Or, Why Electing a Mass Murderer Is a Really
Bad Idea
http://www.antiwar.com/malic/m091803.html
ANTIWAR
Thursday,
September 18, 2003
Balkan Express
by
Nebojsa Malic
Antiwar.com
PHOTO: KLA leader Hashim Taqi, Viceroy Bernard Kouchner,
General Sir
Michael Jackson, KLA commander Agim Ceku, and General Wesley
Clark
celebrate the victory of their joint enterprise; Pristina, 1999,
credit unknown
It is normally not within the bounds of this column to offer
commentary on internal
American issues, with the notable exception of
consistent advocating of
non-intervention in foreign quarrels and stepping
back from the assumed
role of World Empire. Such policies, harmful as they
are to
the very fabric of American society, nonetheless do far more damage
in
target countries, where any "help" that is proffered soon proves to be
but
another form of grievous injury.
Many a harsh word has been expended here upbraiding the
misguided and
malicious politicians of the Balkans for a veritable train of
abuses
against the lives, liberty and property of their own people and
others. In the
process, similar harshness has been employed against the
agents of
Empire, who have set to remake the fractious and complex peninsular
tapestry by
brute force and power of prejudice. Now one such agent seeks to
apply
his Balkans experiences at home, here in the United States, seeking
the
office of President ? but in truth, coveting the laurels of
Emperor.
Candidate Number Ten
Wesley
Clark, former US Army general and Supreme NATO Commander in
Europe, announced
Wednesday that he will run for President of the United States
in 2004 as a
Democrat, joining nine other Democratic candidates vying for
the opportunity
to challenge George W. Bush.
Incongruously, Clark supporters and mainstream media seem to
purport
that he is running on an "antiwar" ticket. Only a few, including the
Christian
Science Monitor, believe that Clark could outflank Bush in
his
belligerence.
It's as if everyone has forgotten Wesley Clark was the Bomber
of
Belgrade, the highest-ranking military official in a cabal that
systematically
violated international law, the NATO Charter (and with it the
US
Constitution, Article 6, Section 2) and committed the greatest
crime
under the Nuremburg principles: that against peace.
Even Michael Moore, the gut-punch filmmaker who challenged the
NATO
attack (after a fashion) in his Oscar-winning feature "Bowling for
Columbine,"
recently gushed over Clark. What has possessed all these people
to
believe that the answer to George W. Bush's policy of Global Balkanization
lies
in a man whose hands are drenched in Balkans blood?
War Criminal
Clark's BBC profile
notes the general's words at the beginning of NATO's
1999 aerial aggression:
"We're going to systematically and progressively attack,
disrupt,
degrade, devastate and ultimately, unless President Milosevic
complies with the
demands of the international community, we're going to
destroy his
forces and their facilities and support," he said.
Systematically, he said. Destroy, he said. Facilities and
support, he
said. The bombing was indeed systematic ? bridges, schools,
hospitals,
passenger trains, buses, refugee columns, marketplaces, anything
that could be hit
except the Yugoslav military, which
successfully camouflaged its systems
and avoided most attacks. Apparently,
for Clark and his coterie, the
"facilities and support" of the Yugoslav
military were the people and infrastructure
of Serbia itself, from the roads
and bridges to the power grid and TV
networks.
One of the Nuremberg prosecutors warned in vain that war crimes
laws
applied to Americans also. Comfortable in their knowledge that no court
in the
world would ever touch them ? proven later on by their ICTY pawns'
abject
refusal to even consider an investigation ? Clark and Co. committed
war crimes
freely and often.
Unlike Slobodan Milosevic, who was accused of "command
responsibility"
for alleged genocide and crimes against humanity in the
Balkan Wars without
a shred of reliable evidence, there is plenty of proof in
Clark's case.
That is, if there were an honest war crimes court in the
world.
Starting World War III
Despite
the barrage of propaganda, and a tailor-made "indictment" of
Milosevic by
NATO allies at the Hague Inquisition, the campaign of
terror was failing.
Only the intercession of a Russian government envoy and the
"neutral" Finn Martti Ahtisaari (later amply rewarded by
NATO
supporters) convinced the Serbian authorities to make a truce with their
attackers.
No one knows whether Chernomyrdin or Ahtisaari knew that the
Alliance had
no intention of honoring the agreement, or the UN resolution
that codified
it. Russia tried to ensure NATO lived up
to the bargain by sending troops to
Kosovo. When the
invading British troops encountered the Russians at the
Pristina airport, Clark hysterically ordered British commander
General
Sir Michael Jackson to dislodge them by force. Jackson refused,
reportedly
saying, "I'm not going to start the Third World War for
you."
Events have vindicated Jackson's judgment; earlier this year,
Russians
completely withdrew from Kosovo, having failed to do anything
but
legitimize the illegitimate occupation of the province. For NATO's ? and
Clark's ?
"humanitarian intervention" in Kosovo has only ever been a
crudely
manufactured lie based on most despicable deception.
What Victorious Soldier?
BBC's
profile of Clark's candidacy also claims that his "credentials
for
running against President George Bush in 2004 rest
squarely on his
military reputation." If so, that is great news, for Clark
hardly has any.
There is little respect for Clark among his colleagues in the
military.
An investigative report by CounterPunch magazine in 1999 reveals a
man of
gargantuan vanity, arrogant to subordinates and subservient
to
superiors, obsessed with micro-management, and politically savvy at the
expense of
military expertise.
One officer who served with Clark termed him "The poster child
for
everything that is wrong with the [general officer] corps," and
said
that under Clark's command, the 1st [Armored] Cavalry Division at Fort
Hood
was "easily the worst division I have ever seen in 25 years of doing
this
stuff."
One of America's most decorated soldiers, Col. David H.
Hackworth
(Ret.), speaks of Clark thus:
"Known by those who've served with him as the 'Ultimate
Perfumed
Prince,' he's far more comfortable in a drawing room discussing
political
theories than hunkering down in the trenches where bullets fly and
soldiers die."
Wesley Clark boasts about "Waging Modern War," but he is hardly
a
Maximus Decimus Meridius. One would be tempted to compare him to
Lucius
Cornelius Sulla, but for the Roman tyrant's record of actual military
competence.
Some might protest that Clark was, after all, knighted by the
British
for his "boundless energy" in the terror-bombing of Yugoslavia;
awarded the
French Legion d'Honneur;and the U.S. Presidential Medal of
Freedom. That
these governments profaned their highest
decorations in support of their
criminal endeavor speaks
more about their (dis)honor than about Clarks'
alleged
"accomplishments."
Was He at Waco?
It has long been
known that US Army tanks took part in the tragic and
lethal 1993 storming of
a religious commune in Waco, Texas. But was one of the
officers involved
Wesley Clark? Records indicate his second-in-command
advised federal
officials in preparation for the assault. One official
Congressional report
mentions the involvement of two high-ranking
officers. In the spring of 1999,
Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair of
CounterPunch speculated the
mystery officer may have been no other than
Clark:
"Certainly the Waco onslaught bears characteristics typical of
Gen.
Wesley Clark: the eagerness to take out the leader (viz., the
Clark-ordered
bombing of Milosevich's private residence); the utter disregard
for the lives of
innocent men, women and children; the
arrogant miscalculations about the
effects of force;
disregard for law, whether of the Posse Comitatus Act
governing military
actions within the United States or, abroad, the
purview of the Nuremberg
laws on war crimes and attacks on civilians."
(CounterPunch)
Soon thereafter, they unearthed the names of the two officers,
and it
turned out Clark was not involved. So, Clark's defenders can say with
pride
that their champion did not rain death and destruction at
demonized
Americans, but only demonized foreigners. Let voters' conscience be
the judge of
such an ethical distinction.
Blood Sacrifices
It is one thing
to worship the fallen and false god of democracy by
pretending elections
actually mean something. But is the American public
ready to take the next step, and start endorsing blood
sacrifices?
Wesley Clark has sacrificed many lives at the altar of power, and
he will do so again.
By now it is obvious that a vote for Bush/Cheney will be a vote
for
Empire. It should be equally obvious that a vote for Clark would have the
same
effect. The very fact that Clark walks free, that he is proud of what
he
has done, that he is running for President, is proof of the ethical
abyss
which seems to have engulfed the world.
Clark's methods of "waging war" ? approved by his superiors at
the time,
be it noted ? hardly differ from those espoused by Osama Bin
Laden:
cowardly attack civilians with missiles and bombs, hoping their spirit
breaks and
they capitulate to your demands. Yet this man
would be President.
Surely, Americans know better