In Defense of Clark
blogs.salon.com
Now that General (Ret.) Wesley Clark has announced his candidacy as a democratic contender for the title of president, conservatives have come out swinging. Many of these blows have been leveled below the belt, with a powerful amount of spin.
Allegation #1: Clark nearly started WWIII while serving as NATO commander in Kosovo.
This allegation is based on an account Clark writes about in Waging Modern War. Russian president Boris Yeltsin sent 200 Russian troops unannounced to the Pristina airport during the Kosovo conflict, intending to send thousands more. This move was met with critical response from NATO allies and the Russian press. Secretary William Cohen was quoted as saying it put the entire NATO operation at risk.
According to Associated Press reports, in a congressional hearing on July 1, 1999, Senator Olympia Snowe (R) from Maine asked General Clark why the NATO forces had been caught off guard by the Russians at Pristina, to which Clark replied ``We weren't caught off guard,'' Clark said. NATO had a plan to get to the airport first, he disclosed. ``We were prepared to respond, but decisions were made at levels above mine not to.''
When Clark learned that the Russians were en route to the Pristina airport, he claims to have phoned NATO Secretary General Javier Solana, who told him he must beat the Russians to the airport. The Pristina Airport was to be a strategic location for NATO operations (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/671495.stm). When Clark gave the command to British Lt. General Sir Michael Jackson to send in a contingent of paratroopers and occupy the airport, Jackson responded "I'm not going to start World War III for you." The plan was dropped and the Russians grabbed the Pristina airport unopposed. The Washington Post reported on June 25, 1999, that the British even provided the 200 Russian troops with food because they did not fear such a small force and couldn't understand Clark's concern.
According to the BBC report, produced after the incident, a senior Russian officer detailed how Russia had planned to send in thousands of troops to carve out its own sector of Kosovo independent of NATO control. Clearly that could have been a disaster and justifies Clark's rationale.
Anticipating that the Russians would send aircraft, Clark ordered tanks to occupy the Pristina runways and prevent the Russians from landing, which Clark claims was on orders from the Pentagon. The British again opposed him, and Jackson's superior told Clark that Clark's US superiors disavowed the plan. Clark says he was surprised to hear that but when he contacted the officials back at the Pentagon they told him to drop the plan. Instead, he contacted Hungary and other US allies in the region and requested them to deny the Russians the right to use their airspace. The allies complied, and the Russians' plan to carve out a non-NATO sector for themselves in Kosovo was thwarted.
Would Clark's plan to block the airways at Pristina have led to "WWIII"? Only if Yeltsin was incompetent. The tides had already turned for Milosevic, and clearly the US/NATO forces made far more valuable to Russia than Serbia.
Perhaps it should be noted that Lt. General Michael Jackson has his own skeletons. In 1972, he was one of three British commanders present when troops opened fire on Irish protestors, killing 13. Blair convened a new tribunal on "Bloody Sunday" in 1998, and the investigation is ongoing. Recently discovered documents written by Jackson are being examined to see whether they constitute a coverup. Perhaps General Jackson's involvement in this disastrous event impacted his perception of the Russian situation, filling him with undue concern that the situation at Pristina could quickly escalate, mirroring the havoc of 'Bloody Sunday.' It is difficult to rationalize why he would have imagined Yeltsin would start WWIII over what was later referred to by NATO, the US, and Russia as a minor issue.
One further comment for critics to consider. If the French had sent 200 troops unannounced to Baghdad Airport with plans to send thousands more during the middle of the Iraq War, what would have been the right thing for Franks to do about it?
Allegation #2: Clark was fired.
It appears true that Clark did not mesh well with the brass over at the Pentagon, particularly Defense Secretary Cohen. The New York Times addresses this today, quoting a book by David Halberstam. Halberstam alleges that the Joint Chiefs of Staff told Clinton they needed to find a position for Joe Ralston, an Air Force general and close associate to Cohen, who had been denied an earlier promotion to the Joint Chiefs for committing adultery. According to the article, these members falsely told Clinton that Clark's NATO assignment was already up and promoted Ralston as a replacement. Halberstam says "Clinton signed on, apparently not realizing that he had been snookered." Thus, Clark was 'retired' prior to the end of his stint as NATO commander.
Clark wrote in his own account of the incident that Clinton later told him he had "nothing to do with it." Given the recent comments Clinton has made about Clark and that he subsequently awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom--the highest civilian honor--it seems unlikely Clinton held Clark in poor regard.
Clark's difficulties with the Joint Chiefs and senior Pentagon officials are well-known. The Washington Post discusses them in a September 17 article. Ret. General Barry McCaffrey attributes the tension to the fact that Clark “...was way too bright, way too articulate, way too good looking and perceived to be way too wired to fit in with our culture. He was not one of the good ol’ boys.” Yet McCaffrey has high praise for Clark, stating "He is probably among the top five most talented I’ve met in my life. I think he is a national treasure who has a lot to offer the country.”
In the same article, Army Colonel Douglas MacGregor says “There is this aspect of his character — he is loyal to people he knows are capable and competent.” “As for his peers, it’s a function of jealousy and envy, and it’s a case of misunderstanding. General Clark is an intense person, he’s passionate, and certainly the military is suspicious of people who are intense and passionate. He is a complex man who does not lend himself to simplistic formulations. But he is very competent, and devoted to the country.” It is telling to note that Clark's naysayers in this article remained anonymous.
Allegation #3: Clark lied about the White House calling him on 9/11.
Spinsanity does a great job of debunking this claim, made repeatedly by conservative commentators and supposedly objective reporters alike. Clark was explaining to Tim Russert on Meet the Press that some tried to make a connection between 9/11 and Hussein before the fires had even been extinguished. The red words in brackets have been added to illustrate where clarity could have been improved in the remarks:
GEN. CLARK: I think it was an effort to convince the American people to do something, and I think there was an immediate determination right after 9/11 that Saddam Hussein was one of the keys to winning the war on terror. Whether it was the need just to strike out or whether he was a linchpin in this, there was a concerted effort during the fall of 2001 starting immediately after 9/11 to pin 9/11 and the terrorism problem on Saddam Hussein.
MR. RUSSERT: By who? [sic] Who did that? [Who tried to link 9/11 and Hussein?]
GEN. CLARK: Well, it came from the White House, it came from people around the White House. It came from all over. I [even] got a call [from someone] on 9/11. I was on CNN, and I got a call at my home saying, "You got to say this is connected. This is state-sponsored terrorism. This has to be connected to Saddam Hussein." I said, "But--I'm willing to say it but what's your evidence?" And I never got any evidence. And these [people who called] were people who had--Middle East think tanks and people like this and it was a lot of pressure to connect this and there were a lot of assumptions made. But I never personally saw the evidence and didn't talk to anybody who had the evidence to make that connection.
The Spinsanity website points out what can easily be ascertained--nowhere does Clark allege that the White House made the phone call. After Paul Krugman wrote a July 15 editorial in the New York Times on this issue, Clark dispatched a letter July 17 to clarify the matter. The Times did not publish his letter until the end of August. Meanwhile, as the media did with Gore, they carped on this issue until it has now become accepted by the public as fact.
Allegation #4: Clark was convicted of war crimes.
This is true. Clark, along with former President Clinton, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Secretary of Defense William Cohen, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, French President Jacques Chirac, and former NATO Secretary General Javier Solana were convicted in absentia in a Belgrade court for war crimes, including the deaths of 546 Yugoslavian soldiers, 504 civilians and 138 Serb policemen and sentenced to twenty years. Warrants have been issued for their arrest should they ever set foot in Belgrade. Milosevic's regime arranged the trial in its last days; the new Yugoslavian government says the verdict is an embarrassment.
This is why the Bush administration and congress strongly oppose making US servicemen, military leaders and civilian leaders subject to international criminal courts. They fear these courts could be used as a political tool instead of a legitimate arbiter of justice. Although the UN has established checks and balances to prevent this, the US is unwilling to take its chances, perhaps because Bush could end up among the indicted.
Allegation #5: Clark was responsible for burning down the Branch Davidian Compound at Waco.
An organization called Counterpunch levies that charge here. By their own admission they have unearthed no evidence. They claim that Clark was commanding the Cavalry Division of the III Corps in Ft. Hood at the time and that Governor Ann Richards met with Clark's assistant commander, who subsequently met with the National Guard.
They quote the government's investigation into the matter regarding two "senior officers" who traveled to DC and met with the Justice Department and the FBI. These men are not named in the report and Counterpunch says they could not unearth their identities, but they arbitrarily assume that one of the men was Clark.
They make this assumption based on the dubious claim that the Waco onslaught, which utilized Division III tanks, resembles Clark's attacks on Milosevic in Kosovo coupled with a quote from one of the officers, who told Reno that if this were a foreign military operation, the focus would be to take out the leader.
Regardless of the fact that the report found no wrongdoing by the US and concluded that the Branch Davidians were responsible for the fire, it is laughable to pin this on Clark merely because an unidentified military officer advocated taking out the leader first. Breaking the chain of command is typical military policy, as witnessed when the US bombed Gaddafhi's palace in Libya under Reagan and during the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, when bombs were dropped anywhere Omar, bin Laden or Hussein were believed to be hiding. |
