Reply #5: "you probably wouldn't give a damn about his military record" [View All]

[IndianaGreen]

I beg to differ on that statement of yours, many of us do give a damn about Clark's military record particularly when war crimes and human rights are involved. It doesn't matter whether the man's name is Wesley Clark or Tommy Franks!

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch had plenty to say about NATO's dirty little war in the former Yugoslavia:

"Collateral Damage" or Unlawful Killings?
Violations of the Laws of War by NATO during Operation Allied Force

From 24 March to 10 June 1999 the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) conducted an air campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY), codenamed Operation Allied Force. NATO aircraft conducted over 38,000 combat sorties, including 10,484 strike sorties, against targets in the provinces of Kosovo and Vojvodina, Serbia proper and the Republic of Montenegro. Yugoslav media have stated that thousands of civilians were killed in NATO air raids. However, the civilian death tolls given in detailed FRY government accounts range from 400 to 600. NATO has not released official estimates of civilians or FRY combatants killed. No NATO forces were killed in hostile action during the air campaign. (07 May 2000)

http://www.amnesty.org/ailib/intcam/kosovo/index.html

Full report:

http://www.amnesty.org/ailib/intcam/kosovo/docs/nato_all.pdf

CIVILIAN DEATHS IN THE NATO AIR CAMPAIGN

SUMMARY

With respect to NATO violations of international humanitarian law, Human Rights Watch was concerned about a number of cases in which NATO forces:

· conducted air attacks using cluster bombs near populated areas;
· attacked targets of questionable military legitimacy, including Serb Radio and Television, heating plants, and bridges;
· did not take adequate precautions in warning civilians of attacks;
· took insufficient precautions identifying the presence of civilians when attacking convoys and mobile targets; and
· caused excessive civilian casualties by not taking sufficient measures to verify that military targets did not have concentrations of civilians (such as at Korisa).

One disturbing aspect of the matter of civilian deaths is how starkly the number of incidents and deaths contrasts with official U.S. and Yugoslav statements. U.S. officials, including Secretary of Defense William Cohen, Deputy Secretary of Defense John Hamre, and Gen. Wesley Clark, have testified before Congress and stated publicly that there were only twenty to thirty incidents of "collateral damage" in the entire war. The number of incidents Human Rights Watch has been able to authenticate is three to four times this number. The seemingly cavalier U.S. statements regarding the civilian toll suggest a resistance to acknowledging the actual civilian effects and an indifference to evaluating their causes.

http://www.hrw.org/reports/2000/nato/Natbm200.htm#P37_987