances contradict with the old pocketbook? Just curious. I sure see you propping up The Shadow (Clark)....

[seventhson]

123. Will has consistently IMO supported the DLC candidate Kerry

but his support of the repub-pnac candidate Clark does not surprise me in this instance.

[stickdog]

132. How about both?

Plus everyone who supported it.

Clinton is worse than Clark is worse than those Democrats who supported the war is worse than Democrats those who opposed the war.

Republicans who opposed the war for political reasons only don't earn any points.

[JohnKleeb]

134. Well stick I dont mean to put you in a odd position

and you should continue to support him if you like but your candiate Governor Dean supported that, just a comment. As an opponent of that war and the current war, I am happy to support Kucinich. Please do not refer to him as the impossible dream for I know that this time last year your campaign was once regarded as a joke. Just saying that. Trying to be respectful and fair. You're right about the GOP though.

[stickdog]

143. John, I love you and your man Dennis.

But we're just a few months away, and it just ain't happening this time around.

I'm not saying that I'm right and you're wrong. I'm just expressing my considered opinion of which I am personally most certain.

[kiahzero]

133. Some info I found just now

Not sure if this is redundant:
http://www.hrw.org/reports/1999/glogovac/Glog997.htm#P42_831

For the previous eleven weeks-since the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) pulled out of Kosovo on March 19-the population of Glogovac and the surrounding villages had been besieged and terrorized by Serbian special police and paramilitaries, as well as by the Yugoslav Army (VJ). As NATO bombs fell throughout Yugoslavia, Serbian and Yugoslav forces launched a brutal campaign of "ethnic cleansing" against the Albanians of Kosovo that involved summary and arbitrary executions, arbitrary detentions, regular beatings, widespread looting, and the destruction of schools, hospitals, and other civilian objects. As a stronghold of the KLA and an area of constant fighting with government forces, the Glogovac municipality was particularly hard-hit.

<snip>

It should be noted that these abuses are hardly the first war crimes committed by Serbian or Yugoslav forces in the Glogovac municipality. Since February 1998, the Drenica region has been the sight of numerous executions, arbitrary detentions, beatings, and the systematic destruction of civilian objects, such as schools, medical clinics, and mosques. Previous Human Rights Watch reports ("A Week of Terror in Drenica," February 1999, and "Humanitarian Law Violations in Kosovo," October 1998) document war crimes committed in Gornje Obrinje, Golubovac, ,irez, Liko_ane, and other villages in the area.

<snip>

http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/kosovo98/racak.shtml

The village of Racak, about half a kilometer from the town of Stimlje, had a pre-conflict population of approximately 2,000 people. During the large-scale government offensive in August 1998, the Serbian police shelled Racak, and several family compounds were looted and burned. Since then, most of the population has lived in Stimlje or nearby Urosevac. On the day before the January 15 attack, less then four hundred people were in the village. The KLA was also in Racak, with a base near the power plant. A number of ethnic Serbs were kidnapped in the Stimlje region, mostly during the summer.

<snip>

These seem to indicate that there was ethnic cleansing and genocide going on in Kosovo.

[Tinoire]

137. It's a good find but what happened next is that they

went looking for those people and found most of them. They also were unable to produce a single witness to any atrocities except for some police chief who under oath, confessed, that he had 'overheard' and never witnessed anything.

Do you know who is the best person to talk to about this? It's either Jason Berry or Indiana Green. They can give you the timelines and subsequent reports. You are really a welcome addition here! If General Clark had more supporters like you, he'd be in much better shape here.

Welcome to DU, btw. I haven't been saying that to many people lately but for you... Double :toast:

[kiahzero]

138. That's interesting

See, what I don't understand is why HRW wouldn't issue a clear Mea Culpa if that were the case... otherwise, they'd know that they were misleading people, but be doing nothing to alleviate it, really.

Thanks, by the way.

[Tinoire]

141. You're determined to keep me mired in Yugoslavia! lol

I will get Jason Berry or Indiana Green on this one... I am more passionate than chronological and have the worst time remembering where I read certain things because the pace lately has been too intense! Make this two things I will owe you :)

Indiana Green has the HRW reports down pat, in chronological progression.

Check this article out though... A good friend just sent it to me a few days ago:

The French Connection

The first time President Chirac of France realized how fast and far the air campaign had moved from its original, modest size was when he watched the Yugoslav Interior Ministry erupt into a fireball on April 3, day 11 of the war.

"Paris was pretty shocked," a French diplomat recalled. Chirac requested an urgent telephone call with Clinton to discuss the strategy being pursued by Gen. Wesley K. Clark, the supreme allied commander in Europe.


<snip>

Still, Clark continued to be peppered with calls from the French chief of staff and other European officials.

"We need to help Wes Clark, who has to spend half of his time schmoozing with the allies," Clinton told Blair in a phone call, according to White House notes of the conversation.

To help out, Washington created "a management committee," as one senior administration official called it, to smooth over disagreements about the military campaign. The core of the committee was the so-called quints: Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright and the foreign ministers of Britain, France, Germany and Italy. They held a five-way conference call almost every day.

<snip>
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/daily/sept99/airwar20.htm

And if you want to read some interesting first-hand account posts from a DUer who was part of the British forces at Pristina, read Mddemo's posts here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=108&topic_id=44490#44518

You're too cool to talk with. Peace

[stickdog]

144. I agree. Thanks for keeping me in line.

I appreciate your logic.

Bring aboard few more Clark supporters like you, and I'll restrict my rhetoric to the same tone.

[BonjourUSA]

139. It was a very courageous and necessary decision !!

Remember the facts :

A genocide in the Europe heart.

European countries asking themselves what to do, but with a fear of the historical precedents.

UN without capabilities because a not clear mandate.

A risk of the war extension with the new republics around.


Despite the military and political difficulties, this intervention was done with an exemplary collaboration of all coallized countries (Russia included which was pro-Serbia)

The post-war period was envisaged: creation of the buffer zones between the ethnos groups, role of the soldiers and sendings of police force, installation of the political and judiciary institutions... And for each one of these problems, attribution of competences to each intervening country.


What are the points of comparison with the current war in Iraq: NONE