From the scrapbook section of the weekly standard. yes, the WS is certainly a conservative publication, but the picture is pretty damning and speaks for itself. http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/134skcnf.asp -- Memo to all the Democratic party presidential candidates who aren't retired Gen. Wesley Clark: On August 27, 1994, representing the Joint Chiefs of Staff during a fact-finding mission to Bosnia, Clark "ignored State Department warnings not to meet with Serb officials suspected of ordering deaths of civilians in a campaign known as ethnic cleansing" and paid a courtesy call on Serbian army commander Ratko Mladic. Mladic was already the subject of multiple U.S. war-crimes charges: "artillery attacks on civilians in Sarajevo" and the "razing of Muslim towns and villages," along with random acts of "mass murder." According to a contemporaneous Washington Post report: "On Friday [August 26, 1994] and again on Saturday, State Department officials said, they instructed [Clark] not to go, but he went anyway." The meeting "occurred as the Clinton administration is trying to isolate the Serbs in advance of possible military action against them." But wait, there's more--there's a "visual," as they say in the 30-second attack-ad business. "What State Department officials said they found especially disturbing was a photograph of Clark and Mladic wearing each other's caps. The picture appeared in several European newspapers, U.S. officials said. Clark accepted as gifts Mladic's hat, a bottle of brandy, and a pistol inscribed in Cyrillic, U.S. officials said. 'It's like cavorting with Hermann Goering,' one U.S. official complained." Herewith, then, Wesley Clark, Democratic candidate for president of the United States, cavorting with "Hermann Goering"--the suspected war criminal Ratko Mladic, who to this day is a fugitive wanted by the U.N. war crimes tribunal and presumed to be hiding somewhere in Serbia.
On August 27, 1994, representing the Joint Chiefs of Staff during a fact-finding mission to Bosnia, Clark "ignored State Department warnings not to meet with Serb officials suspected of ordering deaths of civilians in a campaign known as ethnic cleansing" and paid a courtesy call on Serbian army commander Ratko Mladic. Of course, none of this is true. He was never told not to meet with the guy until after the fact. At the same time, while publicly neutral, the administration and policy makers were very happy he met with both sides as it helped provide more information for policy development. This was before we were really involved and the goal was to better understand the people we were dealing with. Little tiny bits of research is all it takes.
very clever, and of course completely irrelevant. the point of the clark photo is that they met when instructed not to, and that they're obviously horsing around.
actually, i don't have a horse in this race. it was just an interesting article and picture. please feel free to chalk it up to the worldwide neo-con conspiracy if you wish.
That's a pretty darn big smile on ol' Wesley's face. I don't know what is making him in such good spirits, other than the fact that he is in the presence of a war criminal. I also see that they have traded caps! This is treasonous activity! Do we really know that Clark is not still currently helping his friend Ratko Mladic stay on the run as a fugitive? Is he helping to hide his ol' comrad Ratko? We simply don't know. What we do know is that this is a telling insight into the character and integrity of this very devious and sinister man. The bottom line is that this man can not be trusted under any circumstances. If he purposefully and voluntarily disregards State Department warnings, then he is surely unfit to lead. More of Clark's filthy and unscrupulous past EXPOSED
Fisk is part of the worldwide neo-con conspiracy? Glynch is going to be shocked. <a HREF="http://www.diaspora-net.org/food4thought/fisk.htm">'An Atlantic alliance that has brought us to this catastrophe should be wound up'</a> <i>............He did not explain why Mr Milosevic would need to be told such a thing if he knew it. Nor did he recall that he had once accepted from General Ratko Mladic - the Bosnian Serb military leader whose men were destroying the Muslims of Sarajevo - a gift of an engraved pistol. Nor, of course, did General Clark remind us that General Mladic and his colleague Radovan Karadjic remain free in Bosnia - which is under the firm control of NATO troops...................</i>
Interesting that this came out in a Novak column a few days ago. Here's what Novak said... "U.S. diplomats warned Clark not to go to Bosnian Serb military headquarters to meet Mladic, considered by U.S. intelligence as the mastermind of the Srebrenica massacre of Muslim civilians (and still at large, sought by NATO peacekeeping forces). Besides the exchange of hats, they drank wine together, and Mladic gave Clark a bottle of brandy and a pistol. " It was quickly noted that the Srebrenica massacre didn't occur until July 1995 and the meeting is dated in August of 1994. Now this is morphing away from the Srebrenica charge, as illustrated by the Standard article. I would still like some answers, but any charge against Clark has to be put in perspective with the totality of his actions in the area. And I should note that at the time of the meeting, he was the chief political-military officer on the Joint Staff. It would be interesting to learn what his instructions were from the Joint Chiefs. My suspicion is we will have lots of these half-stories as the Bush administration combs through every Federal record related to Clark and mines every 1990's story for a quote that can be spun or an action taken out of context.
don't ignore the "neo-com" slime job either: http://www.counterpunch.org/cohen09172003.html -- September 17, 2003 Don't Be Fooled Again Gen. Wesley Clark: War Criminal By MITCHEL COHEN Gen. Wesley Clark is a major war criminal. Please don't be fooled by the current well-orchestrated push to nominate Clark as Democratic Party nominee for president, at trap which Michael Moore has apparently fallen into as well as a number of other well-meaning peace people. Gen. Wesley Clark was in charge of refugee camps in the 1980s and 1990s where Haitian refugees who were fleeing first Baby Doc Duvalier (and later the new regime installed by the US following the overthrowal of the elected Aristide government in the early 1990s), were packed, under appalling conditions condemned by the Center for Constitutional Rights, among many others. In the 1980s, many Haitian male refugees incarcerated at Krome (in Miami), and Fort Allen (in Puerto Rico) reported a strange condition called gyneacomastia, a situation in which they developed full female breasts. Ira Kurzban, attorney for the Haitian Refugee Center, managed to pry free government documents via a lawsuit on behalf of the refugees. These contained the startling information that prison officials had ordered the refugees sprayed repeatedly with highly toxic chemicals never designed for such generic use. The officer in charge of the refugee camp? None other than Gen. Wesley Clark, chief of operations at the US Navy internment camp at Guantanamo, and later head of NATO forces bombing Yugoslavia. The documents go on to say that lengthy exposure to the particular chemicals can cause hormonal changes that induce development of female breasts. Medical studies of female Haitian refugees in New York revealed that they had a much higher rate of cervical cancer than the rest of the female population. Half a decade later, Gen Welsey Clark was supreme NATO commander in Yugoslavia. He presided over the massive use of depeleted uranium weapons there which poisoned Yugoslavia's water supply and agriculture, leading to an extremely high rate of miscarriages and childhood cancers. Clark was in charge of NATO's "spin" in the Yugoslavia bombardment. Clark called the destruction of a Yugoslav train filled with civilians by a NATO missile "an uncanny accident." He said the same each time that NATO bombed civilian targets, which happened frequently. Paul Watson reported in the San Francisco Chronicle that "NATO bombers scored several direct hits here in Kosovo's capital yesterday - including a graveyard, a bus station, and a children's basketball court." (April 14) A Spanish pilot flying missions for NATO, Capt. Martin de la Hoz, stated that on a number of occasions his supervising colonel protested to NATO about their bombing of non-military, civilian targets. "Once there was a coded order from the North American military that we should drop anti-personnel bombs over Pristina and Nis. All of the missions that we flew, all and each one, were planned in detail, including attacking planes, targets and type of ammunition, by US high-ranking military authorities. ... They are destroying the country," the Spanish F-18 pilot continued, "bombing it with novel weapons, toxic nerve gasses, surface mines dropped by parachute, bombs containing uranium, black napalm, sterilization chemicals, sprayings to poison crops, and weapons of which even we still know nothing about." (quoted in "Articulo 20," a Spanish weekly newspaper, June 14, 1999) Clark defended all of these bombings, and was an integral part of the Clinton team's "spin" operation in Yugoslavia.
This from Charlie Cook's weekly newsletter "Off To The Races" ... _________ "For the White House, it is particularly important that Clark's credibility be impeached as soon as possible. President Bush now has a 40 percent disapproval rating on "handling foreign policy and terrorism." That is without a Democrat with any credibility in national security having thrown a punch. A credible Clark could inflict some very serious damage on this president, particularly after Bush's admission last week that there was no direct connection between the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and Saddam Hussein. That was news to 69 percent of Americans, who told Washington Post pollsters in August they thought a connection was likely. The Bush campaign cannot afford to have a credible Clark throwing fastballs at them for the next 15 months, whether he is the nominee, running mate or sitting on the sidelines. "
more slime? here's general shelton on wesley clark: http://www.losaltosonline.com/articles/2003/09/23/news/community/news01.txt -- "What do you think of General Wesley Clark and would you support him as a presidential candidate," was the question put to him by moderator Dick Henning, assuming that all military men stood in support of each other. General Shelton took a drink of water and Henning said, "I noticed you took a drink on that one!" "That question makes me wish it were vodka," said Shelton. "I've known Wes for a long time. I will tell you the reason he came out of Europe early had to do with integrity and character issues, things that are very near and dear to my heart. I'm not going to say whether I'm a Republican or a Democrat. I'll just say Wes won't get my vote."
And here is another reason to dismiss anything this clown has to say... check out this quote: All of which makes me wonder, too, if this disastrous war isn't going to be the end of NATO. I hope so. As a citizen of a new, modern Europe, I don't want my continent led by the third-rate generals and two-bit under-secretaries who have been ranting on our television screens for the past 50 days. I don't want Europe to be "protected" any longer by the US. If that means the end of the Atlantic alliance, so be it. Because an Atlantic alliance that has brought us to this catastrophe should be wound up. Until it is, Europe will never - ever - take responsibility for itself or for the dictators who threaten our society. Until then, Europe will never lay its own lives on the line for its own people - which is what the Kosovo Albanians need. Until Nato is dead, there will never be a real European defence force. And until Nato is dead, there will be no need to seek the international mandate from the United Nations which "humanitarian action" needs.
hummm... <i>Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under President George W. Bush, he was in charge of all U.S. Armed Forces worldwide and was a chief architect of the ongoing war on terrorism.</i> Yeah I'd say that's a real impartial statement from the general.
