Wesley Clark wrote an op-ed for the Crimson. In this op-ed, Clark says:
".... and today, more than 400 brave men and women have paid the price."

later, in the article:
"we need to change course. We need a president who does more than talk about success. We need a president with a plan to achieve it. I do not just say this; I have done it. In the war in Kosovo we achieved our goals without the loss of a single American soldier"

So, when Clark thinks of the consequences of the war, he sees only American troops, not the devastation of an entire country and thousands of people killed or maimed by the invasion. And, he is proud of Kosovo because the aims were achieved without American casualties. What about Yugoslavian casualties?

This selfish, ethnocentric attitude is precisely what allowed this war to happen. When will people like Clark, Bush and Clinton acknowledge that other parts of the world are inhabited by human beings. These human beings have a culture and political structures and a history -- that the 'Arab mind' cannot be understood, because there is no 'Arab mind'.

As far as the human consequences of the war go, body counts mean nothing because it is impossible to quantify the devastation caused by the war. Tabulating casualties is disgusting and voyeuristic. But, if we are ever foced into doing so, we must keep the following principles in mind:

1. Either, count only Iraqi civilians
2. If American troops are counted, Iraqi troops must be counted. About 30,000 of them perished.

Any sentence that begins with "400 American troops and 10,000 Iraqi civilians" is racist, whether or not the author of the statement is aware of the deeply offensive assumptions inherent in the sentence structure.

P.S: When I re-read what I wrote above, I realise how angry I was when I wrote it! But, anyway Trygve tells me that, at Kirkland House today, Wesley Clark supported 'The Israeli Wall'. Among his many reasons, one was : "Palestinians and other terrorists should not be allowed to enter Israel".