The General Who Would Be President

[sujan]

In his apparent quest for the Democratic Presidential nomination, General Wesley Clark rightly criticizes President Bush for waging a "pre-emptive" invasion of Iraq, and in particular for being "unprepared" for the post-invasion occupation of the country. Some Democrats are being drawn to the former NATO Supreme Commander as an authoritative voice against the Iraq debacle, and a "pragmatic" alternative to the disastrous Bush Presidency.

Yet these Democrats apparently have short memories. It was only four years ago that General Clark waged a war against Yugoslavia that had similarly shaky motives and spiraling postwar consequences. Clark has whitewashed the 1999 Kosovo intervention as a "humanitarian" campaign to rescue Kosovar Albanians from Serbian "ethnic cleansing," even though it actually helped fuel the forced explusions. The General credits NATO bombing of Serbian cities for bringing about the fall of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, even though Serbian democrats loudly objected that it undermined and delayed their ultimate victory. Clark claims that the postwar NATO occupation brought "peace" to Kosovo, but he was clearly unprepared for the violent "ethnic cleansing" that took place on his watch, largely facilitated by his decisions, under the noses of his troops.


<..>

as NATO troops occupied Kosovo in June 1999, Albanian nationalists unleashed their own program of ethnic cleansing. They attacked and expelled not only thousands of Serbs from communities that had survived in Kosovo for centuries, but also Roma (Gypsies), Turks, Jews, and any other non-Albanians. The Western media defined these attacks as "revenge" or "retaliation" for Serbian ethnic cleansing. But the KLA militia, like its right-wing nationalist counterparts in Bosnia, had long had the goal of an ethnically pure state.

http://www.counterpunch.org/grossman09102003.html

[No Passaran]

1. Get your facts straight

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Kosovo/Story/0,2763,208055,00.html
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/1999/07/09/survivor/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/real_story/3159873.stm

I don't know if you need any more links or any more stories to see that what we did over there (Kosovo) was right. I just came back from Iraq, and I was in Kosovo before that. You can't compare those two situations. My uncle is Albanian and I know what his family went thru. I haven't seen this "ethnic cleansing" that you claim was made by Kosovars. You do know that the Serbs invented "ethnic cleansing" don't you? You do know what happened in Bosnia because we waited for 3 years. If we had waited another week in Kosovo, there would be no Albanians left in that part of the world.

[sujan]

2. you're right

here's few more:

http://www.fair.org/extra/9911/kosovo.html
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/ops/docs99/dos9912/missing.html
http://www.wsws.org/articles/1999/jun1999/koso-j29.shtml
http://www.balkanpeace.org/hed/archive/feb01/hed2643.shtml
http://www.converge.org.nz/pma/svict.htm
http://www.time.com/time/europe/magazine/1999/1213/kosovo1213.html

[Julien Sorel]

3. WOW

All of those articles have a timestamp of 1999, except one, which was published in 2001. They describe essentially isolated examples of ethnic violence, not the wholescale cleansing that was going on prior to the intervention. Kosovo must be so unbelievably hellish now that news stories can't even get out, otherwise I'm sure you'd have hundreds of news stories detailing the massive atrocities that the NATO intervention has failed to prevent in the four years since most of those articles were written.

You people are truly desperate. You can always recycle the z-mag or z-pub or whatever article, and you and your buddies can run off engaging in mutual masturbation while giggling like schoolgirls over the cleverness of Howard Zinn.


Run along now and search desperately for every single atrocity story you can find regarding Kosovo to 'prove' that the intervention was a failure, or a conspiracy, or whatever else it takes to allow the intellectual masturbation that people like yourself indulge in.

[phegger]

4. BUT...

...these questions are going to have to be answered sooner or later--and I say that as a Clark supporter.

And Howard Zinn rules, as far as I'm concerned. :P


-ph

[sujan]

5. no

Howard Zinn is a marxist so his comments should be disregarded.

Anyway, here's more stimulating stuff

http://www.hrw.org/reports/2001/kosovo/undword2b.html

[Julien Sorel]

6. No, they aren't going to have to be answered,

because rational people ignore garbage like this, and even Rove is rational. If you see Republicans trot out garbage like this, it means they are so desperate the election is essentially over. Democrats aren't likely to do it during the primaries, because of Clinton's involvement. So even if this sophomoric nonsense was anything more than grist for broken mills, it would be irrelevant, anyway.


Howard Zinn is a self-admitted propagandist with an easy writing style. He appeals largely to the disaffected, the marginalized, and the people who like to think they are more clever than the rest of the world, but can't prove it, so they adopt faux-radical positions and console themselves that history will prove just how smart they were -- since they themselves lack the ability to do it.

[whirlygigspin]

7. Clark will get toasted

for being at Waco.

[Wendec]

8. And

you know he was at Waco because?

[renie408]

11. Yeah

I looked this up on Google and got a ton of sites that talked about Clark being at Waco based on putting together this and that, but nothing that definitively said he was there.

[Donna Zen]

20. Wrong

Clark was at Fort Hood....do you understand anything about military protocol? Nothing...repeat nothing gets done without going up (read: Perry, Clinton, and the Joint Chiefs) and back down...Clark. If any tank left Fort Hood, that order came from the top. So wrap your mind around that.

Second, I'm not sure what you have latched on to, but I would think I know. Actually, that same publication later published another installment where it said that Clark had nothing to do with it. In fact, iirc, it was a different military base. Of course, this means little since any operation must be signed off on at the top.

[LizW]

9. You kid yourself

If Clark is the nominee, you'll hear these allegations, and others, many, many times. The Republicans don't play by any set of rules that you would recognize as being fair or remotely ethical. You might as well accept it and be ready.

Rove is not rational. He created a meme in 2000 in which being smart was a bad thing and being of average intelligence was a good thing. He made up "Al Gore is a liar" out of whole cloth and sold it so successfully that people still believe parts of it today.

Just calling an allegation riduculous and desperate is not going to be good enough when your candidate is the nominee and the whole right-wing press is on it.

Not to mention that insulting the readers of Howard Zinn won't do you much good with the left, either.;)

[renie408]

10. This is very true

Never, EVER, underestimate the Bush team's ability to sell ANYTHING to people. I was standing in the line in WalMart yesterday and two people behind me were having an earnest conversation about how important it was that we had gone into Iraq and cleaned out all the Al Quaeda to prevent another 9/11. I thought I was going to have a stroke on the spot. My husband pinched the snot out of me when I started to turn around to shut me up. He said that he didn't want to have to break up a fist fight in the middle of Walmart.

It really freaks me out when I hear stuff like that. It also reminds me that no matter how much we fight and argue amongst ourselves about our candidates, we must be like a family that argues over the dinner table, but stands together in the end.

[Donna Zen]

19. After all

where did these people come from. I suggest you go and read the transcripts from the Hague. Oh_too low brow for you? From page 26,000

A. When we moved from the new hotel, when a Serb policeman told us to

8 go to Pionirska Street, we arrived in front of Memic's house. There was a

9 group of some 70 people, mostly elderly men and children and young girls.

10 We were wet from the rain. We changed. Somebody had tea, somebody had

11 coffee. And in the meantime, Mitar Vasiljevic and Milan Lukic arrived, as

12 well as Sredoje Lukic and Milan Susnjar, also known as Laco, and they told

13 us to go to one room. Then Milan Lukic put a cloth on the table telling

14 us to put all our jewellery on that cloth. We did that, and then we were

15 forced into another room where Milan Susnjar was, and he stripped us

16 naked. We had to dance. They were giving instruction, move forward, move

17 backward. Skip this way and that.

18 After that, we put our clothes on. And then they took out Jasmina

19 Kurspahic, and Jasmina Vila. I don't know where they took them. When we

20 asked them what happened, they wouldn't tell us anything when they came

21 back as to what had happened to them.

22 Q. Did there come a time when the group was forced to move from this

23 house to a house very close by, to a house owned by a family by the of

24 name Omeragic?

25 A. After that, when they took all this from us and mistreated us,



Page 25599

1 then they -- then Milan Lukic who was standing at the door of Jusuf

2 Memic's house, and Vasiljevic at the other house, and then we were

3 escorted to Omer Memic's house. And at the end, we were burned shortly

4 after that.

5 Q. Can you please describe what happened in the Omeragic house.

6 A. When we reached this Omeragic house, the carpets had been -- some

7 oil or fuel had been poured on the carpets. And that is when they set

8 fire to us. Amongst us was a two-day-old baby. The children were

9 screaming. The women, the old men, were trying to help. I was right next

10 to the window, and I threw out my 13-year-old son out the window, and then

11 I followed him a couple of minutes later. Then I was wounded in my left

12 arm and left leg. I went into the stream and the sewage canal where I

13 stayed for three nights and three days.

14 Q. From where you were in the sewage canal, could you see what

15 happened to the people in the house?

16 A. It wasn't far. It was about 50 metres away so that I heard

17 screams, cries for help. It was unbearable. When I think about it, I

18 start dreaming. I feel distressed and awful. It was terrible. It was

19 painful.

20 Q. How many people are you -- can you estimate for us how many people

21 died in the house that night.

22 A. There was us from our village, and others from the neighbouring

23 villages, so there were about 70 of us. And then there were people

24 already in that house when we arrived, so there may have been 75, maybe

25 even more. I didn't count those people that were already there when we



Page 25600

1 arrived.

2 Q. How many members of your immediate family died that night?

3 A. Six of my family members died. My mother-in-law and onwards from

4 that.

5 Q. After you threw your son out of the window of that house, did you

6 know whether or not he had survived the events of that night?

7 A. I didn't know. I had no contact with him for five years. We met

8 five years later in Zenica. And this was a terrible experience and a

9 shock to see him five years later. We had parted when he was only 13 and

10 a half.

11 Q. Did your son know that you had survived that night during the

12 course of that five years?

13 A. No, he didn't know. He didn't know anything about me, nor did I

14 know anything about him.

15 Q. Can you please briefly describe to the Chamber the injuries you

16 sustained that night.

17 A. That night, while I was in the sewage canal, there were worms all

18 over my wounds. I had wounds in my left arm and leg. When I reached the

19 Gorazde hospital, I was in a sorry state.

20 Q. And finally after escaping from Visegrad, did you learn that this

21 group had perpetrated a similar crime to another group of Muslim civilians

22 in a house in Visegrad, without going into the detail of that event?

23 A. Yes, at the Bikavac, about 80 people were burnt by this same

24 group. Again, these were civilians, elderly people and children.

25 MR. GROOME: Your Honour, I have no further questions.

http://www.un.org/icty/milosevic/

Wow, I guess you're right! Anyone who would oppose Milosevic must be very, very suspect. It is certainly good to know that he has devoted supporters like you to spread and worship trash while tearing down the reputation of others for your own personal agenda.</s>

Signed

Danica (a second generation Serbian American)

[Name removed]

12. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Julien Sorel]

13. Thanks for the education!

And when I see Rove, or anyone else who reasons beyond a 12-year old's level, using information from 1999 trying to prove Kosovo was a failure, then I'll consider Rove irrational. No rational person babbles about Vince Foster, just the nutjobs. This is about in line with that, except the evidence on Kosovo actually exists (unlike Foster), and is flattering to Clark. Sorry, your opinion that rational people will try to use this nonsense doesn't hack it for me, when reason suggests otherwise.

Just calling an allegation riduculous and desperate is not going to be good enough when your candidate is the nominee and the whole right-wing press is on it.

Except when it is. This is so naive it's incredible. I can see the 'right wing press' attacking Clark over a successful operation inKosovo when Iraq is still going on, and they supported that war. Yes, this makes perfect sense. To someone.


By the way, Howard Zinn is what he is. I don't care if people on the left, the right, or some other direction worship him. But I thank you for your interest.

[No Passaran]

14. success

I've been to Kosovo. It was a success. If we had to launch a campaign to save just one child that would have been murdered if we had waited another week, I call that a success.

[phegger]

21. I don't see how...

...anyone on the right would argue that Kosovo wasn't a success. NATO racked up a lot of "collateral damage", which I'm not terribly happy about, but I can't imagine Clark getting reamed by the Republicans for that. They might try to use the fact that he was shitcanned by Cohen for...what? insubordination? independent decision-making? failure to kiss ass? I suspect the general has an answer--at least I hope he has one beyond "I don't know", which is how he has addressed the question until now.

I think those on the left who would write him off for being involved in Kosovo probably wouldn't have voted for him anyway.

As for reading Howard Zinn: hey, thanks for supplying all those helpful labels! Have a nice day.


-ph (pretentious faux-radical pseudo-intellectual bitch) :smoke::hi:

[Donna Zen]

23. I don't know

is the only answer; he asked. Cohen wanted a pissing contest and just removed him. Of course Cohen didn't need a reason, Clark's actually served the entire term. Cohen could have and should have applied the two year available extention. But Clinton's General had to go. Also, Cohen pulled this shit without telling Clinton until the press release had already gone out.

Now guess which party Cohen belongs to?

[LizW]

22. There's no charge for the education

But, just a review: I did not say Rove was rational. There's nothing rational about attack politics. The problem I'm pointing out is that if the right-wing nut jobs babble enough about ridiculous things, the mainstream press picks it up. The Paula Jones sexual harrassment story was both legally and factually ridiculous, but it lead to the impeachment of a President, because the right-wing attackers didn't care how ridiculously partisan and irrational they looked, and they never, ever, let it go.

"I can see the 'right wing press' attacking Clark over a successful operation inKosovo when Iraq is still going on, and they supported that war. Yes, this makes perfect sense. To someone."

Yes. To Rush Limbaugh, who already did it. Last Thursday. Now Rush did not say the Kosovo operation was unsuccessful. He said it was "brutal". And he said it was conducted from "50,000 feet." He goes on to imply that the Kosovo operation was not necessary (the tried and true "Wag the Dog" meme) and that Clark is being inconsistent to now oppose the "elective" war against Iraq. Then there's also a bunch of name-calling of Clark and the nine Democratic candidates.

But you really have to read it yourself to get the full nastiness.

Of course, I know Limbaugh is a fruitcake. But the problem is, lots of voters don't. And we can't just put our noses in the air and ignore the slander that we consider beneath us. As many times as they tell the lie, we have to tell the truth.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

17. Respectfully

you could fit all of Howarz Zinn and Noam Chomsky's acolytes in a phonebooth....

[carpetbagger]

15. Milosevic conducted genocide. Are you denying this?

I'm not talking about isolated incidents. THE GUY WAS RUNNING F*CKING CONCENTRATION CAMPS. Next week, Clinton goes to Srebrinica to dedicate a monument to the many thousands who were murdered there.

You say
"Clark has whitewashed the 1999 Kosovo intervention as a "humanitarian" campaign to rescue Kosovar Albanians from Serbian "ethnic cleansing," even though it actually helped fuel the forced explusions. "

This happened four years prior when the UN stood down...

http://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/europe/07/11/srebrenica.background/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/675945.stm

[Donna Zen]

16. Oh someone who

would vote for Milosevic.

You must feel so proud!

[Nashyra]

18. Clark reminds me of the kind of guy that would respond

to an aggressive attack with factual attacks on the AWOL *. There is so much just an example; * was awol, I was fighting, * was getting hammered, I was getting shot, I graduated 1st from West Point and was a Rhodes Scholar with a degree in Economics and Political science, * had daddy's help getting into Yale and barely pulling C's. * is a cheerleader, I became a General and on and on and on