Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Frattanto, nei Balcani II

Wesley Clark, il comandante NATO durante la guerra in Kossovo, sta
cercando di prendere la nomination Democratica per la presidenza USA
come candidato
"contro la guerra".  
La GRANDE trasmissione "democracy now" non si e' dimenticata del suo
ruolo in una guerra che, in molti versi, e' stata la prova generale
per la guerra in Iraq (iniziata grazie all'imbroglio, e risultata in
una
catastrofe umanitaria).
In questa intervista, Clark e' costretto ad ammettere che
a)  Obiettivi civili Yugoslavi sono stati deliberatamente bombardati
b)  Il paese "liberato" del Kossovo (che lui usa nelle sue
pubblicita')
    e' stato soggetto, dopo la "liberazione", a una pulizia etnica
    da fare invidia a Milosevic
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/01/26/1632224#transcript
Gen. Wesley Clark, being questioned by Democracy Now! correspondent
Jeremy Scahill.
TRANSCRIPT: 
JEREMY SCAHILL: General Clark, on that issue of the bombing of Radio
Television Serbia, Amnesty International called it a war crime.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Excuse me -- I'm not -- 
JEREMY SCAHILL: Amnesty called it a war crime and it's condemned by
all journalist organizations in the world. It killed makeup artists.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I want to answer this fellow. Because the truth
was that that -- first of all, we gave warnings to Milosevic that that
was going to be struck. I personally called the CNN reporter and had
it set up so that it would be leaked, and Milosevic knew. He had the
warning because after he got the warning, he actually ordered the
western journalists to report there as a way of showing us his power,
and we had done it deliberately to sort of get him accustomed to the
fact that he better start evacuating it. There were actually six
people who were killed, as I recall.
JEREMY SCAHILL: There were 16. 
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I recall six. 
JEREMY SCAHILL: I was there at the time and I knew the families. They
do hold Milosevic accountable and they also hold you accountable, sir.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: They were ordered to stay there. 
JEREMY SCAHILL: And they were makeup artists, and they were engineers,
and they were technicians
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I remember reading the story, but I want to tell
you about it.
JEREMY SCAHILL: Amnesty International said you committed a war crime
by bombing that.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: It was all looked at by the International
Criminal Tribunal crime by Yugoslavia. All of my actions were examined
and they were all upheld by the highest law in the United States.
JEREMY SCAHILL: And you think a media outlet is a legitimate target? 
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: No, but when it is used as command and control,
it is. But then
JEREMY SCAHILL: Even if it kills? 
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Now wait a minute, you have to let me finish and
then I will let you finish.
JEREMY SCAHILL: Go ahead. 
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: What I said is, we would give them the warnings.
It was part of the command and control systems. It was approved as a
legitimate target under the laws of land warfare and went through the
U.S. Government. That was the basis on which we struck. We actually
called the bombers back one time, because there was still -- it was
still unclear to us that we weren't absolutely certain. What we know
is that Milosevic ordered them to stay there, and it was wrong, but I
was doing my duty, and I have been looked at by the law, so -- I mean,
I respect Amnesty International. I think they're a good organization,
but --
JEREMY SCAHILL: But do you feel any remorse for the killing of
civilians that you essentially were overseeing?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Yes, I do. 
JEREMY SCAHILL: And what about the bombing of the Nis marketplace with
cluster bombs, shredding human beings.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: It was terrible, but you know in that instance,
if we had got the same incident, there was a cluster bomb that opened
prematurely. It was an accident. And every one of these incidents was
fully investigated. All of the material from the Yugoslavian
government was given to the International Criminal Tribunal, plus as
the NATO commander, I made a full report to the International Criminal
Tribunal. It was all investigated. The pilots who did it, nobody could
have felt worse than the pilots who did it. And I got a letter from a
man in Serbia who said you killed my granddaughter on a schoolyard at
Nis. I know how he must have felt. And I felt so helpless about it.
Every night before I let those bombs go, I prayed we wouldn't kill
innocent people. But unfortunately, when you are at war, terrible
things happen, even when you don't want them to. You can't imagine
what those pilots felt like in those convoys when they struck the
convoys. You remember the convoys?
JEREMY SCAHILL: In Gurdulica were the 72 Albanians were killed. 
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: In that place, too. And they had flown over it a
couple of times. You know, we just -- we were trying to establish some
kind of communications on the ground with the Albanians. The Serbs
were on the nets, and they were jamming all of the communications, and
they were doing imitative communications deception. And nobody could
get the truth about it. We saw the Serb vehicles around the place. And
I didn't make the decision, but they were following orders on my
command. And it was looked at, and so forth. The decision was made as
a legitimate target. It turned out that they had been ordered to stay
in there by the Serbs. The Serbs were surrounding the place to keep
them penned in. It was horrible. You never forget stuff like that.
That's why when this government has used force as it has, it makes me
so angry. Because these people in the White House don't understand --
you don't use force except as a last, last, last resort.
JEREMY SCAHILL: On April 12th you targeted a passenger train, and then
you showed a video that was sped up at three time the speed. Why?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I think -- first of all, the passenger train was
not targeted. The pilot's instructions were to go after a bridge, and
not the train. He felt, as he launched that missile, that all of a
sudden at the very last minute, the train suddenly came into his field
of view. I showed the tape. I did not know that the tape was
accelerated. I don't think it was three times. I think it was
one-and-a-half times. Whatever it was, it was going faster than the
actual speed. It made it look like it was --
JEREMY SCAHILL: But the Supreme Allied Commander, you are ultimately
responsible for all of the information that came out.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: That's true. I was. 
JEREMY SCAHILL: What the actual in real-time speed showed is that the
pilot actually moved the target so that it would hit the train.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, I don't have that information. 
JEREMY SCAHILL: 12 people were killed, including an orthodox priest. 
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: That's terrible. But, I don't have the
information. When I looked at it, we didn't see that. All of the
material was sent to The Hague and they did not see that either.
JEREMY SCAHILL: Do you think you owe the people of Serbia who died in
that war an apology?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: No, I don't because I did my duty as the
commander for NATO and for the United States. I think Slobodan
Milosevic owes the people of Serbia an apology, because we acted to
prevent regional destabilization, and to be honest, when you take the
kinds of actions that he has done, he was the proximate cause. All we
tried to do was head off the ethnic cleansing through diplomacy, and
basically, he had a plan to go to war, no matter what.
JEREMY SCAHILL: But now the U.S. is supporting a regime of ethnic
cleansing in Kosovo where all minorities have been forced out,
including almost every single Serb.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well you know, we are trying very hard not to
allow that to happen. And we have worked very hard with the Kosovo
Albanians and the Serbs, but to be honest with you that regime that's
north of the Ibar River is a regime that wants to prevent Serbs from
living peacefully with Kosovo Albanians. So, both sides have to share
the blame. They have been under the control of Seselj and also some
under Milosevic and their tactic in 1999 was to provoke the
retaliation by the Albanians to be able to blame the Albanians for
reverse ethnic cleansing. There were -- there were crimes on both
sides and they needed to be investigated. To the best of my ability as
NATO commander at the time, we did.
JEREMY SCAHILL: But then why -- you have a man like Agim Ceku in
power, a man who was responsible for the ethnic cleansing of the Serbs
at Kraina, a man trained by MPRI in Virginia. Why put a man like that
in charge? What kind of message does that send to ethnic minorities in
Kosovo, when a man who is a basically a war criminal is in charge of
what is going to be the future army in Kosovo.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, we looked at his record and it's not clear
that he's going to be in charge of the future army of Kosovo. He did
receive instruction from a contracted U.S. firm at MPRI. He received
basic information after he became there in charge of the Kosovo
protective corps. We thought that was the best way to maintain order
and security in the country.
JEREMY SCAHILL: He has been accused of hate speech by the United
Nations.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Lots of people in that part of the world have
been accused of hate speech, and they shouldn't do it. I met with Agim
Ceku a few times when I was over there, and I told him who I thought
about it. I don't accept that language.
JEREMY SCAHILL: Do you think that he should be in a position of power
in Kosovo?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, you know, I'm so far removed from the
issues right now --
JEREMY SCAHILL: But you know him. 
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: But I can't - yeah - I know him, but what I have
seen of him, he is the one of the more reasonable people in that
region.
JEREMY SCAHILL: Because in your ads you say you liberated a nation.
And that's why I am asking you this question.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: The thing is I have got to talk to some other
voters. Is that okay? Can you excuse me?
JEREMY SCAHILL: Absolutely. Thank you very much. 
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I am trying to answer all your questions. 
JEREMY SCAHILL: Thank you I appreciate it. Thank you for being patient
with me.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Thank you.

 pulizia etnica da fare invidia a Milosevic
Ca***ta.
-Stefano