How many innocents did Gen. Wesley Clark kill as collateral damage in Bosnia?

Question

In the air campaign that Gen. Clark led as Surpreme Nato Commander over Bosnia and Hergosovina to end the war of racial annhilation of the dictator Melosovitch, how many civilians were caught in the bombing of U.S. and allied warplanes? Clark acts today as if he is better than anyone in the Bush administration, even though he never had the courage to put boots on the ground in this futile war, a measure that might have actually prevented bloodshed, until the war was, for all intents, over and Melosovitch was bombed to a halt. Even with guided bombs, innocents get hurt. Clark acts as if he were not responsible for a single death and is superior to generals in Iraq. Do you know how many collateral deaths there were? We are still in Bosnia, U.S. troops are there to keep the peace. What does that tell you?

Answer 1

Nobody Died When Clinton Died???

AS AMERICANS DEBATE what President Clinton’s legacy should be, too little attention is given to his remarks on Kosovo. The United States launched a war against a European nation largely at Clinton’s behest. Clinton’s war against Serbia epitomized his moralism, his arrogance, his refusal to respect law, and his fixation on proving his virtue by using deadly force, regardless of how many innocent people died in the process.

Clinton claimed on March 24, 1999, that one purpose of bombing Serbia (including Kosovo) was “to deter an even bloodier offensive against innocent civilians in Kosovo and, if necessary, to seriously damage the Serbian military’s capacity to harm the people of Kosovo.” The CIA had warned the Clinton administration that if bombing was initiated, the Serbian army would greatly accelerate its efforts to expel ethnic Albanians. The White House disregarded this warning and feigned surprise when mass expulsions began.

Yet NATO Supreme Commander Gen. Wesley Clark said on March 26 that the upsurge in crackdowns on ethnic Albanians was “entirely predictable.” Since NATO had no ground forces in the area ready to intervene and since NATO planes stayed three miles above the ground to minimize pilot casualties, NATO could do nothing to stop the surge in ethnic cleansing. Violence spurred by the bombing was quickly invoked as the ultimate justification for the bombing.

The longer the bombing went on, the more brazenly NATO ignored the limits it had initially imposed on its targets in order to limit civilian casualties. In the final weeks of the 78-day war, all that mattered was finding new targets so that NATO spokesmen could continue their daily bragging about a “record number of sorties flown” and “record number of bombs dropped.” According to Human Rights Watch, at least 500 civilians were killed by NATO bombing; the Yugoslavian government claimed that 2,000 civilians were killed. NATO repeatedly dropped cluster bombs into marketplaces, hospitals, and other civilian areas.

As Serbian civilian casualties rose, purported Serbian atrocities mushroomed. On May 13, 1999, Clinton declaimed that “there are 100,000 people [in Kosovo] who are still missing” — clearly implying that they might have been slaughtered. Clinton also claimed that 600,000 ethnic Albanians could be “trapped within Kosovo itself, lacking shelter, short of food, afraid to go home, or buried in mass graves dug by their executioners.”

However, once the bombing stopped, the Clinton administration was stunned to see the Serbian army withdraw in fine order with polished buttons and good morale. A confidential postwar U.S. military investigation concluded that the damage claims had been exaggerated nearly tenfold. In reality, only 14 tanks, 18 armored personnel carriers, and 20 artillery pieces were taken out, despite the claimed dropping of more than 20,000 bombs on the Serbian military.

So over 600,000 suffering, 100,000 missing, and thousands dead.

Answer 2

Accidental deaths by collateral damage or single rouge troops cannot be put on the same moral equivalent with the official policies of genocide or civilian terrorism that our adversaries engage in.

This does not make the deaths any less tragic. Our country's military attempts to take every measure to keep non-combatants away from their actions. In places like Bosnia, it is the enemy that uses the civilian population as an accessory to their goals, without regard for their lives.

War is a terrible and destructive enterprise, but sometimes the only measure available (and an imperfect one at that).

Answer 3

Get your Balkan conflicts straight first...

Clark was the NATO/SHAPE Commander during the Kosovo bombing campaign, not Bosnian campaign. Joulwan was the NATO/SHAPE Commander during the initial Bosnian operations...

Bosnian air campaign was controlled by a US Navy admiral headquartered in Naples.

Regardless, 50,000 is the estimate of deaths in the three-way cival war in Bosnia. Number of collateral deaths during the bombing campaign was a fraction of 1% of that number.

Not as many died in the Kosovo conflict since the uprising didn't last as long. NATO targets in Serbia were bombed more than Kosovo and Clinton didn't drop a single bomb without checking his poll numbers first...

Answer 4

Wesley Clark- Rhodes pupil, 3 Masters ranges, 26 international Honors, 4 megastar wide-spread. best Nato Commander presided over a conflict the position no American lives were lost. Champion in combating a conflict with Iran. He would help fix the wear and tear finished contained in the international community by the Bush administration and he would comprehend a thanks to strategically withdraw our troops from the middle east. also has a wide following contained in the south-he's from AK. Obama will be stupid to no longer make him vice chairman, or a minimum of Sec. of protection. sure. Republican's will be scared...John McCain would ought to salute him.

Answer 5

You win this round "mark w" But I will be avenged!