Was Gen. Clark Also "Unprepared" for the Postwar?

[sfecap]

Was Gen. Clark Also "Unprepared" for the Postwar?
by Zoltan Grossman

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.

First, the NATO intervention made a bad situation worse in Kosovo. The nasty civil war between Milosevic's Serbian nationalist government and the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) militia in the Albanian-majority province had heated up in 1998-99. About 2,000 people had been killed, including civilians on both sides. Voices within the Clinton Administration clamored not only for "punishing" Milosevic, but for (pre-emptively) ejecting Serbian forces from Kosovo to prevent him from carrying out ethnic cleansing. Under Western pressure, Milosevic offered to withdraw from Kosovo, but the peace talks broke down.

Hours after the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia began on March 24, 1999, the Serbian ethnic cleansing campaign began, expelling hundreds of thousands of Albanians, and creating an enormous refugee crisis. CIA director George Tenet had predicted in February that a NATO "stick in the nest" could provoke just such ethnic cleansing. Accused of being "unprepared," General Clark defended the war as "coercive diplomacy," saying "This is the way the NATO leaders wanted it." The bombing was not in response to the ethnic explusions, but gave Milosevic the excuse and justification for them. The Kosovo disaster was a self-fulfilling prophecy, much like President Bush invading Iraq to eject phantom "terrorists," and in the process creating a new cause and battleground for them.

(more...)

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0910-07.htm

[Kremer]

1. Yawn! I've heard the "Clark is a war criminal" argument a

1000 times!! That's nice. I guess arrest him and try him in the Hague. If not, be quiet and let him run for pres!!!!!!!!!!!Funny how horrible this campaign was but it eventually caused the war to end and Milovsovic (sp) is on trial. For every person who says Clark was horrible, there are equally as many who say he was a hero. I guess we'll call it a draw. Let Rove do the dirty work from now on, okay?

[dfong63]

3. you'll hear it a lot more, too

unf for Clark, yawning won't make the truth go away.

[Clemo]

2. Way off base

http://slate.msn.com/id/2091194/

Albright was a fiery supporter of military intervention in the
Balkans (many have written of the famous meeting where she
appalled the reticent chiefs by saying, "What good are
all these fine troops you keep telling us about if we can't
use them?"). Albright was the prime mover; many observers
at the time—supporters and critics alike—called it
"Madeleine's war." And her prime collaborator,
Richard Holbrooke, Clinton's envoy to Bosnia, also enjoyed
direct access to the president.

So it is more than a bit startling to read, in Boyer's
article, the following sentence: "Clark's view, which had
the support of Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and
Holbrooke, prevailed." It would be more apt to say,
"Albright's view, which had the support of Holbrooke and
Clark, prevailed." She welcomed Clark's endorsement, but
she didn't need it to make her argument or to win it.

Boyer also distorts the war itself, mischaracterizing it as a
senseless adventure. He tacitly takes the chiefs' position on
this, without noting that many others besides Clark (and, for
that matter, Albright and Holbrooke) held otherwise. Thousands
of Bosnians were dying in a war that U.S. military power could
have ended. Hundreds of thousands of Rwandans had recently
been massacred in a civil war to which neither the United
States nor the United Nations raised a finger, much less a
fighter plane, in protest. Many of those pushing for
intervention—and they included not just Clark but some of the
most liberal, customarily antiwar politicians and
columnists—wanted above all to avert another massacre. A case
could be made—and the chiefs made it—that the United States
shouldn't get involved in such messes where our own national
security wasn't threatened. But it is false to attribute
Clark's passionate lobbying, as Boyer pretty much does, to
mere stubbornness.

Boyer is also off base when he likens the Kosovo conflict to
George W. Bush's war in Iraq. He notes that Clark recently
criticized Bush for invading Iraq without U.N. approval, yet
observes that the Kosovo war was also initiated without the
Security Council's permission. The bypassing of the United
Nations that marked the onset of Kosovo, he writes, "did
not seem entirely dissimilar from the prewar maneuverings
regarding Iraq," when Bush bypassed the U.N. and resorted
to a "coalition of the willing."

In fact, the two wars—both their beginnings and their
conduct—were extremely dissimilar. True, when Clinton realized
Russia and China would veto a resolution calling for
intervention, he backed away from the Security Council.
However, he did not subsequently piece together a paltry,
handpicked caricature of a coalition, as Bush did for the war
in Iraq. Instead, he went through another established
international organization—NATO.

[bpilgrim]

5. Was It Worth It, Mrs. Albright?

In 1996 then-UN Ambassador Madeleine Albright was asked by 60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl, in reference to years of U.S.-led economic sanctions against Iraq, “We have heard that half a million children have died. I mean, that is more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?”

To which Ambassador Albright responded, “I think that is a very hard choice, but the price, we think, the price is worth it.”

more...
http://www.fff.org/comment/com0311c.asp

to go along with this...

Albright was a fiery supporter of military intervention in
the Balkans (many have written of the famous meeting where
she appalled the reticent chiefs by saying, "What good
are all these fine troops you keep telling us about if we
can't use them?"). Albright was the prime mover; many
observers at the time—supporters and critics alike—called it
"Madeleine's war."

we all better wake the hell up and realize that OUR policies in the ME are not only SELFISH and BRUTAL but cost us TREMONDOUSLY in both blood and treasure and have been since wwII.

where will it end if we don't face up to FACTS and start to plot a NEW course.

neo-liberalism makes me almost as sick as the neoCONs do :puke:

peace

[newyawker99]

6. Hi Clemo!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[lapauvre]

7. And even that doesn't say enough

I am not yet up to typing it, but I have the letter from, and the Articles of Impeachment, submitted by Representative Henry Gonzalez, submitted February, 1991, against GHWB. Sorry I don't have a scanner, but I am willing to type, however slowly, the entire thing for you. GHWB bribed, extorted, and made deals with the so called "international" coalition in Desert Storm. Gonzalez has the list. I have Gonzalez's list.

GWB has done the same thing. The "coalition of the willing," if not willing, would be on the same slippery slope as France and Canada.

Funny, though, how the yahoos who were dumping the French wine and the French cheese weren't dumping the German wines and cheeses.

And, what about Freedom Potato Salad? How about Freedom measles? lol

What a crock of sheep! Freedom Sheep! Now there's the ticket!

If you chose to remember all of history, and not just what this administration tells you to remember, there would be no USA without the aid of France during the revolution.

[bpilgrim]

4. excellent article

thanks for sharing :toast:

peace

[lapauvre]

8. And, P.S.

A US general doesn't "wage war." The government assigns the military duties. Period. If you want to play the "blame game" with Clinton and Albright, go ahead. Just don't expect history to be particularly kind to this current regime's leaders, or lack thereof.

[gulliver]

9. commondreams.org = worthless hacks

Let me know when you get a source.

I can't tell you how many times I have read some juicy anti-Bush headline on a post at DU only to open the article and find it linked to commondreams.org. The experience is like finding a hank of mouse fur in your cereal.