Why all this concerns me? Part 1: Good cop, bad cop syndrome
Submitted by Vedran Krivokuca on October 31, 2005 - 11:29am.
Soapbox
From the diaries -- Larry
In order to make rest of this article clear – I live in Croatia. I am not American citizen, although I have some contact in United States. For those who don't know, Croatia is a small European country near Italy, born in 1990 from the wrecks of Yugoslavia when the communist block fell apart as a result of cold war. Speaking of - sorry for any possible language and grammar mistakes. English is not my native language.
I feel very strong about a choice American people should make on 2008 elections, and I have many reasons to believe Wesley Clark is a damn near to being a perfect choice, both for United States but also for the rest of the world. Why just “damn near being perfect”? No person is perfect in any way, so I really doubt Wes Clark makes an exception in those terms. But that doesn't make him any less the best choice available.
So, why do I feel like this? Let's start from the beginning...
I spent my childhood somewhere in between two folds of the “iron curtain”. Yugoslavia, although a communist country, wasn't too much connected with “mother Russia” since late 50s. Well, mostly... Russia kept its influence in orthodox Christian republics like Serbia and Montenegro, while Croatia and Slovenia turned out to be quite pro-western regions. So I was growing up in a communist country considering United States a role model concerning democracy and civil liberties if nothing else.
As the Berlin wall fell down, countries that were known as communist started going through various changes. Yugoslavia went the worst possible way – the spiral of mutually connected wars started spinning. After the short fights in Slovenia, long and bloody wars in Croatia and Bosnia started, which were followed by the war in Kosovo.
During all those years, somehow typical thinking here was that US foreign policy under the Republicans consisted of keeping status quo by any price (even when counted in human lives), while Democrats tried to untie the knot made of war, blood and violence. One thing was for sure – too many influences and interests clashed on the territory of former Yugoslavia that anything could be solved by itself. Even if that previously mentioned thinking wasn't correct, the facts are that Clinton's government stopped the war in Bosnia and made whole a lot to bring Slobodan Milosevic down. Wesley Clark himself had a key role in Kosovo conflict, and made a great job in cutting off the Russian help to Serbian forces therefore almost completely cutting out the Russian influence in the region.
Yes, Wesley Clark is one of the key figures of American positive influence in the region – together with Bill Clinton and William Montgomery. Current situation in the region is far from being perfect, but without American involvement in the 90s it would be way worse.
America has a moral obligation to act as world policeman sometimes, and it's obvious it CAN turn out good if done right. So what's the difference in Bush administration invasion of Iraq and Clinton administration in solving Balkan region issues? Nothing much, just a few things: right reasons, long term thinking and a wish to really help people.
Keeping in mind this world still needs a cop, I can't sit and do nothing missing a chance to try turning that same cop from bad back to good again.
"In America we don't get much news from places we're not bombing." How eerily funny is that?
Welcome Vedran, I have a Croatian girlfriend who I've invited to start blogging here with us as well, so perhaps we can have Croatians for Clark!
We would all love to hear your stories on the overall perceptions there of Wes Clark and of America's involvement in Iraq. Since our Media died we are quite starved -- thanks for feeding us!
Been dead for awhile but some people are still lingering over the grave site hoping for a miracle.
Dead ya know.
Just gave me a Halloween idea-- gravestones in the yard...The Constitution, the Bill of Rights, Free Press, Free and Fair Elections, Women's Rights, Civil Rights, Geneva Conventions, etc, etc--
WOW You need a really big yard! There is a house on Sunset that has about an acre and every holiday the do these massive displays on their lawn, Halloween they have all the creatures hanging from trees and an entire cemetery they erect. This could be a funny statement if I didn't live at the end of a cul de sac that gets NO traffic...
I get lots of traffic but no yard, just a window 4 stories up. If we'd thought of it sooner, we probably could have gotten a grant to put it up in a public space.
So Vedran, you can see how starved we are for good information. You can do a great service by giving us your perspective. I look forward to reading your posts.
Add" The Truth" to a Gravestone We have to stop them .With many battle at a time.We need a fighter that will tell them for what they are.We have one . The General says we have only 06 to stop them.
Long Island For Clark
reminds me of a sign I saw during the anti-Iraq war rally in
Sydney back in 2003.
WAR IS GOD'S WAY OF TEACHING AMERICANS GEOGRAPHY
You'd be taking them to the Better Business Bureau if you bought a washing machine the way we went into the war in Iraq. Wes Clark, CNN Aug 17 2003
Your use of the language and grammer is impressive! Much better even than many who were born and raised with English as a first language!
What RegNYC says is exactly right: we are kept quite isolated by our corporate owned news media. Although that's nothing new, we've always received scant news coverage of other countries.
One thing I'd comment on regarding the U.S. being the "police" of the world - it would be much more effective for us to use diplomacy rather than force, as General Clark would were he in a position to make those decisions.
General Clark's ability to come up with solutions that benefit everyone involved and generate cooperation rather than conflict is so sorely missing in the group of neocons running the country right now.
We are hoping by helping get the word out to people about General Clark, he will throw his hat in the ring in 2008. In the meantime we're working on taking back control of one of the Houses so that President Clark will not be hobbled by a Republican majority. :D
Welcome to CCN and thanks for posting!
Once in a while you get shown the light, In the strangest of places if you look at it right. - Hunter/Garcia
Wesley Clark knows the difference and that is the difference between Wesley Clark and Mr. Bush. We are all praying that our General will run for office in 2008, but even if he doesn't, it is clear his message is finally being heard about the differences you outlined in your testimonial, "right reasons, long term thinking and a wish to really help people." Bush cannot honestly say his reasoning was the same for Iraq. I also know that our General is concerned about the human condition in all countries. Bush doesn't care.
May you find peace in your country. It's extraordinary you felt compelled to write on behalf of General Clark. We are grateful to you.
Vedran, thank ;you so much for your comments! We love to hear new perspectives, and hope to take advantage of yours! THIS is OBVIOUSLY correct!
'I feel very strong about a choice American people should make on 2008 elections, and I have many reasons to believe Wesley Clark is a damn near to being a perfect choice, both for United States but also for the rest of the world. Why just “damn near being perfect”? No person is perfect in any way, so I really doubt Wes Clark makes an exception in those terms. But that doesn't make him any less the best choice available.'
Would you explain this a bit more?
'So what's the difference in Bush administration invasion of Iraq and Clinton administration in solving Balkan region issues? Nothing much, just a few things: right reasons, long term thinking and a wish to really help people.'
Some of us might want to adopt you, as a Balkan spokesman!
Thanks!
Would you explain this a bit more?
'So what's the difference in Bush administration invasion of Iraq and Clinton administration in solving Balkan region issues? Nothing much, just a few things: right reasons, long term thinking and a wish to really help people.'
Sure. The main spotlights of Clinton administration influence in Balkan region were stopping the wars, promoting democracy, freedom, equality and human rights. This may sound strange, it was 20th century and all that, but the truth is that all of us needed a lessons in practicing freedom. You can blame whatever you want for that: 50 years of communism, unsolved issues in the region since WW2, sudden wave of nationalism which overflown the region... New born nations simply were not prepared to live with each other in peace. The world policeman back then didn't beat anyone to death before every single chance to make peace by talks wasn't used and all before facts were even beyond clear and obvious.
Bush administration, as it looks from here at least, works for 2 reasons: one man's frustration about defeating his father's old enemy (or "enemy"?) and the Iraqi oil.
Sure, some US companies made or were supposed to make a good deals in Balkan region followed by political influence (Enron comes in mind). That always happens. Point is that it doesn't look like that's been the primary reason for American involvement in Croatia, Bosnia and Serbia (still including Kosovo) while in the end there are no proofs that Iraq was attacked for any other reason but to fill some people's pockets with black gold.
That's the difference - American involvement in Balkan made the region more stable and better place for living, while "the Bush way" of "correcting the world" produced only chaos and made an incredible base for civil wars in Iraq (but I'm also afraid the whole region) in the future. Not that me or, I'm sure, anyone else here ever liked Saddam in the first place...
Non bene pro toto venditur libertas auro.
Vedran what you are talking about is going to war for the right reasons, with allies and an exit strategy. Bush broke our nations doctrine for going to war by using the pre-emptive war plan. This was something that was feared and kept in check during the cold war. Nobody in that time ever wanted to see someone rise to power who would do such a thing. Sadly, too much time has passed and people don't know enough about history here to understand the reasons why we shouldn't be in the business of pre-emptive war. This was the case in Iraq. We are there for all the wrong reasons.
nearly all of America, the mainstream media and most indy media, for that matter, make the mistake of defining Iraq as a "pre-emptive" war. That is not an accurate depiction. Even worse, by continuing to define U.S. actions in Iraq as pre-emptive, opponents of the war are inadvertantly adding credibility to the pro-war rationale. For the sake of accuracy, particularly on the Left, we must stop calling our actions "pre-emptive." Here's why:
"Pre-emptive" action implies that one party attacked another party before the second party could mount a premeditated offensive. A truly pre-emptive action is a justifiable action, both in the world view and in moral terms. In essence, it is an act of self-defense. The defending party just hasn't waited to be attacked first; it pre-empted the attack.
Our invasion of Iraq would be more accurately described as a "preventative" war. In other words, the United States attacked first to prevent a future threat. That's assuming you believe the Bush-cooked intelligence that someday Iraq might have had an interest in launching an offensive against the United States, either on its own or through a third party. The major difference between "pre-emptive" and "preventive" is the certainty of original intent of the country under attack. In other words, a country under pre-emptive attack has very clear, offensive, aggressive intent. A country under preventive attack would be faced with too many future variables (ifs and whens) to be labeled an imminent threat.
I originally learned this distiction from Foreign Policy Magazine, a good read if anybody's interested. I couldn't find that article online, but here's some additional detail on the difference of terminology.
The important thing to remember is to stop saying "pre-emptive."
And props to Vedran for a great post and follow-up comments.
The moto engraved on entrance to St. Lauren's fort in Dubrovnik. :) A town with a really special story.
Non bene pro toto venditur libertas auro.
Thanks, Vedran.
I asked so we could have a response to others who ask similar questions. As you might guess, we have to explain a lot of things about General Clark to people with many different points of view, and lots of them question his military 'background.'
Its WONDERFUL to have you here!
We love hearing from our international friends on the CCN. We long to hear the views of people around the world on what they think is going right and wrong. (except the guy in Finland, who only wants to bash us and won't tell us how Finland has gotten things right) So please post again and again. I lived in Germany when the Berlin came down and was in Budapest when it happened. I watched the revolution in Romania on TV while I was there. We have never had such open television coverage of an event like that here. Believe it or not, our press ranks 44th in the world for free press. We are behind Bolivia and Macedonia, I believe. We have bloggers from Australia, Sweden, Germany and Taiwan sharing their views. We have some lovely Japanese ladies who also let us know what they think from their point of view. We like having a world view. We all share an interest in the common good for our world and our countries.
Thanks - it is from Reporters Without Borders:
http://www.rsf.org/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=554
I have no idea if that is considered to be a "reliable source" in a journalism course, but I'll float it past the instructor to see his reaction tomorrow.
So good to hear from your part of the world AND your support for Wesley Clark as President in 2008.
That he is beyond doubt the best candidate for 2008 is a no-brainer, no?
We need your continuous posting to keep us informed about Eastern Europe. . .like Radio Free Europe in REVERSE! I never thought I'd see the day that our news is more censored than yours use to be. . .our media is so whoring for the Bush cabal. . .we are suffering over here. . .keep posting your take on the US news. . .many thanks!
For Clarksanity in 2008
insularity by our press taking the lowest common denominator as their standard for international news. They seem to think we are more interested in local gory true murders than in what is going on that is important in other places. We get very little chance to get a 'flavor' of what is going on abroad.
Thanks for posting your thoughts. It's nice to hear someone voice their respect for our General from your part of the world. If you stick around, you'll find we all think the world of Gen Clark and he's touched all of us in some way but he's touched you and your country in another way and it is interesting to hear.
It's an interesting point you bring up about the moral obligation of the US to act as world policeman. There are some Americans who would not agree, who think that we should not get involved unless US security or interests are directly endangered.
I don't agree with that point of view. I agree with you, Vedran, that sometimes it is right for us to step in and stop a catastrophe when we can and no one else can. I'm glad we intervened in Bosnia and Kosovo. I wish we had intervened to stop the killing in Rwanda and Liberia (where corpses were being dropped at the doorstep of the American Embassy in protest a couple of years ago) and now in Darfur. It just pains me to no end that this country sits by and lets so many innocent die when often it would really not take that much to make a difference and save so many.
I like this line you write:
America has a moral obligation to act as world policeman sometimes, and it's obvious it CAN turn out good if done right.
It is true. We have to be very careful to make sure it's done right...And I have all the faith in the world that Wes Clark, if given the opportunity and obligation, would take action and would make every effort to do it right. He truly does care about people...As he says "When you can do good, you should."
I do think we have to be careful about the reasons we have for intervening in other countries' business too. We can't just go barging in and try to make people act the way we want them to just because we're bigger and stronger and we can. We have to be careful to respect that others may not want to live as we do, that their values and cultures may be different, that what we value may not be what everyone else does. I think there's no doubt that Gen Clark is very conscious of this also.
Question for you, are there people over there who resent our intervention into your wars? I believe we can sometimes seem the bully and we have a bit of a history of operating in less than the best interests of some of the countries where we've intervened. I do believe our motives in getting involved in the Balkan Wars were good. I don't believe Bush's motives for invading Iraq were and I personally don't think he cares at all how many people die as long as his "friends" are taken care of. I was horrified to hear he had told a reporter that he slept well at night! How can he sleep well at night if he's got any conscience at all, with so many US and Iraqis dying every day in a war he started based on lies?!?! That is a difference between Bush and Gen Clark too....Clark wasn't sleeping well during his war, he was up worrying about who might be killed, what damage might be done.
Ah, it's a messed up world. I hope we get a chance to help Wes Clark become President. He's about the only light at the end of the tunnel that I can see.
And your English is great, probably a lot more coherent and eloquent than this post I just wrote. :P
Of course there are people in this region who resent US involvement in local wars. Situation is by my judgment a bit like this:
Let's go from the west to the east. Starting from Croatia...
-
Croatia: I think there is no people here who ever resented American involvement. Even more, when the war in Croatia started, most of the people, no matter if conservative or liberal, expected US to stop the war as soon as possible. Bush senior's administration decided to give Milosevic a chance to do what was his proclaimed goal (keeping Yugoslavia in one peace). It later turned out his proclaimed goals were far from what he did for real, but still lot of time passed until USA involved in any way. First known US interference in local wars was supposed logistical support in training Croatian and Bosnian forces, and later NATO gave background support to Croatian forces during the operation "Storm" which effectively ended wars in Croatia and Bosnia.
American involvement, once it happened, mostly suited Croatia so there is really no people in Croatia resenting anything from that period. On the other hand, great harm is done to image of America since Bush administration is in charge. People don't resent American involvement in the local wars, but have very bad opinion on invasion of Iraq.
Croatian political parties are in general very cautious in attitude towards American foreign policy. Most of the time all of them take either positive or neutral attitude to whatever whichever of US administrations does. Public is more critical, though.
-
Bosnia: First, you have to understand that Bosnia is not a typical country. About a half of Bosnia is under control of Serbs, in a an entity called Republic of Srpska which hovers between being a part of Bosnia and a separate independent country.
Somewhere along the border which separates Bosnian Serb entity from the rest of the country goes the line of respect towards Americans. Bosnian Serbs represent probably the most radical Serb national group in the region in average. I am convinced high percentage of them hates America from the guts.
Bosnian Muslims, if you count out radical imported warriors during the war, were in general very peaceful Muslim community completely adopted to middleeuropean culture circle. Something like Muslims in developed parts of Turkey, just even more close to western culture.
Don't think I have this attitude only towards Serbs in Bosnia. They are not the only radical nation in Bosnia – Bosnian Croats are in average much more radical in their Croatian nationalism than Croats in Croatia and are also much more conservative. But since US and NATO in the end treated Croats and Bosnian Muslims as allies, only Serbs have generally bad opinion of American involvement.
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Serbia: Attitude towards America in Serbia depends on who you talk to. No person there cheered because of bombing of Serbia during the operation NATO “Allied Force”, which is understandable. But liberal groups kept a good attitude towards US foreign policy, and even cooperated after the bombing with the ambassador Montgomery on bringing Milosevic down.
Serbian radicals on the other hand have million of reasons to hate America. They would probably win all the wars they started in the region if there wasn't for United States. They are also historically tied to Russia, and I could be easily convinced that Russia stood behind the Milosevic's war games whole time.
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Kosovo: Kosovo Albanians are grateful forever for US involvement. Clinton and Clark are there considered savors.
This is very interesting also: 90% of Kosovo population today are Albanians, out of which I can safely guess 80% are Muslims. Considering that fact, I can safely conclude they are grateful to America and will celebrate together with Americans when Republicans go down because I am quite convinced that Bush with his crusading is not at all popular there.
In both Bosnia and Kosovo there are supposedly radical Muslim groups which are tied to Al-Qaeda. But those speculations so far came only from pro-republican sources, and also often from Serbian intelligence sources. I'm not taking that seriously for obvious reasons.
The fact is that in Bosnia there are some groups of mujahedin warriors living there since the wars in Bosnia and Kosovo. But Bosnia is completely controlled by international (until last year it was NATO, since this year it's EU) community so I doubt any of those (yet) pose a real threat to anyone.
All in all, if we put it all to numbers, Clinton era foreign policy had quite a huge support in the region. As I said, there definitely is a good way to play world cop.
That's one of our most favorite Wes Clark quotes.
Stan Davis
Lakewood, CO
BE THE CHANGE you wish to see in the world.
If not us, WHO? If not now, WHEN?
is so interesting, your English is excellent and it's so great to have you posting here.
I think you'll find the wonderful thing about General Clark and his supporters is that they are interested in the rest of the world, care what the rest of the world thinks and understand that for the US to regain some of its respect in the world Wes Clark needs to be put in the White House.
In the lead up to the 2004 election I made so many American friends in the Clark Community. I've never been made to feel unwelcome here and yet, within a few weeks of trying to get involved in the John Kerry online community, I was told I could keep my opinions to myself as I wasn't even American.
Australia has always been very pro-American but now our inevitable support for the US is starting to make us unpopular. The fact we have supported George Bush's Iraq fiasco so undconditionally might not have made much impact in your part of the world, many Americans don't even realise we are part of the "Coalition of the Willing", but I can assure you our immediate neighbours in south-east Asia, including the country with the world's biggest Moslem population, Indonesia, are very aware.
Look forward to hearing more from you.
You'd be taking them to the Better Business Bureau if you bought a washing machine the way we went into the war in Iraq. Wes Clark, CNN Aug 17 2003
My husband is in the US Army and I was never more proud of his service than when the US stepped in to stop genocide in war torn Yugoslavia. Now with the crooks and liars we have in the white house, we cannot wait to get out of the ARMY. I long for the days when we used our army for GOOD purposes. Thanks for your insights!
for your articulate and thoughtful window on the world. I hope we hear from you often. Thanks, too, for your support of General Clark--we here really do see him as a person of international stature.
The General gets it right. Competence--What a concept!
Some of my family came from Croatia. I'm told I still have family there. I'm always interested to hear what's going on there. In America, we don't get much news from places we're not bombing. So, it's good to hear from people around the world on the blog.