(On Wesley Clark's crimes against peace see the many articles and links
collected in our archive:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-mailinglist/messages )
---
http://www.aim.org/publications/weekly_column/2003/09/17.html
Wesley Clark's Ties To Muslim Terrorists
By Cliff Kincaid
September 17, 2003
The retired General who had been refusing to declare himself a Democrat
or Republican is now declaring himself a Democratic presidential
candidate. But more important than his party affiliation is Wesley
Clark’s bizarre view on how to fight terrorism. The media refer to
Clark’s impressive military credentials but they fail to note that his
main accomplishment under President Clinton was presiding over the
establishment of a base for radical Islamic terrorism, including Osama
bin Laden, in Kosovo.
Clark, who has been making headlines by claiming that the U.S. decision
to go to war in Iraq was a misjudgment based on scanty evidence, ran
Clinton’s NATO war against Yugoslavia on behalf of the Kosovo
Liberation Army (KLA). The House of Representatives failed to authorize
the war under the War Powers Act, making it illegal. Thousands of
innocent people in Serbia, Yugoslavia’s main province, were killed to
stop an alleged "genocide" by Yugoslavia that was not in fact taking
place. Investigations determined that a couple thousand had died in the
civil war there.
Kosovo was a province of Yugoslavia and the military intervention of
the U.S. and NATO, a defensive alliance, was unprecedented. It was far
more controversial than the policy of regime change in Iraq, which was
a policy of Clinton, Bush and the Congress. Kosovo was never a threat
to the U.S., and Yugoslavian President Slobodan Milosevic didn’t even
pretend to have weapons of mass destruction.
Clark wrote a Time magazine column, "How to Fight the New War," in
which he said we need new tactics and strategies against terrorists. He
also said, "We need face-to-face information collection: Who are these
people, what are their intentions, and what can be done to disrupt
their plans and arrest them?"
For the answer, Clark should ask his old friend, Hashim Thaki, the
commander of the KLA. The 1998 State Department human rights report had
described the KLA as a group that tortured and abducted people and made
others "disappear." Yet a photograph was taken of Clark and Thaki with
their hands together in a gesture of solidarity.
The KLA’s ties to Osama bin Laden were also well-known and reported.
An article in the Jerusalem Post at the time of the Kosovo civil war
had said, "Diplomats in the region say Bosnia was the first bastion of
Islamic power. The autonomous Yugoslav region of Kosovo promises to be
the second. During the current rebellion against the Yugoslav army, the
ethnic Albanians in the province, most of whom are Moslem, have been
provided with financial and military support from Islamic countries.
They are being bolstered by hundreds of Iranian fighters, or
Mujahadeen, who infiltrate from nearby Albania and call themselves the
Kosovo Liberation Army. U.S. defense officials say the support includes
that of Osama bin Laden, the Saudi terrorist accused of masterminding
the bombings of the U.S. embassies" in Africa.
Another Democratic presidential candidate, Rep. Dennis Kucinich, has
tried to prohibit funding for the Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC), the
successor to the KLA now being protected by U.N. troops as a result of
the outcome of the conflict. Kucinich said an internal United Nations
Report found the KPC responsible for violence, extortion, murder and
torture.
After the war, Milosevic was ousted and put on trial, where he has been
making the case in his own defense that Serb troops in Kosovo were
fighting Muslim terrorists associated with bin Laden. At a hearing
before the U.N. court trying him, he brandished an FBI document
concerning al Qaeda-backed Muslim fighters in Kosovo.
The FBI document was a congressional statement by J. T. Caruso, the
Acting Assistant Director of the CounterTerrorism Division of the FBI,
who cited a terrorism problem in Albania, the base for the Muslim
terrorists that attacked Serbia forces in Kosovo.
Clark’s presidential decision suggests that he believes the media will
not ask him about supporting the same extremist Muslim forces in Kosovo
that militarily attacked us on 9/11. He’s right: during interviews on
ABC’s Good Morning America and the NBC Today show on September 17, the
subject didn’t come up. Clark did say that he would not have gone to
war with Iraq, and that he would have turned the matter over to the
U.N. There was no "imminent threat" from Iraq, he claimed.
So where was the "imminent threat" to the U.S. from Yugoslavia? And why
did the Clinton administration bypass the U.N. on that illegal war?
Clark is counting on not hearing those questions from the same media
going after Bush on Iraq. They are all worse than hypocrites.
Cliff Kincaid is the Editor of the AIM Report and can be reached at
aimeditor@....
collected in our archive:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-mailinglist/messages )
---
http://www.aim.org/publications/weekly_column/2003/09/17.html
Wesley Clark's Ties To Muslim Terrorists
By Cliff Kincaid
September 17, 2003
The retired General who had been refusing to declare himself a Democrat
or Republican is now declaring himself a Democratic presidential
candidate. But more important than his party affiliation is Wesley
Clark’s bizarre view on how to fight terrorism. The media refer to
Clark’s impressive military credentials but they fail to note that his
main accomplishment under President Clinton was presiding over the
establishment of a base for radical Islamic terrorism, including Osama
bin Laden, in Kosovo.
Clark, who has been making headlines by claiming that the U.S. decision
to go to war in Iraq was a misjudgment based on scanty evidence, ran
Clinton’s NATO war against Yugoslavia on behalf of the Kosovo
Liberation Army (KLA). The House of Representatives failed to authorize
the war under the War Powers Act, making it illegal. Thousands of
innocent people in Serbia, Yugoslavia’s main province, were killed to
stop an alleged "genocide" by Yugoslavia that was not in fact taking
place. Investigations determined that a couple thousand had died in the
civil war there.
Kosovo was a province of Yugoslavia and the military intervention of
the U.S. and NATO, a defensive alliance, was unprecedented. It was far
more controversial than the policy of regime change in Iraq, which was
a policy of Clinton, Bush and the Congress. Kosovo was never a threat
to the U.S., and Yugoslavian President Slobodan Milosevic didn’t even
pretend to have weapons of mass destruction.
Clark wrote a Time magazine column, "How to Fight the New War," in
which he said we need new tactics and strategies against terrorists. He
also said, "We need face-to-face information collection: Who are these
people, what are their intentions, and what can be done to disrupt
their plans and arrest them?"
For the answer, Clark should ask his old friend, Hashim Thaki, the
commander of the KLA. The 1998 State Department human rights report had
described the KLA as a group that tortured and abducted people and made
others "disappear." Yet a photograph was taken of Clark and Thaki with
their hands together in a gesture of solidarity.
The KLA’s ties to Osama bin Laden were also well-known and reported.
An article in the Jerusalem Post at the time of the Kosovo civil war
had said, "Diplomats in the region say Bosnia was the first bastion of
Islamic power. The autonomous Yugoslav region of Kosovo promises to be
the second. During the current rebellion against the Yugoslav army, the
ethnic Albanians in the province, most of whom are Moslem, have been
provided with financial and military support from Islamic countries.
They are being bolstered by hundreds of Iranian fighters, or
Mujahadeen, who infiltrate from nearby Albania and call themselves the
Kosovo Liberation Army. U.S. defense officials say the support includes
that of Osama bin Laden, the Saudi terrorist accused of masterminding
the bombings of the U.S. embassies" in Africa.
Another Democratic presidential candidate, Rep. Dennis Kucinich, has
tried to prohibit funding for the Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC), the
successor to the KLA now being protected by U.N. troops as a result of
the outcome of the conflict. Kucinich said an internal United Nations
Report found the KPC responsible for violence, extortion, murder and
torture.
After the war, Milosevic was ousted and put on trial, where he has been
making the case in his own defense that Serb troops in Kosovo were
fighting Muslim terrorists associated with bin Laden. At a hearing
before the U.N. court trying him, he brandished an FBI document
concerning al Qaeda-backed Muslim fighters in Kosovo.
The FBI document was a congressional statement by J. T. Caruso, the
Acting Assistant Director of the CounterTerrorism Division of the FBI,
who cited a terrorism problem in Albania, the base for the Muslim
terrorists that attacked Serbia forces in Kosovo.
Clark’s presidential decision suggests that he believes the media will
not ask him about supporting the same extremist Muslim forces in Kosovo
that militarily attacked us on 9/11. He’s right: during interviews on
ABC’s Good Morning America and the NBC Today show on September 17, the
subject didn’t come up. Clark did say that he would not have gone to
war with Iraq, and that he would have turned the matter over to the
U.N. There was no "imminent threat" from Iraq, he claimed.
So where was the "imminent threat" to the U.S. from Yugoslavia? And why
did the Clinton administration bypass the U.N. on that illegal war?
Clark is counting on not hearing those questions from the same media
going after Bush on Iraq. They are all worse than hypocrites.
Cliff Kincaid is the Editor of the AIM Report and can be reached at
aimeditor@....