[news] General Wesley Clark

[Miroslav Antic]

 

From www.MichNews.com Guest Commentary General Wesley Clark By William Fielder Sep 15, 2003, 00:10 On the Fox News Hannity & Colmes Show of August 21st, General Wesley Clark said the President Bush removed Saddam Hussein "under false pretenses". The General should know something about false pretenses, as he was the NATO military commander in 1999, during the military intervention in Kosovo. This operation, during our recent co-presidency, was designed to save Muslim Kosovo from a rabid Serbian leader. It was hyped by a media campaign that charged "ethnic cleansing", but found little evidence of mass murder (unlike the killing fields of Iraq). The propaganda campaign included faked photos supposedly taken of starving concentration camp inmates (in contrast to Saddam's torture pens). However, the conflict did produce a mass of refugees, and Clark deserves credit for handling this problem. Clark also said on August 21st that he had told the Clintons' Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, that "more damage is being done in Yugoslavia, than Iraq". Yet, on December 16th, 1998, Gore had said..."If you allow someone like Saddam Hussein to get nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, chemical weapons, how many people is he going to kill with such weapons?...He used poison gas and other weapons of mass destruction against his neighbors. This man has no compunction about killing lots and lots of people". Yet, Clark found the situation in Yugoslavia a greater threat than Iraq.   As noted, Milosevic had no weapons of mass destruction, and didn't threaten to use those weapons to control the world's greatest oil resources--and therefore affect millions of jobs and the economies of the civilized world. He didn't attempt to assassinate a former US president, or pay bounties to the families of suicide bombers. He didn't train terrorists, nor provide a safe haven for them. Saddam Hussein did all of the above, but apparently Wes Clark never noticed--he considered poor little Serbia a bigger threat than Iraq. So, under Clark's astute leadership, we bombed: a hospital for the mentally ill; a passenger train; a convoy of tractors and carts loaded with refugees--and Bill Clinton's "strategic partners" at the Chinese Embassy. We also lost an F-117 stealth fighter under mysterious circumstances (some of the parts for which have probably long since been delivered to Clinton's strategic partners); and, we could not fly our Apache helicopters due to inadequate crew training. But we succeeded in helping the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), an Islamic military force financed by drug money and allied with Osama bin Laden. These same forces are now poised to launch an invasion of Albania.  And regarding refugees, It has gone without notice that our action in Iraq, unlike Kosovo, produced few. This is due to careful planning under the leadership of a serious and less flamboyant commander, and the efficiency of our bombing-- which left civilian neighborhoods, hospitals, passenger trains, and the Chinese Embassy intact. Iraqis have also chosen to remain in "occupied" Iraq.   Clark deserves praise for his service and personal valor in the chaotic and disastrously mismanaged Vietnam War. However, while commanding our forces in Panama in 1996-1997, he failed to alert the country and the congress to the implications of the US leaving the strategic waterway unprotected, with Panama mostly defenseless and a narco-financed Marxist insurgency active in neighboring Colombia. The Chinese communists quickly filled the strategic void, and now control key services in Panama, creating a national security dilemma which is still unaddressed. Regardless, Clark's candidacy is probably a Clintonian move to give military and national security "cover" to Hillary, or Howard Dean--who discussed the vice-presidency with Clark in a September 6th/7th meeting, according to the Washington Post. By putting Clark on the ballot Democrats can claim they are for a strong America. One national magazine that normally tilts left is all ready on the bandwagon, declaring Clark's..."military and national security credentials can't be questioned". Oh, really?     ---------- Fielder is a retired army officer with 40-years experience in U.S. intelligence. Email comments to Mr. Fielder at <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> © Copyright 2003 MichNews.com

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