Unflattering New Yorker article on Clark: Reactions?....

[mountebank]

In the latest New Yorker (Nov. 17) there is an article on Clark, mainly concerning his role in the Kosovo War, that paints a very unflattering picture of a man who might have determination and resolve and righteousness, but lacks all practical acumen in the art of diplomacy and war, who basically bungled the situation in Kosovo and was lucky to get out of it when the Russians withdrew their backing of the Serbs and the Serbs withdrew from Kosovo. Nevertheless, the Kosovars did not get their indepedence and Milosevic stayed in power - to be peacefully voted out of office a year later. Meanwhile, we killed a bunch of innocent people (and some guilty ones too) with bombs dropped from the air.

As a Kucinich supporter who thinks Dean is ok and is at least not yet hostile to the idea of Clark, and also as someone who is not all that knoweldgeable about the Kosovo War and Clark's career, I am wondering how people are reacting to this article.

It certainly portrays someone I would not want running the country under any circumstances, someone who could hardly be called a Democrat. How do Clark supporters reconcile some of the facts, if such they are, presented in this article?

Sorry if this is well-covered terrain. Not looking for a flame war, just some (calmly presented) opinions.

[MidwestTransplant]

1. Check this out

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

Remember what the guy who wrote the New Yorker article has written about other Dems. in the past too.

[Spazito]

7. Thanks for the link to slate!

It does two things for me: crystalizes what Shelton's agenda is and why he is attacking Clark and it also helps clarify the different roles played regarding Kosovo.

[returnable]

9. The "journalist"...

...and I use that term quite loosely, also wrote love letter to, er, "article" on, General Franks earlier this summer. His agenda is clear.

[Renew Deal]

2. Here is the reaction

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

Defending the General
The New Yorker's unfair slam on Wes Clark and his role in the Kosovo war.
By Fred Kaplan
Posted Thursday, Nov. 13, 2003, at 4:13 PM PT

I don't know whether Gen. Wesley Clark is qualified to be president, but Peter J. Boyer's profile in this week's New Yorker—which paints him as scarily unqualified—is an unfair portrait as well as a misleading, occasionally inaccurate précis of the 1999 Kosovo war and Clark's role in commanding it.

Boyer relies heavily on some of Clark's fellow retired Army generals who clearly despise him. The gist of their critique, as Boyer summarizes, is that Clark, while a brilliant analyst, "had a certainty about the rightness of his views which led to conflicts with his colleagues and, sometimes, his superiors."

I have met a fair number of generals, and I can't think of a single one who did not have "a certainty about the rightness of his views." There may have been a couple of one-star generals who expressed this certainty in a modest tone, but above that rank—and Clark retired as a four-star general—their confidence easily became belligerent if their opinions were challenged.

<snip>

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

[mountebank]

4. Thanks. Will read.

n/t

[AP]

Two good paragraphs from the article (re Cohen and Shelton):

The fact that Cohen hated Clark, shuddered at the sight of him according to Boyer's article, should cause no discomfort to any prospective voter today. Cohen posted the least distinctive record of any secretary of defense in modern memory; he was widely seen as a milquetoast at the time and left no legacy to speak of.

Gen. Hugh Shelton, then the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, is another matter. Shelton has recently and famously said, in a public forum, that Clark's firing "had to do with integrity and character issues," adding that, for that reason, "Wes won't get my vote." Shelton has since refused to elaborate. If there's a story behind his claim, he should tell it, in the interests of the country. If there isn't, he should apologize. Boyer obviously talked with him in the course of researching the story, but the case against Clark—while there very well may be one—remains unmade.

I agree about Cohen. Never liked his poetery. Not impressed with his political skills either. As for Shelton, why the hell won't he elaborate? Good point about the silence being defening. In a light most favorable to Shelton, maybe he didn't realize how the press would exploit his statment, and now he's just going to shut the fuck up and keep his personality conflicts out of politics.

[DoveTurnedHawk]

3. Sweet, We Have Our Own DU Rapid Response Team!

Way to go, Midwest Transplant and Bleachers7! :-)

DTH

[realFedUp]

5. Can you find the link please?

To the original story in the New Yorker
or at least the author.

[mountebank]

6. Author: Peter J. Boyer

I don't think there is a link, but it's in the Nov. 17 issue, on news stands now.

[returnable]

10. Here ya go

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?031117fa_fact

[CWebster]

16. Thanks for the link. Just as I suspected

"By mid-September, many Democrats were eager to be convinced that Wesley Clark was what Bill Clinton had reportedly declared him to be—the only Democrat besides Hillary Clinton who qualified as a true political “star.” He was the anointed choice of many in the Clinton wing of the Party, the stop-Dean candidate charged with keeping Democrats tethered to the center. When Clark finally announced his candidacy, in Little Rock on September 17th, he was surrounded by old Clinton hands and the national press; a loudspeaker played the theme music from the movie “The Natural...

...Clark indicated that he was puzzled by such comments. 'I’ve known Hugh Shelton for years,' he said, with a tight smile. 'I always liked him.' The comments of Franks, Shelton, and others in the Clinton-era military and defense establishment suggest a paradox in Wesley Clark’s candidacy for President: his military career, the justification for his candidacy, may also be a liability."

[returnable]

18. Old Army rivals speaking out against Clark...

...is no different than Vermont politicos speaking out against Dean. They're political rivals. Nothing more, nothing less.

If a Vermont rep says something bad about Dean's reign as governor, which is the justification for his candidacy, does that make it a liability?

And it's interesting that the media keeps pimping the Shelton quote, but no one ever bothers to bring up all the flattering things General Barry McCaffrey has to say about Clark. And McCaffrey plays for the "other team".

[TLM]

25. So far as I know, as Governor Dean never

targeted and bombed civilians, murdering 1500 of them and injuring 10,000.

So it is a little different.

If the attacks from other army folks was the only bad news for Clark, you'd have a point. However there is a lot of information that shows he f-ed up in kosovo over and over.

And damnit he openly defended having bombed journalists... that is a war crime.


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

"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... The targeting of the studio was a war crime, perhaps the most indisputable of several war crimes committed by NATO in its war against Yugoslavia."


Those are CLARK'S OWN WORDS defending a war crime!


Jesus christ if Kerry came out tomorrow and said he thinks it is OK to target and bomb journalists in war time, the dems would be calling for his head on a pike. So why is it OK that Clark not only says he thinks that journalists are ligit targets, but that HE BOMBED JOURNALISTS?

:wtf:

But hey... at least he never anything serious like mention the confederate flag, huh?
:puke:

[returnable]

26. *sigh*

Same old, same old from you.

Clark was absolved of all "war crimes" charges by the Hague.

But keep repeating it that old saw.

[TLM]

27. Saying he wasn't convicted of war crimes doesn't change what he did....

OJ wasn't convicted of murder... guess that means he didn't cut his ex-wife's head off, right?


You do not deny that Clark bombed journalists.

You do not deny that Clark bombed hospitals.


All you can say in defense of these things Clark did is that he never got convicted for it. Or in other words he got away with it... not that he didn't do it.

[returnable]

29. If Clark is so bad...

...why the hell are you pimping him for a VP slot?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=710947#711023

Surely, you don't think a "war criminal" is worthy of a spot on the Democratic ticket!

:eyes:

[Renew Deal]

30. Good catch

It is because the person cares more about Dean than hates Clark. I wonder if TLM will leave the party if Clark is elected. And if he is, why wait?

[TLM]

33. Again more personal attacks... instead of refutations.

and obviously you didn't read the link because I clearly said CLarks actions have ruined him as a candidate for me.


I was simply commenting on what his campaign seems to be doing.


But thanks for proving my point about the clark supporter's inability to refute the facts about clark's war crimes in kosovo, by attacking me instead of even trying to refute these facts about Clark.

[Renew Deal]

35. I don't even waste my time before. Go refute...

Frenchie's articles. Prove them wrong. I have refuted enough of your drivel through the last few months. BTW, why are the articles slamming Clark the only ones that are accurate? Are the one's defending him worthwhile?

[TLM]

40. So do you admit that "good catch" was anything but?

That attack on me for "pimping clark as VP" was baseless and unfounded?

"Frenchie's articles. Prove them wrong."

Nothing frenchie quoted says that Clark didn't bomb journalists.
Nothing frenchie quoted says that Clark didn't bomb civilains.
Nothing frenchie quoted says that Clark didn't bomb hospitals.
Nothing frenchie quoted says that NATO did kill 1500 civilains.


"I have refuted enough of your drivel through the last few months. "

Really... links?

[Renew Deal]

47. I admit that you are self servant.

Will you vote for Clark if he is the nominee? Will you leave the party? Will you forward your drivel to Free Republic if he is the nominee? I wonder what you will do if he is nominated.

[TLM]

55. More personal attacks...

since you're clearly not interested in anything but personal attacks, you're going on my ignore list.

[Renew Deal]

64. Ignore the truth.

:cry:

[returnable]

66. Add me! Add me!

:hi:

[TreasonousBastard]

49. Eisenhower OK'd the bombing of Dresden.

and killed a lot more civilians than Clark did.

We should've kept that warmongering scum out of office, eh?

[TLM]

58. Dresden was an awful thing...

it shouldn't have been done like that. However it was another time, with different resources and a far greater threat to the whole world.

While I don't like that, nor do I like the nukes dropped on Japan... there was far more justification for those acts than for what Clark did.

And if you only defense for Clark is that somebody else also commited a war crime, that's no defense.

[TLM]

32. First I note that you can not refute my points, so you attack me...

Second, read what I wrote...

"Because if you only look at his actions and words since about May of 2003... he's fantastic. It is everything he said and did before that which ruines him for me as a candidate.

I think CLark is running for VP at this point. I think he's pulling out of the primaries in the northern states and focusing on the south. That won't win him the primary, but it will prove that he call draw votes in the south, making him a cherry VP pick."


I was not "pimping him for VP." In fact I clearly said that his prior actions ruin him for me as a candidate. I was simply commenting on what his campaign strategy seems to be.

"Surely, you don't think a "war criminal" is worthy of a spot on the Democratic ticket!"


No I do not, and honestly I have been seriously hoping Dean does not tap him for his VP, because I would really have to do some serious soul searching about voting for the ticket for just that reason.

I think I would still vote for a Dean/Clark ticket, because Bush has got to go, but I would feel really uncomfortable doing so.

[CWebster]

41. Yeah, I wondered about that too considering

he isn't opting out of spending limits. That would seem to suggest that he has doubts about independent funding or he isn't as ambitious.

[returnable]

48. Or maybe he cares about campaign finance reform

Perhaps? :hi:

[TLM]

59. If Clark was rasing money like Dean...

in fact if any of them were raising money like Dean (save for kucinich) they'd opt out.

[returnable]

63. So Dean's "committment" to campaign finance reform...

...earlier this year was just lip-service? I see.

Glad his principles are so deep.

[democratreformed]

62. That's

a really low blow.

[returnable]

42. What was I suppose to refute?

That Clark bombed the TV station? The hospital?

Yeah, he did.

Am I happy about it? No.

As a General in a war, Clark had to make tactical decisions I can't even begin to fathom.

But even your man Howard Dean supported the Kosovo campaign. How can you endorse someone who backed "war crimes"? I mean, if the Kosovo campaign is such an affront to your sense of humanity, shouldn't you find a candidate who better reflects your views?

Or maybe you're just blowing a lot of smoke. I really don't know.

And how did I "attack" you? By asking you to clarify what looked like contradictory posts? That's not an "attack" - that's a question.

[TLM]

53. You said I was pimping clark for a VP slot...

when the link clearly showed I was doing no such thing.

I don't expect you to retract the accusation, but I simply wanted the fallacious nature of the accusation made very clear. I also wanted it made clear that rather than refute my points, you changed the subject to me.


"That Clark bombed the TV station? The hospital?

Yeah, he did.

Am I happy about it? No."


But you're OK with it. And Clark didn’t just bomb civilians… he flat out said he considered the journalist the same as the army. Clark has not retracted that; he’s not indicated any change in his views regarding the acceptability of targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure. At best I’ve seen him say he would have liked to have used more ground forces to cut back on the number of civilian deaths.


"As a General in a war, Clark had to make tactical decisions I can't even begin to fathom."

Tactics take a back seat to the rules of war... you don't target civilians, no matter how tactically advantageous it might be.

There is no excuse.




"But even your man Howard Dean supported the Kosovo campaign. How can you endorse someone who backed "war crimes"? "

Ahh false premise, Dean wasn't he one selecting civilian targets. You can not defend Clark’s actions so try to argue Dean is just as bad because he supported action in Kosovo. I'm sure if Dean had been asked if he supported bombing journalists and hospitals, THE DOCTOR would have said no.

Supporting the some level of military intervention in Kosovo is not the same as an across the board approval of all the tactics used.

[returnable]

56. Well, since Howard has never had to make a military decision...

...we'll never know what he would've done, now will we?

"I also wanted it made clear that rather than refute my points, you changed the subject to me."

Again, there was nothing to refute. Clark bombed the TV station. That's a fact.

I say the sky is blue. Can you refute that? Can ya? CAN YA?

[CWebster]

39. Well, we need the bait to pull you folks on board somehow

like others inclined to fall for the Republican mantra - which drives them to vote against their own best interests. ;-)

Politics...

[CWebster]

36. The mere fact that he was charged with them should be enough

to diminish his presidential aspirations.

[Bertrand]

57. Nato wasnt charged with anything

but the fact that you support the idea of being guilty by accusation is sad.

[Eloriel]

69. Oh, believe me, it WILL be enough to diminish his aspirations

and deny the Dems a win in 2004 -- if he's on the ticket anywhere.

That's what I'm so afraid of with Clark. What's in his background is KILLER STUFF for Rove.

And it WILL be used against him.

Eloriel

[Bertrand]

54. The Irony of your comments is that Dean supported the Kosovo War

and didnt offer any qualfications, meaning by your own logic you should believe he is the supporter of a war crime. lol.

[TLM]

61. Dean wasn't the one picking targets...

as I already said...


"But even your man Howard Dean supported the Kosovo campaign. How can you endorse someone who backed "war crimes"? "

Ahh false premise, Dean wasn't he one selecting civilian targets. You can not defend Clark’s actions so try to argue Dean is just as bad because he supported action in Kosovo. I'm sure if Dean had been asked if he supported bombing journalists and hospitals, THE DOCTOR would have said no.

Supporting the some level of military intervention in Kosovo is not the same as an across the board approval of all the tactics used.

[CWebster]

31. The difference being that many of those Vermont politcos

who rivaled Dean now number among his supporters.

I suggest you read the entire NYer article article for the entire story of why Clark is held in such low regard.

[Renew Deal]

37. I suggest you read the entire

Slate article for the entire story on why it is crap.

[returnable]

43. I did read the entire article

I'm a subscriber :)

And it didn't tell me anything I hadn't heard, and filtered, before.

[Eloriel]

70. You mean heard and rationalized. n/t

[realFedUp]

60. Thanks

[AP]

8. Milosevic democratically removed and now standing trial is "failure"?

That sounds like the way wars SHOULD end. You defeat fascism by ending the democratic appeal and then the criminals stand trial.

I like that much better than a bunker busting bomb or a predator drone acting as judge, jury and executioner.

[mountebank]

13. You end democratic appeal by dropping bombs initially?

The other side could certainly argue that dropping bombs was not directly related to Milosevic being removed from power, that it would have happened anyway, and thus the war was meaningless. I thought we were pretty much in agreement on DU that dropping bombs on people is not a very effective way of making them see the immorality of their leaders.

I guess you can spin it the way you have, but because Milosevic was peacefully removed by his own people, it looks to me like the war was pointless.

[AP]

14. Yeah. They should have put ground troops in. In any event, a fascist is

gone and it doesn't look like most Yugoslavians are blaming anyone other than the fascist.

[DoveTurnedHawk]

15. Moreover, as You Know, Clark Was a Strong Proponent of Early Ground Troops

Just reiterating it for the benefit of others who may not be aware. :-)

DTH

[CWebster]

45. We don't really hear what they think

Just like we are always told that it is Saddam loyalists and foreign terrorists in Iraq. Those who believed that are having trouble holding that illusion up in the harsh light of day.

[joeybee12]

11. You know, I support Dean, however, I don't read stuff about Kosovo

mainly because that is really, really, really subjective. You can find any so-called experts to say anything, and, quite frankly, you could easily argue that the bombing weakened Milosevice and led to his eventual downfall. I think more people see Clark's role in Kosovo as positive, and quite frankly, those who portray it negatively are the ones who are supporting the absolute freakin mess in Iraq!

[DFLforever]

20. Another Dean supporter agrees with you

I put no trust in the Kosovo rap on Clark.

[TLM]

23. The bombing did nothing...

What weakened slobo was the russians pulling their support for him... which was almost f-ed up by Clar's ordering brit forces to confront russian forces over the airfield.

Slobo wasn't removed by the bombing, he was tossed out on his ass a year later.

Fully 80% of the 10,000 people the serbs killed, were kiled after the bombing started.

"You can find any so-called experts to say anything"

The fact that NATO targeted civilians is not in question.
The fact Clark defended murdering journalists is not in question.
The fact that the NATO bombing killed 1500 civilians and wounded 10,000 more is based on NATO's own numbers.

[jumptheshadow]

12. Did the author try to interview Bill Clinton?

I appreciate your sincere questions.

Wouldn't Clinton have the definitive word on Clark's performance during the war?

Shouldn't somebody try to interview Clinton about Clark?

[Ksec]

17. Shelton

Shelton disliked Clark because he was a pretty boy. He had all kind of females admiring him. It had nothing to do with character. Of course he cant elaborate, He would look like the fool that he is.

[eissa]

21. Pure jealousy

There was an article on Clark in Vanity Fair a long time ago. Although I don't remember much in detail, the jist of the article was that some military personnel had problems with Clark because of his intellect, which they found elitist. I suppose if he walked around scratching his balls and saying things like "bring 'em on" they would have liked him more. Idiots.

[JNelson6563]

24. I also believe partisanship plays in

along with Pentagon politics.

I don't consider Shelton credible either.

Julie the skeptic

[redqueen]

19. As a Kucitizen I say ignore it.

He had to cooperate with many others wrt Kosovo, and at least he preferred ground troops to aerial bombardment (would have been more effective, less civilian casualties).

I still respect him.

Plus he said he'd accept public financing. He went up a few notches with me. :)

[TLM]

22. FOlks will attack the author of the new yorker piece... so here are others

who also detail the horrible bungling of the kosovo air campaign, that Clark commanded.


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.





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


No sooner are we told by Britain's top generals that the Russians played a crucial role in ending the west's war against Yugoslavia than we learn that if Nato's supreme commander, the American General Wesley Clark, had had his way, British paratroopers would have stormed Pristina airport threatening to unleash the most frightening crisis with Moscow since the end of the cold war.
"I'm not going to start the third world war for you," General Sir Mike Jackson, commander of the international K-For peacekeeping force, is reported to have told Gen Clark when he refused to accept an order to send assault troops to prevent Russian troops from taking over the airfield of Kosovo's provincial capital.

Hyperbole, perhaps. But, by all accounts, Jackson was deadly serious. Clark, as he himself observed, was frustrated after fighting a war with his hands tied behind his back, and was apparently willing to risk everything for the sake of amour-propre .

<snip>

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.

Jackson got full support from the British government for his refusal to carry out the American general's orders. When Clark appealed to Washington, he was allegedly given the brush-off.



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

Given our collective recurring political amnesia, let's turn to an eye-opening August 1999 report from our British friends at The Guardian, concerning Clark's role as Supreme Allied Commander - a post viewed by Clark supporters as a major qualification to be our next president.

"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... The targeting of the studio was a war crime, perhaps the most indisputable of several war crimes committed by NATO in its war against Yugoslavia."

If you think the Guardian editors were being overly harsh in describing this as a "war crime," keep in mind that a panel of 16 judges from 11 countries who, at a people's tribunal meeting in New York before 500 witnesses, found U.S. and NATO leaders guilty of war crimes against Yugoslavia in the March 24 to June 10, 1999, "humanitarian" attack on that country.

As for Clark's reputation among the rank and file in our military establishment, the highly decorated and straight-talking Col. David Hackworth has written that Clark is "known by those who've served with him as the 'Ultimate Perfumed Prince.' (He) is far more comfortable in a drawing room discussing political theories than hunkering down in the trenches where bullets fly and soldiers die."

And we haven't even scratched the surface in discussing Clark's idealization of the Powell Doctrine, which led to NATO forces dropping tons of depleted uranium bombs on Kosovo, creating widespread civilian sickness as a result of contamination associated with DU.


http://www.commondreams.org/headlines/060700-02.htm

Amnesty records that NATO aircraft flew 10,484 strike missions over Serbia and that Serbian statistics of civilian deaths in NATO raids range from 400-600 up to 1,500. It specifically condemns NATO for an attack on a bridge at Varvarin on 30 May last year, which killed at least 11 civilians. "NATO forces failed to suspend their attack after it was evident that they had struck civilians," Amnesty says.

When it attacked convoys of Albanian refugees near Djakovica on 14 April and in Korisa on 13 May, "NATO failed to take necessary precautions to minimise civilian casualties".

The report says NATO repeatedly gave priority to pilots' safety at the cost of civilian lives. In several investigations of civilian deaths, Amnesty quotes from reports in The Independent, including an investigation into the bombing of a hospital at Surdulica on 31 May. The Independent disclosed in November that Serb soldiers were sheltering on the ground floor of the hospital when it was bombed but that all the casualties were civilian refugees living on the upper floors.

Amnesty says: "If NATO intentionally bombed the hospital complex because it believed it was housing soldiers, it may well have violated the laws of war. According to Article 50(3) of Protocol 1, 'the presence within the civilian population of individuals who do not come within the definition of civilians does not deprive the population of its civilian character'.

"The hospital complex was clearly a civilian object with a large civilian population, the presence of soldiers would not have deprived the civilians or the hospital compound of their protected status." Some of Amnesty's harshest criticism is directed at the 23 April bombing of Serb television headquarters. "General Wesley Clark has stated, 'We knew when we struck that there would be alternate means of getting the Serb Television. There's no single switch to turn off everything but we thought it was a good move to strike it, and the political leadership agreed with us.'

"In other words, NATO deliberately attacked a civilian object, killing 16 civilians, for the purpose of disrupting Serb television broadcasts in the middle of the night for approximately three hours. It is hard to see how this can be consistent with the rule of proportionality."

[FrenchieCat]

28. But there are many more that disagree.....

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/16795 Waiting for the General
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A51403-2000May1¬Found=true The Unappreciated General
http://www.dod.gov/news/May2000/n05032000_20005033.html Lauds for the General
http://wesleyclark.h1.ru/departure.htm#top 12 articles written 1999-2000 detailing the General's role in Kosovo and his early retirement

And don't forget what Gene Lyons said in a Buzzflash interview:
http://www.buzzflash.com/interviews/03/10/int03221.html
BUZZFLASH: You're probably one of the most well-informed journalists on how attack politics play themselves out with a culpable media, based on your extensive research and writing on the Clintons. How do you think the right wing is going to go after Clark? What can he expect? What advice would you give Clark and the people who are working for him?

LYONS: Well, the outlines of it are already evident. They're saying he's too tightly wrapped, which is kind of akin to what they tried to do with John McCain. They're saying he's a zealot and tends to become unhinged. They're suggesting he's crazed with ambition.

I wrote in a column a couple of weeks ago that one of their lines of attack would be to portray him as sort of General Jack D. Ripper, who was the megalomaniacal general in Dr. Strangelove who was so concerned with his precious bodily fluids. And that's what I think they will try to do. They might go all the way to the edge of suggesting some kind of mental illness. I don't think he's very vulnerable to that sort of smear.

Clark gave a very interesting quote that I used in a column in a profile in Esquire. He said the whole question about running against George W. Bush boils down to how much pain can you take. So I think he has some idea of what's coming. I think he has some idea that it will be shrill, it will come from that side of the spectrum, and it will be harsh. I think they're going to try to portray him as a crackpot and as wildly ambitious, and therefore dangerous. The right-wing will definitely label him an opportunist and say he's switching parties simply to become President and he's power-mad.

[SahaleArm]

44. You have more patience than I

Why bother arguing with a broken record?

[democratreformed]

65. I was going to point that out too

Sometimes people have to agree to disagree and leave it at that.
Arguing with these people is pointless.
They will never have our opinion. We will never have theirs. We are too different.

[CWebster]

52. Of course they will

These are his liabilities. His military credibility can be ripped to shreds from the very place he has a supposed advantage in the current fear-induced climate.

[RetroLounge]

34. Looks to me to be sour grapes by a digruntled

former associate. A hatched job.

I would ignore it. Or write a LTTE to the Times.

Clark will most likely rise above and ignore it or respond in a stateman-like manner, which would cause the article to backfire on the author. His agenda is clear.

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

38. Clark is allowing his opponents to define his bad qualities, big mistake!

Clark needs to define his own attacks. In the general election, he should willingly admit that as a general, he was too gung-ho, too interested in winning the war, and too careful about avoiding US causualties. In the primary, he should have said that his economic policies were too populist for the Democratic establishment.

Clark needs to give his opponents directions on how to attack him, so he's attacked for his strengths, not his weaknesses. So far the media is doing a good job defining the Clark candidacy instead of Clark himself. Can he beat the media at their own game? I don't know.

[FrenchieCat]

46. Hell, Clark

already called Shelton out....said Shelton should say whatever he has to say in his face...actually it is starting to backfire and Shelton's face.

[TLM]

67. I agree with you on this....

Though he needs to do this NOW, not later.

"Clark needs to define his own attacks. In the general election, he should willingly admit that as a general, he was too gung-ho, too interested in winning the war, and too careful about avoiding US causualties. In the primary, he should have said that his economic policies were too populist for the Democratic establishment."


That would go a long way for me, if Clark would just flat out admit that what he did was wrong... as good intentioned as it may have been, his tactics were wrong. But he doesn't do that... he says that journalists were the same as the army and security forces, and therefore valid targets.

If CLark just admited his was wrong and retracted his statments about it being OK to murder journalists... that would do a lot to raise him up in my eyes.

Then he'd just have to explain his statements about Reagan and Bush sr... his working as a lobbyist... and his selling his influence to defense contrators to help them get homeland security contracts and defense contracts.

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

68. Yes, why did Dean support bombing of civilians?

For the "anti-war" candidate, it's surprising that Dean has supported every war in his lifetime until he started to run for president. While Clinton was waging war on Serbia, Dean supported it and didn't say anything about the bombing of civilians.

Hopefully no one is saying that it's bad to bomb journalists but other non-professional civilians are fair game. Then again, what to do about military journalists, or "embedded reporters"?

"his working as a lobbyist... and his selling his influence to defense contrators to help them get homeland security contracts and defense contracts."

If a Kucinich supporter were criticizing Clark about that, they would have a point. A Dean supporter criticizing Clark about being a lobbyist, when Dean himself spent his career in bed with corporate lobbyists, is pretty much a joke don't you think?

[Eloriel]

71. It's pretty bad when you have to mischaracterize someone

in order to criticize him.

There's no support for saying Dean supported "bombing civilians." None. There are plenty of people in the U.S. who support the Iraq war who would NOT support some of what's being done there. Supporting a war isn't the same as supporting war crimes that may go on during it.

And working with lobbyists, which is pretty much required when you're in elected office, isn't the same as being one.

Eloriel

[mot78]

50. There just trumpeting Shelton's propaganda

[OKNancy]

51. About the author

Yup, I'll "attack" the author.

Peter Boyer, is well-known as one of the chief big-media hacks in the Clinton culture wars, responsible for giving mainstream media credence and respectability to a whole raft of anti-Clinton and anti-Gore stories and memes that I think most of us would agree, in retrospect, to have been catastrophically misguided, if not maliciously overblown or false (see, among other places, M.Dickinson in a Salon: "A Massive Journalistic Breakdown"). When it comes to political journalism, Boyer reliably takes the contrarian, anti-liberal slant. A half-hour of googling the article's author name gives a flavor of some of his past work.

Besides writing for the New Yorker, Boyer has also worked as a correspondent on at least three Frontline documentaries, "Choice 2000", "Once Upon a Time in Arkansas", and "The Children of Waco".

Here's Frontline's own description of the way Boyer and his colleague Michael Kirk approached the subject of Al Gore in their profile of the two candidates:

"Behind Al Gore's urge to know more than the other guy and work so relentlessly was his parents' expectation from the day he was born that he would be president. "It was always part of his parents' plan to prepare him for the presidency." says Gore family confidant Dr. James Fleming. FRONTLINE looks at Gore's lifelong problem--what his friends call "his wooden Apollo" image--and also chronicles his malleability on issues and his tendency to exaggerate his accomplishments. "He did it, I think, honestly, to try to connect with the person he was dealing with." says campaign aide Mike Kopp."

And here are some contemporaneous press reviews, also from the Frontline website:

"Neither man is all hero or all cad in Michael Kirk and Peter J. Boyer's measured but unfailingly watchable piece of work. If anything, despite the (undeserved) PBS reputation for liberalism, it is more revealing about and damaging to Gore, nailing him on that tendency to biographical exaggeration and a willingness to try to exploit personal tragedy for political gain." --Steven Johnson, Chicago Tribune

"A quick note to conservatives: Before you complain about another biased, liberal TV report, pay attention to how Frontline treats the vice president.
Words such as opportunistic, even conniving, come to mind." -- Dusty Saunders, Rocky Mountain News

And here's the Frontline synopsis of "Once Upon a Time in Arkansas":

"This program takes a fascinating journey through time - and Arkansas - showing how the Clintons' close personal and political relationships formed the twisted financial bonds of land deals and alleged cover-ups that have come to be known as Whitewater.
The main focus is on two of the state's most prominent couples back then - Bill and Hillary Clinton and Jim and Susan McDougal. (Both McDougals were interviewed while serving separate jail sentences. Jim McDougal has since died.)
The program lays out how the Clintons - he was the young Attorney General with his eyes on the state governorship - were brought into an ambitious McDougal deal to build vacation homes on the White River. Clinton, with few assets, just needed to sign for a loan arranged by his pal McDougal. "McDougal made his political friends partners in his deals and used their stature to make it easier for banks to say yes," says FRONTLINE correspondent Peter Boyer. "And the politicians, like his friend Bill Clinton, were happy to go along with it." "

And here's Walter Goodman, of the NY Times, reviewing the program:

"'Once Upon A Time In Arkansas' presents no new smoking guns about Whitewater. But the air in Little Rock was evidently so fetid that the whole place was smoking all the time. "
"...This hour focuses on the good-old-boy friendships and favors that embroiled the Clintons in a shaky operation in the first place and then caused a falling out among the sometime partners. Mr. Boyer suggests that it was the couple's effort to distance themselves from their old and obliging pal, Jim McDougal, even while trying to squeeze a few thousand dollars more out of him in his time of trouble that sorrowed and angered him enough to implicate them in his embarrassments."
"...So stands the tale known as Whitewater. Viewers may be left with the dismaying sense that the one person in Arkansas for whom politics was very much a full-time, lifetime vocation, never mind the money, was Bill Clinton but that he could not say no to the kindness of friends.""

There's lots more where that came from. Boyer also wrote a psycho-babbling negative profile of Janet Reno in the New Yorker (also called "The Children of Waco" , 5/15/95), and a lurid piece about Vince Foster, also in the New Yorker ("Life after Vince," 9/11/1995) but not online so far as I know. Among his biggest online fans are such reliable anti-Clinton/Gore sources as Christopher Hitchens, Newsmax, and Media Reality Check, which approvingly cites a WaPo piece by Howard ("Conflict of Interest") Kurtz on Sidney's Blumenthal's supposedly nefarious attempts to derail a piece on "Travelgate" (remember that crucial story?) that Boyer wanted to write:

"Kurtz also wrote "Peter Boyer, a New Yorker writer, says Blumenthal tried to sabotage his story about the Travelgate affair last year. Boyer says he mentioned the piece to his colleague after learning that Blumenthal had lunched with Clinton's friend Harry Thomason on the day the Hollywood producer pushed for the firing of the White House travel office employees....Boyer says he was later told.... Blumenthal had warned them Boyer was anti-Clinton and planned to smear them." "

I'll leave you to decide which side of that debate, in retrospect, was the right one.

And here's my personal favorite, Boyer on Newt Gingrich, also in the New Yorker (11/26/01), in a piece called "The Worrier: Newt Gingrich returns":

"Gingrich, like Churchill, is one of those figures who fix on dangers only dimly perceived by others, and whose urgent warnings are often unheeded because of the messenger's complicated political biography. Gingrich issued his first warnings about the need to confront terrorism in his 1984 book "Window of Opportunity," and he has been a serious student of the subject ever since."

Again, I'll leave you to decide which comparison you think is more valid: Wesley Clark as an incompetent military strategist, or Newt Gingrich as a "Churchillian" anti-terrorism mastermind.

-----This is from the Clark blog, and I didn't save the link.---
I did not write this.