Comments on: Live chat with Wesley Clark

By: Motoko Kusanagi

Motoko Kusanagi — Fri, 09 Jan 2004 09:39:24 +0000

That was why they expelled 100,000 Kosovars over the borber How dishonest can you get? The ethnic cleansing took place after international monitors had been withdrawn and the bombing started. It was an effect of the Nato escalation of the conflict, not a cause. Note that the Albanian Kosovars signed: the Serbians did not. Very dishonest, again. When the bombing started there were two proposals on the table in Rambouillet. The "Rambouillet accord", which was the proposal by Nato and the Alabanian nationalists, and a Serb "Revised Draft Agreement" formulated by the Serb national assembly. The Rambouillet accord was presented to the Serbs as an ultimatum, with an appendix added, in which Nato demanded among other things "free and unrestricted passage and unimpeded access throughout the FRY including associated airspace and territorial waters". The Serbs rejected, the bombing started. And in the later negotiations, which led to the end of the war, Nato abandoned those last minutes appendices from the "Rambouillet accord"! Now tell me, were they really looking for a diplomatic solution? More info, from distinctly more reliable sources than mokoto uses... That´s a silly tactic. "My sources are more reliable than yours!"

By: Tom

Tom — Thu, 08 Jan 2004 22:22:23 +0000

You can also see the wide support the intervention had at the UN here: http://www.iwpr.net/index.pl?archive/bcr/bcr_19990419_2_eng.txt Note the author is the Nation’s UN correspondent.

By: Tom

Tom — Thu, 08 Jan 2004 22:20:59 +0000

“(2) “A big army with proven genocidal tendencies is threatening a mostly unarmed minority. What would you have done?” I don’t know if we should go into all the details of the Rambouillet meetings, but there is quite some evidence to believe that a diplomatic solution was possible. Here’s a good article on the subject from Fair.” That was why they expelled 100,000 Kosovars over the borber (http://www.iwpr.net/index.pl?archive/bcr/bcr_19990402_7_eng.txt, and http://www.iwpr.net/index.pl?archive/bcr/bcr_19990405_1_eng.txt)? ‘Cos Robert Holbrooke gave them a strong talking to during the negotiations? Wise yourself up, for chrissakes. The Serbs planned for the talks to fail, and the expel the Albanian Kosovars. Otherwise, why would they have moved in seven times the number of troops allowed under the October ceasefire during the Rambouillet talks (http://www.iwpr.net/index.pl?archive/bcr/bcr_19990318_2_eng.txt? An alternate account of the talks is given here: http://www.iwpr.net/index.pl?archive/bcr/bcr_19990318_1_eng.txt Note that the Albanian Kosovars signed: the Serbians did not. Sorry, mokoto, but the Kosovo intervention was a humanitarian action. More info, from distinctly more reliable sources than mokoto uses, at http://www.iwpr.net/index.pl?balkans_199903.html.

By: Jim Miller

Jim Miller — Thu, 08 Jan 2004 21:48:51 +0000

Just remember folks, to avoid confusion, don’t write international law, write either “international law” or, even better, international “law”, since the international kind is so far from real law that you will confuse yourself otherwise. A few moments of thought should reveal the differences to you, if you have not considered the question before. Killing large numbers of people is a serious matter; breaking an international “law” is not.

By: Andrew Edwards

Andrew Edwards — Thu, 08 Jan 2004 18:57:59 +0000

You’d be amazed how many people call me ‘Anthony Edwards’. Made worse because I’m tall and white and wear glasses.

By: Kevin K.

Kevin K. — Thu, 08 Jan 2004 18:57:01 +0000

Regarding the salad dressing question controversy, I wrote a clarification on Clark’s site.

By: Keith M Ellis

Keith M Ellis — Thu, 08 Jan 2004 18:12:51 +0000

Yeah, Anthony, but I liked your insights. I’ve thought that perhaps, post-war, a war’s civilian leaders should be selected by lottery for execution in the same ratio as the combatants’ and targeted civilians’ death rate. Or something. I believe war can be necessary, but I find it very irksome that the people who decide such things are seldom personally at risk. Yeah, I’m thinking of you, George “Bring ‘Em On” Bush.

By: praktike

praktike — Thu, 08 Jan 2004 18:11:03 +0000

does anyone really give a sh*t what kind of salad dressing Wes Clark likes?

By: Andrew Edwards

Andrew Edwards — Thu, 08 Jan 2004 17:18:25 +0000

One more round and then I’m out of this discussion: (1) I’m not going to get into a debate about how you mean to use the term, but hopefully you’d agree that it’s thrown around far too nonchalantly, and that any word that applies to both Wes Clark and Pol Pot might be a shade over-broad. (2) No, actually the burden of proof is on the GENOCIDAL DICTATOR. (3) Right. Because Wes Clark is an agent of Sauron. Why on earth would he do that? Actually, don’t answer that question. (4) Sorry. It’s not among your accusations at Clark, though. (5) I’m just trying to think through some broader issues about the purpose and ethics of ‘war crimes’ as an entity. That wasn’t a debating point, and I freely recognize that I could be horribly, horribly wrong.

By: Motoko Kusanagi

Motoko Kusanagi — Thu, 08 Jan 2004 16:45:24 +0000

Andrew, a few points: (1) A war criminal is someone who violates the Geneva Convention and other international laws of war, so that’s a category that may include a lot of people, and some may be worse than others. If Clark violated those laws, using the term seems to the point to me. (2) “A big army with proven genocidal tendencies is threatening a mostly unarmed minority. What would you have done?” I don’t know if we should go into all the details of the Rambouillet meetings, but there is quite some evidence to believe that a diplomatic solution was possible. Here’s a good article on the subject from Fair. Anyway, like I said, the burden of proof here is on the party that goes to war and as far as I’m concerned it has not been met. (3) “The best evidence we have is that when NATO forces did attack those targets, they made an honest and diligent attempt to make sure that as few civilians as possible were killed.” My point is that they didn’t make those honest and diligent attempts, but instead, carelessly or intentionally, killed lots of civilians. See the Mandel article or the AI link above. (4) I argued that both the war and the war strategies were wrong, so to say that I “seem to approve of blowing the hell out of as many teenaged soldiers as possible” is dishonest. (5) I don’t want to be uncivil, but I must say I found your remarks on morally innocent soldiers and guilty rich powerful people bizar. The rules were written to protect non-combattants, which makes sense to me. I’m not really interested in a discussion of the possible guilt of rich (or poor) civilian casualties.

By: Andrew Edwards

Andrew Edwards — Thu, 08 Jan 2004 15:14:26 +0000

Hold on. We’re taking this a step further. I hadn’t thought of it this way before, and I want to follow this path and see where it goes. Not sure I’m right, but let’s see… Attacking soldiers results in the death only of (generally) poor young soldiers. In a world where conscription is quite common, those people are often largely moral innocents. Attacking infrastructure and command and control results in the death of some poor young people but also some rich powerful people. In a world where civilian tyrants are our greatest evil, not all of those people are moral innocents. We have rules that say that killing soldiers is fine, but attacking infrastructure (under certain conditions) is not. Those rules were written by rich powerful rulers. By people who would be hurt if you attack infrastructure, but not hurt if you attack soldiers. Are the rules just tools for the elite to protect themselves? And, especially when we know that so many soldiers are themselves largely moral innocents, is breaking the rules possibly morally preferable to following them? Like I said, I’m not sure I’m right, I just wanted to chase that down. Anyone (esp. other than Motoko) want to help me shake this out?

By: Andrew Edwards

Andrew Edwards — Thu, 08 Jan 2004 14:57:18 +0000

Ummmm, that bullet is supposed to be an asterisk.

By: Andrew Edwards

Andrew Edwards — Thu, 08 Jan 2004 14:56:06 +0000

Motoko: A big army with proven genocidal tendencies is threatening a mostly unarmed minority. What would you have done? Given Milosevic a big hug and hoped for the best? Issued a sternly-worded press release? Many of the ‘civilian targets’ were infrastructural. Infrastructure is obviously also useful to the military, and has traditionally been viewed as a valid military target. The best evidence we have is that when NATO forces did attack those targets, they made an honest and diligent attempt to make sure that as few civilians as possible were killed. That’s not evil. And that’s not the sort of behaviour I associate with a ‘war criminal’. Which is the real point. Prosecution for war crimes and the label ‘war criminal’ have generally, and rightly, been applied mostly to genuinely heinous crimes – the deliberate eradication of mass number of innocent non-combattants.* Even if everything you accuse Clark of is true, and even if all those things were done with malicious intent for no reason other than he’s a cackling mad villain from James Bond, even then he’s nowhere near the class of, say, the Khemer Rouge. Labelling him a war criminal is a deliberate attempt to link a not-so-bad (in my opinion, a good) person to genuinely evil people by giving them a common label. The word for that is a smear. Worse, it cheapens the word ‘war criminal’. When you use the same word for Wes Clark and Pol Pot, you strip yourself of the language to properly describe the attrocity of Pol Pot. Please give it up. * Incidentally, there’s also such thing as an innocent combattant. I’m interested that you seem to approve of blowing the hell out of as many teenaged soldiers as possible, even when knocking out a power grid instead could take the fight to the genuine bad guys who lead the army, rather than the innocent draftees who fight in it. Just because the UN rule book, as written by rich white men 50 years ago, says that’s a better choice.

By: Ophelia Benson

Ophelia Benson — Thu, 08 Jan 2004 14:24:25 +0000

Cure, True enough about populism, but one advantage of election as opposed to appointment is that elected officials are more accountable. There are people who have serious doubts about the unelected Supreme Court and Fed. Sure, I know all that about disguised protectionism. But how does the WTO distinguish between pseudo-environmental laws that are really disguised protectionism, and real environmental laws? That’s the problem, surely – there’s no particular reason to think it does, given that its role is to protect unhindered trade, not to protect the environment, or even to try to reconcile the two. And it has the power. The EPA can’t trump the WTO, but the WTO can trump the EPA. That’s not necessarily automatically always a good thing. ‘As for why the WTO doesn’t promote worker’s rights or environmentalism to the degree that many want, the argument is that the WTO’s purpose is trade liberalization (among other international economic issues). There are other intl. methods for helping workers’ rights and the environment’ Yes I know that, but the point is, the WTO has the final say. The WTO can veto labor law whereas labor law cannot veto the WTO. That’s the problem. You phrase it as if the two are simply equal competitors, and they’re not.

By: motoko kusanagi

motoko kusanagi — Thu, 08 Jan 2004 10:19:19 +0000

Ogged, I said there were two reasons why the Kosovo war was a crime: because it was illegal under international law, and because the way it was conducted violated the Geneva Convention. You addressed only the first reason. You are right that with Russia in the Security Council any resolution to bomb Serbia would have been vetoed. But that in itself doesn’t justify a war. I think the case for the “Humanitarian Intervention” has never been made, and it must be obvious that the burden of proof here is on the attacker. The headlines about mass graves were lies. Before the war claims were made that 200,000 ethnic Albanians were disappeared. After the war the number was 340. The exodus of Albanians from Kosovo took place after the bombing started. It was an effect and not a cause. Illegal or not, the war was, of course, not started by Clark personally. If he’s a war criminal, as I believe, it is mainly because of the strategies used during the war. After the initial attacks on the Serbian army proved unsuccessful, Nato directed its efforts to civilian targets – see for example the Amnesty International Report (sorry, PDF) – hoping that this would frighten and demoralize the population. Calculated use of violence with the intention of installing fear for political reasons – isn’t that more or less the definition of terrorism? It is quite a triumph of propaganda if such bombing can be called “humanitarian”. I still don’t understand how the number of stars on Clark’s uniform tells us about his guilt or innocence. Generals have been known to commit war crimes, just like soldiers. I’m certain that many qualities are needed for a military career, but I’m not convinced morality is one of them.