Posted on 09/18/2003 7:42:55 AM PDT by JohnGalt
Wesley Clark’s Ties To Muslim Terrorists
By Cliff Kincaid
CLICK HERE Toogood Reports [Thursday, September 18, 2003; 12:01 a.m. EST]
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. US defense officials say the support includes that of Osama Bin Laden, the Saudi terrorist accused of masterminding the bombings of the US 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.
That remark to John Galt was rude of you, dear.
Neither of which would have happened if not for the Communist infiltration of the Roosevelt administration.
We got Eisenhower, Japan got MacArthur.
Yes- we can. And the Dems are disgusting hypocrites who don't believe a word they say. But this war in Iraq is just as wrong (though not as cynical).
If Gore and any other Democrat were in the White House on 9/11 we would be reading about our troops getting attacked in Tehran and Damascas by now (or maybe not- as a Democrat president, post 9/11, would have been able to get press censorship like in WWII.)
Was it the Serbs who were trying to take land? No! It was the KLA who was trying to take Kosovo away from Serbia. Does preventing a foreign invasion force from taking your land amount to land grab?
My view is consistent- where people are being slaughtered, as in Bosnia and Kosovo, where we have the power to stop it, we should.
And ~2000 dead rebels qualifies as a slaughter? Maybe Nato should bomb Russia for fighting the Chechen rebels? Or how about bombing USA for fighting the Taliban? It's the same thing.
By the way, the Albanians have troops on the ground in Iraq, alongside the Americans. Where are the Serbs? Exactly
That shows how much you know. Serbia has already offered troops for Iraq.
Don't let your blind hatred/racism towards all Muslims change history.
Muslims are not a race. Disagreeing with muslim extremists does not equal racism.
Face it, your hero Clark is an opportunist who just does whatever is popular. He would make about as good a president as Clinton.
And another thing, if they are not muslim extremists, then why did they destroy at least 110 Christian monasteries/churches (some of which were as old as 800 years) since 1999? I don't think they are "moderate muslims". They just claim that because being a hardcore muslim is not popular after 9/11, but their actions in Kosovo seem to suggest otherwise.
Here are some really interesting articles about Kosovo from various newspapers from the 1980's. They show what was going on in the 1980's.
I agree with you that FDR's action helped bring it on. The idea of unconditional surrender ensured that we would have to not just militarily defeat our enemies but totally defeat them including invade, subjugating, occupying, rebuilding and therfore defending those territories. Also as you say seeing Stalin as a man who could be dealt with and even a friend was insane. However when I look back and think through what was an actual, real threat to our security and what was not, and I look at the cumlitive costs I have to disagree with you that we had to act as we did.
> But during the 40 years of Cold War a breed of "conservative" developed that loves FDR, glorifies war and associates love of a standing huge military and military "victories" with being a "conservative". They also don't mind a huge central government
That was one of my points in opposing the cold war and though only a philosophical one it is the most important out of all of them as it effectively finished off the opponents to the liberal/socialist/globalist agenda. The real opposition was reduced to a small handful of libertarians and even smaller amount of conservatives. The globalist mindset is now religious dogma to the right, an article of the faith. As long as that is the case there is no hope of restoring constitutional government or reducing our security risks.
The KLA is a thug group that should, and over time, will be disbanded... They served a purpose before becoming a rogue entity, now they're creating more destruction for their own people...
However, the fact that they are drug traffickers isn't really relevant here is it? The U.S. didn't go into Kosovo to help prop up the KLA, rather, they wanted to stop Milosevic's war machine. Neither I nor anyone else here would say a good thing about the KLA...
That shows how much you know. Serbia has already offered troops for Iraq.
Look at the source. Destro finds a looney article from some Space.com site... The Serbs do not support the Iraq effort one bit.
Don't let your blind hatred/racism towards all Muslims change history. Muslims are not a race. Disagreeing with muslim extremists does not equal racism.
Do yourself a favor, and look at a dictionary. Religion is classified as a race
Face it, your hero Clark is an opportunist who just does whatever is popular. He would make about as good a president as Clinton.
I hate this scumbag more than anyone else. I despise nearly everything Klinton/Gore have ever said or done... This is the one venture I can point to that I thought was worthwhile. He may have done it to save his own a$$, but regardless, it doesn't make it any less worthwhile.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.