Wesley Clark’s Unanswered Questions: Will His War Record Hurt His Chances with Liberals and Progressives?

By Ahmed Nassef

Guesting on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher last weekend, Retired Gen. Wesley Clark was affable, articulate, and funny. He even defended being a liberal in a way that Michael Dukakis could only have dreamed of.

Although details on most of his policy positions remain a mystery, Clark is galvanizing support from a growing number of Democrats who are desperately looking for a presidential candidate that can defeat George Bush in 2004. Because of his strong military credentials, his supporters argue, Republicans will be unable to challenge Clark’s patriotism or his commitment to the nation’s security.

Clark does present an attractive candidate. Backed by his military title, he’s not afraid to criticize the Bush Administration’s war on terrorism and its impact both internationally and domestically.

In a June appearance on Meet the Press, he called for a “thorough review” of the Patriot Act. “I think one of the risks you have in this operation is that you’re giving up some of the essentials of what it is in America to have justice, liberty and the rule of law,” Clark said. “I think you’ve got to be very, very careful when you abridge those rights to prosecute the war on terrorists.”

In the same broadcast, Clark pointedly criticized President Bush’s stated reasons for invading Iraq, called for a thorough investigation of the circumstances leading up to the September 11th tragedy, opposed the Bush tax cut, and came out in favor of affirmative action.

Recently, Clark has been one of the most vocal mainstream critics of the Administration’s policy in Iraq. “The simple truth is that we went into Iraq on the basis of some intuition, some fear, and some exaggerated rhetoric and some very, very scanty evidence,” Clark told CNN in August. “The president said this is the centerpiece of the war on terror. Seems to me that the only terrorists we're finding there are the ones who have come back in to attack us since we arrived,” he continued.

Clark has also been a reasoned advocate of multilateralism and diplomacy. When he criticizes the Bush administration for not working with allies, Clark almost always cites the example of the 1999 Kosovo war, where he was the NATO Supreme Allied Commander in charge of the military campaign against Yugoslavia. As he sees it, the US defeated Slobodan Milosevic precisely because the war was fought under the NATO umbrella, and not as a unilateral American adventure.

But the Kosovo war also raises some of the biggest questions regarding Clark’s own judgment and character, questions that he will need to address if he hopes to drive liberal and progressive Democratic Primary voters away from Howard Dean and, to a lesser extent, Dennis Kucinich.

The Kosovo Questions

On June 12, 1999, a convoy of armored personnel carriers carrying 200 Russian soldiers crossed over from Bosnia, where the troops had been part of the peacekeeping force there, into Kosovo. The convoy quickly moved in to the capital Pristina and moved to secure the airport.

Just three days earlier, Russia had played a critical role in ending the conflict by forcing their Serb allies to sign a military technical agreement that effectively called for the withdrawal of Serb military and police forces from Kosovo.

The war was finally over. But the Serb civilians who remained in Kosovo were understandably nervous, worried that they had been abandoned and left to the mercy of the militant Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). When the Serb residents saw the Russian soldiers, fellow Orthodox Christians and longtime political allies, they were relieved and welcomed them with open arms.

Although it came as a surprise to NATO military commanders, the Russian troop movement—in the bigger picture—would serve to reassure the Serb residents of Kosovo and help implement the peace agreement.

But the war wasn’t over for Wesley Clark. Furious at the Russian move, he ordered British paratroopers to storm the airport. British General Sir Mike Jackson refused the order. "I'm not going to start the third world war for you," Jackson is reported to have told Clark.

Even after the Russians took full control of the airport, Clark planned to order British tanks to block the airport’s runways to prevent Russian aircraft from landing. Once again, the Brits refused.

A senior Russian officer later revealed that thousands of Russian troops were poised to be flown in to Pristina within two hours of any trouble.

Although this incident may have been the most disturbing, questions had persisted throughout the air campaign against Yugoslavia regarding Clark’s handling of the war. Clark’s decision to target the television station in Belgrade, killing 20 journalists and other civilians, was condemned by the International Federation of Journalists as a violation of the Geneva Conventions. But Clark remained unapologetic, “We've struck at [Milosevic’s] TV stations and transmitters because they're as much a part of his military machine prolonging and promoting this conflict as his army and security forces.”

In another incident during the war, NATO jets mistakenly attacked a refugee convoy, killing 70 Albanian civilians. Soon after news of the incident, Clark denied NATO responsibility and pointed the finger toward the Serbs, even claiming that he had “strong evidence” of Serb responsibility for the attack. “By the next day,” reported Time’s Douglas Waller, “Embarrassed NATO officials admitted that their first claim was wrong and that an American F-16 had indeed attacked civilians.” Just what was that “evidence” that led Clark to his false conclusion?

The Challenge

Wesley Clark is a highly intelligent man (like his fellow Arkansan, Bill Clinton, he’s a Rhodes scholar). He has shown rare insight and courage, especially for a prospective politician, in his analysis of the current “war on terrorism.”

Speaking before the Council on Foreign Relations in February, Clark carried an unusual message for someone who just four years prior was preparing a relentless aerial assault on Yugoslavia.

“We've got to understand that in American foreign policy, force is the last resort,” he told the audience. “Yes, you may have to use it. You may even have to use it preemptively. But the use of force is not the guiding principle of American foreign policy. Military might is not the guiding foreign policy principle.”

Once again, he stressed the importance of working with allies around the world, and of embracing Muslim Americans, whom he regarded as crucial in the fight against extremism: “We should be empowering them and encouraging them to speak out. They're part of us. They came here because they wanted the same things in America that everybody wants. They came here for freedom, for equality, for opportunity, to have their children live in a better world and have a better life. We've got to help them as they speak out inside Islam. They are us.”

But will voters reconcile Clark’s well-articulated commitment to dialogue, diplomacy, and human rights with his reported actions on the battlefield?

Ironically, the toughest test for candidate Clark may not be the general elections. The incidents in the Kosovo war that may raise eyebrows among some Democrats are likely to help Clark in the general elections among conservatives and independents. Clark’s insistence on confronting the Russians and his calls for a devastating air campaign could be spun as testaments to his resoluteness and independence.

However, Clark will need to answer these questions before he can count on the votes of progressives and liberals in the primaries. If he can do that convincingly, he may just become the next president.