2004 Elections: Democratic Party Contenders

Meet the Real General Clark



Anyone seeking to understand the bloody fiasco of the Serbian war need hardly look further than the person of the beribboned Supreme Allied Commander, General Wesley K. Clark. Politicians and journalists are generally according him a respectful hearing as he discourses on the "schedule" for the destruction of Serbia, tellingly embracing phrases favored by military bureaucrats such as "systematic" and "methodical".

The reaction from former army subordinates is very different. "The poster child for everything that is wrong with the GO (general officer) corps," exclaims one colonel, who has had occasion to observe Clark in action, citing, among other examples, his command of the 1st Cavalry Division at Fort Hood from 1992 to 1994.

While Clark's official Pentagon biography proclaims his triumph in "transitioning the Division into a rapidly deployable force" this officer describes the "1st Horse Division" as "easily the worst division I have ever seen in 25 years of doing this stuff."

Such strong reactions are common. A major in the 3rd Brigade of the 4th Infantry Division at Fort Carson, Colorado when Clark was in command there in the early 1980s described him as a man who "regards each and every one of his subordinates as a potential threat to his career".

While he regards his junior officers with watchful suspicion, he customarily accords the lower ranks little more than arrogant contempt. A veteran of Clark's tenure at Fort Hood recalls the general's "massive tantrum because the privates and sergeants and wives in the crowded (canteen) checkout lines didn't jump out of the way fast enough to let him through".

Clark's demeanor to those above is, of course, very different, a mode of behavior that has earned him rich dividends over the years. Thus, early in 1994, he was a candidate for promotion from two to three star general. Only one hurdle remained - a war game exercise known as the Battle Command Training Program in which Clark would have to maneuver his division against an opposing force. The commander of the opposing force, or "OPFOR" was known for the military skill with which he routinely demolished opponents.

But Clark's patrons on high were determined that no such humiliation should be visited on their favorite. Prior to the exercise therefore, strict orders came down that the battle should go Clark's way. Accordingly, the OPFOR was reduced in strength by half, thus enabling Clark, despite deploying tactics of signal ineptitude, to triumph. His third star came down a few weeks later.

Battle exercises and war games are of course meant to test the fighting skills of commanders and troops. The army's most important venue for such training is the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, California, where Clark commanded from October 1989 to October 1991 and where his men derisively nicknamed him "Section Leader Six" for his obsessive micro-management.

At the NTC, army units face a resident OPFOR that has, through constant battle practice coupled with innovative tactics and close knowledge of the terrain, become adept at routing the visiting "Blue Force" opponents. For Clark, this naturally posed a problem. Not only were his men using unconventional tactics, they were also humiliating Blue Force generals who might nurture resentment against the NTC commander and thus discommode his career at some future date. To the disgust of the junior OPFOR officers Clark therefore frequently fought to lose, sending his men on suicidal attacks in order that the Blue Forces should go home happy and owing debts of gratitude to their obliging foe.

All observers agree that Clark has always displayed an obsessive concern with the perquisites and appurtenances of rank. Ever since he acceded to the Nato command post, the entourage with which he travels has accordingly grown to gargantuan proportions to the point where even civilians are beginning to comment. A Senate aide recalls his appearances to testify, prior to which aides scurry about the room adjusting lights, polishing his chair, testing the microphone etc prior to the precisely timed and choreographed moment when the Supreme Allied Commander Europe makes his entrance.

"We are state of the art pomposity and arrogance up here," remarks the aide. "So when a witness displays those traits so egregiously that even the senators notice, you know we're in trouble." His NATO subordinates call him, not with affection, "the Supreme Being".

"Clark is smart," concludes one who has monitored his career. "But his whole life has been spent manipulating appearances (e.g. the doctored OPFOR exercise) in the interests of his career. Now he is faced with a reality he can't control." This observer concludes that, confronted with the wily Slobodan and other unavoidable variables of war, Clark will soon come unglued. "Watch the carpets at NATO HQ for teeth marks."

The General Who Would Be President
Was Wesley Clark Also Unprepared for the Post-War Bloodbath?
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.

Second, the NATO bombing alienated Serbian civilians who had led the opposition to Milosevic. Cities that had voted heavily against Milosevic were among those targeted with bombing. U.S. jets dropped cluster bombs on a crowded marketplace in Nis. Civilian infrastructure, such as trains, busses, bridges, TV stations, civilian factories, hospitals and power plants, were repeatedly hit by NATO bombs. Depleted Uranium munitions left behind radioactive dust around targets, and bombed chemical plants released clouds of poisonous smoke. Estimates of civilian deaths in the bombing range from 500 to 2,000, with the Washington Post estimating 1,600 (a tally is at <www.counterpunch.org/dead.html> ) These civilian casualties are largely forgotten by those who feel that bombs dropped by a Democratic president are somehow more noble than those dropped by a Republican president.

The Serbian democratic opposition strongly condemned the bombing as undermining and delaying their efforts to oust President Milosevic, and as strengthening his police state. It was not the NATO bombing but Serbs' largely nonviolent revolution that overthrew Milosevic in October 2000, and replaced him with democratic leader Vojislav Kostunica, who had opposed NATO's war. In much the same way, many Iraqis who hated Saddam Hussein have criticized U.S. betrayals and sanctions--under both Bush and Clinton administrations--for strengthening Saddam's hand. Many of these same Sunnis and Shi'ites repressed by Saddam are today calling for the U.S. to withdraw from Iraq, in order to regain their sovereignty.

Third, 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. Instead of cracking down on the KLA fighters, NATO invited them to join its new Kosovo Protection Corps police force. In the months after the NATO occupation began, Kosovo became far more ethnically "pure" than Milosevic had ever made it, with the percentage of ethnic minorities lower than ever in its history. Amnesty International observed that General Clark's NATO was "unprepared for the massive abuses of human rights" under the postwar occupation.

Most U.S. media reviews of the wars in former Yugoslavia describe U.S. and NATO interventions as well-intentioned efforts to halt "ethnic cleansing." Yet the perception in the Balkan region is far different. The U.S. never dropped a single bomb to stop Croatian forces from ethnic cleansing of Serbs or Bosnian Muslims (in fact, U.S. bombing backed up Croatian forces hours before they forcibly expelled Serbs from Croatia in 1995). The memory of NATO in former Yugoslavia is not of a neutral "peacekeeper," but of a military that took sides with Croatian and Albanian ethnic cleansers against Serbian ethnic cleansers. Postwar agreements (with Clark's involvement) merely rubberstamped the de facto ethnic partitions of Bosnia and Kosovo that had long been sought by their nationalist militias.

Like in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. interventions in ex-Yugoslavia left behind a new cluster of U.S. military bases, including the sprawling Camp Bondsteel in U.S. Sector Kosovo. Together, this string of permanent U.S. bases stretching from Hungary to Pakistan is creating a new U.S. "sphere of influence" in the strtegic region between the European Union and East Asia. General Clark was surely aware that the U.S. presence in Kosovo would not be temporary, and uses the prospect of ethnic instability to justify it, much as President Bush does to justify a long-term presence in Iraq. Earlier this year, as one of the slew of cable news "armchair generals" coldly assessed the advance of the Iraq invasion, Clark never challenged the underlying premise that the U.S. military should oust Saddam, rather than the Iraqi people, or that the U.S. should have a permanent presence in the Gulf region.

The 1999 Kosovo War had similar origins and outcomes as the 2003 Iraq War. In the 2004 election, do we face the hideous prospect of voting for one flawed war over another? Far from posing a "pragmatic" alternative to President Bush, Clark's ascendancy would be a failure for the peace movement that has made such advances in community organizing over the past year. In order not to alienate the large segment of the electorate energized by the movement, Democrats are well advised not to nominate a leader with blood on his hands.

Analysis: Insiders slam Bush's speech
By JOHN WALCOTT
Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON - Even some officials in the president's administration worry that in his address to the nation Sunday night he glossed over his shifting rationales for war in Iraq, oversimplified the sources of anti-American rage there and overstated the benefits of victory, both to the war on terrorism and to American policy in the Middle East.
Making the war in Iraq a central part of the war on terrorism that Osama bin Laden started two years ago this week sidestepped Bush's earlier rationale for war in Iraq - Iraq's alleged chemical and biological weapons and its nuclear ambitions - and ignored the fact that it was the American-led invasion that made Iraq a magnet for international terrorists, these officials said.

Before the war, intelligence analysts at the CIA, the State Department and the Pentagon acknowledged there was no evidence of cooperation between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida and no evidence of an Iraqi hand in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. None has yet surfaced....
http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/news/special_packages/iraq/6723820.htm

cicerone imposter wrote:

The mass in tihs country still think al Qaida and Saddam had connections on nine-eleven. It's not memory that bothers me so much as our inability to understand what is true and what is false.

Short memory, c.i.?

Al Queda in Iraq

Just one of the more recent articles linking Al Queda to Iraq. [..] Short Memory, Short Sighted, or Selective Memory? The evidence leads me to believe there is and has been a connection.

Zarqawi had had a leg amputated at an exclusive Baghdad clinic in 2002, suggesting he had connections to government figures in Iraq, but European officials scoffed at the larger allegation [that he was a key link between the government of Saddam Hussein [..] and al Qaeda]. Zarqawi was an independent operator, they said, citing the interrogation of some of his allies in Germany.