Clark fans need some help for informaton

[FreedomAngel82]

I keep hearing from rightwingers about how Clark is crazy and almost started WWIII with Kosovo and all this other whateverness. Can you clear this up for me?

[craiga86]

1. Well...

When Clarke planned the Kosovo attacks, he was actually trying to get Osama Bin Ladin. Also, he worked for Nixon, Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, and Bush II. The guy has too much crediablitity for them to swallow, especially since he came against Bush's prepriation for Al Queda when he took office. When he came with his book, which was a great read btw, the media deemed him "Clinton's Man" eventhough he worked for four republican presidents and one democrat.

[Totally Committed]

2. Unbelieveable. Fascinating.

And, it's Clark (no E).

[acmejack]

3. I assume you meant Wes!

The cons: (WARNING! Extreme ! Exercise Caution!)

The good guys:

[FreedomAngel82]

4. Yes that's who I'm thinking of

Sorry I wasn't more clear. :blush:

[Totally Committed]

5. Elizabeth Drew article on the incident you ask about...

I find it hard to imagine that someone who's been here long enough to have amassed 1000+ posts has not seen all the debunking of this bogus story a gazillion times. I realize I am probably being suckered, so I'll give you this, and all the usual cast of characters can appear to rip the good man to shreds. It's like clockwork around here. There have been two positive Clark threads here today. It's time to pay the piper. Pardon me if I am being a bit cynical.

by Elizabeth Drew:

"Much has been made of a single sentence in a long argument that Clark had with General Sir Michael Jackson, the British officer in command on the scene at Pristina airport, who said, 'I'm not going to start World War III for you.' Clark devoted an entire chapter to the airport incident in his first book, and his account has been confirmed by others. He explains that at first he had the support of the Clinton White House and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as well as the secretary-general of NATO, Javier Solana. But when the British refused to support him, largely in response to Jackson's objections, Washington backed down. Clark himself reported Jackson's now-famous hyperbolic line to Shelton as an example of what he saw as an emotional overreaction. Berger says, 'To say that Wes was reckless is to misunderstand the context; it's an absurd notion.'"

Read the whole article here:

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/16795

Start there. It's a good article, and if all you're really looking for is information, it's all there. If I am being suckered, nothing I could post here would be enough.

TC

[Adelante]

6. You're not cynical, TC

You're right!

[jonnyblitz]

7. yeah, how dare we do nothing short of swoon and gush

over "dreamy Wes". :eyes: find me an article debunking his support of the "school of the americas" and I might actually like him.

[Totally Committed]

8. And, for the record, I am not a "gush" fan, for Wes or anyone...

And, there I was thinking I was being cynical. Oh, it's time for us to get spanked. Here's his statement in his own words. I'm positive it won't be enough, but them's the breaks...

Statement of General Wesley Clark on the School of the Americas

(now known as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation)

I strongly condemn human rights abuses of any kind. Throughout my career, I have fought to protect the fundamental rights of all people and to promote democratic values that empower people to prevent abuses of power and combat them when they occur.

It is unacceptable that some who passed through the School of the Americas (now known as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation) committed human rights abuses. Those that did should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law - as should all who commit war crimes or crimes against humanity. In order to prevent such abuses from happening in the future, we must promote a policy of engagement and education with friends and allies in the region.

I strongly support the reforms that have been implemented at WHISC and encourage careful vetting of students. I strongly support oversight measures that ensure that antidemocratic principles are not taught at the school. Thanks to the work of human rights campaigners and others, WHISC is constantly improving the way it teaches the Army's values of respect for human rights, for civil institutions, and for dissent.

http://www.clark04.com/issues/soa /

TC

[Adelante]

16. Who gives a shit?

If you like him? :shrug:

Not I.

[Totally Committed]

9. I think I'm about done here...

You guys can just fillet him on your own now. Have fun!

TC

[Lefty48197]

10. I can explain this: Reps are complete f*cking idiots

that's the explaination. After President Clinton and General Clark led the world's assault on the death machine of Slobodan Milosevich, the Russians started landing people in the airport (Kosovo?). Clark called them on it and they backed down. Republicans like to refer to this as "almost starting WWIII". Sensible people refer to is as the time those two Democratic leaders dismantled a death machine without costing ONE SINGLE AMERICAN SOLDIER'S LIFE.

[Tom Rinaldo]

11. Ah yes, those right wing talking points. Do you know who Gene Lyons is?

He is the co author of "The Hunting of the President" who exposed a lot of the coordinated tactics that the Right Wing "Noise Machine" used to try to take down Clinton. Great book. Anyway Gene Lyons was interviewed for Buzzflash, on October 22, 2003. He was asked point blank how Republicans were likely to go after Wes Clark, who at that point was a new entrant into the Democratic race for President and was still largely unknown to the public. I will leave you the link, it's a good read, but here are some relevant parts:

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."

But that doesn't stop some people from still trying...

The link:
http://www.buzzflash.com/interviews/03/10/int03221.html

[dogman]

12. That's exactly what Limpballs did.

Used that nickname and meme. The problem is , you expect that from the extreme RW, but the fringe left loves to use it too.

[Donna Zen]

13. From the link about the war:

Every once in while (snark) a question is raised about Clark's opposition to the Iraq War. I think this link is important considering Lyons' standing as a straight up journalist:

Going all the way back to the summer of 2002, I got a sense of how strong his feelings about Iraq were. Long before it was clear that the administration was really going to sell a war on Iraq, when it was just a kind of a Republican talking point, early in the summer of 2002, Wesley Clark was very strongly opposed to it. He thought it was definitely the wrong move. He conveyed that we'd be opening a Pandora's box that we might never get closed again. And he expressed that feeling to me, in a sort of quasi-public way. It was a Fourth of July party and a lot of journalists were there, and there were people listening to a small group of us talk. There wasn't an audience, there were just several people around. There was no criticism I could make that he didn't sort of see me and raise me in poker terms. Probably because he knew a lot more about it than I did. And his experience is vast, and his concerns were deep.

Thanks Tom.

That would be July 4, 2002

[CarolNYC]

15. ahhhh

That's a great excerpt from the interview....Yes, I think everyone should read the full piece at Tom's link...See what good has come of the OP's really kind of lame and transparent attempt to smear our good General? This wonderful piece comes to light again. I'd forgotten about it.

[FrenchieCat]

14. Surprised that is being called crazy? I just expect it, cause that's

all they've got! :rofl:

More presciently, Clark was right about the Russians. When fewer than 200 lightly armed Russian peacekeepers barnstormed from Bosnia to the Pristina airport in Kosovo to upstage the arrival of NATO peacekeepers, Clark was rightly outraged.
snip
Clark asked NATO helicopters and ground troops to seize the airport before the Russians could arrive. But a British general, absurdly saying he feared World War III (in truth the Russians had no cards to play), appealed to London and Washington to delay the order.

The result was a humiliation for NATO, a tonic for the Russian military and an important lesson for the then-obscure head of the Russian national security council, Vladimir Putin. As later Russian press reports showed, Putin knew far more about the Pristina operation than did the Russian defense or foreign ministers. It was no coincidence that a few weeks afterward, Russian bombers buzzed NATO member Iceland for the first time in a decade. A few weeks after that, with Putin as prime minister, Russian troops invaded Chechnya.
http://www.torgo.us/wesley/ungen.htm
http://tinyurl.com/6hgry