Our Illegal War
Was there ever a final count on the number of civilian casualties?
Number one, Kosovo was a flagrant episode of dog-wagging, the main item on American headlines the previous week having been the Juanita Broaddrick story, and there was basically no way Clark or anybody else could ask American fighting men to risk life and limb for so base a reason.
Two, the idea of no American casualties in Kosovo will not stand up to the light of day. Figure about 50 - 100 allied aircraft lost realistically.
Three, the precedent of Kosovo cannot be allowed to stand. The UN could and shortly will step in and demand that we hand Texas and California over to Mexico on the same stupid basis of ethnicity now being everything, and ownership nothing.
Lots of grammar errors.....needs an editor desperately.
Bump.
Does this resonate with anybody else, or am confusing Clark with someone else?
"What do you think of General Wesley Clark and would you support him as a presidential candidate," was the question put to him by moderator Dick Henning, assuming that all military men stood in support of each other. General Shelton took a drink of water and Henning said, "I noticed you took a drink on that one!" "That question makes me wish it were vodka," said Shelton. "I've known Wes for a long time. I will tell you the reason he came out of Europe early had to do with integrity and character issues, things that are very near and dear to my heart. I'm not going to say whether I'm a Republican or a Democrat. I'll just say Wes won't get my vote."
And remember the episode in Bosnia where Clark verbally ordered General Shinseki to take the radio station & Shinseki asked for the orders in writing? A likely interpretation of that event is that Shinseki was concerned about Clark leaving him hanging out to dry if the op went bad.
Shinseki, regardless of what people think of his decisions as Chief of Staff of the Army, was highly regarded in the Army as a man of honor & integrity & character. For a guy like that to feel he needed Clark's orders in writing seems to say something significant about Shinseki's view of Clark's trustworthiness.
Andy, good post in that it shows the nature of Clark's character. He is as self-centered and self-serving as they come.
However, Clark was not Reno's military advisor, was not the planner for Waco, and was not in command. He was the 1st Cav Div commander at Fort Hood at the time. In fact, his boss at Fort Hood, Lieutenant General Funk, is the guy I quoted about Clark in post 35. At most, Clark's unit may have been tasked to provide DOJ some of the electronic warfare equipment that was used at Waco, but that request went from DOJ to the military & then down through normal military channels to the nearest military installation (Fort Hood) where, based on such things as availablity of equipment, deployments and training cycles, some unit was directed to give up some of its stuff--not even sure if that was the 1st Cav or one of the other units at Hood.
There was no military "commander" at Waco--and military involvement by the active duty was limited to a few soldiers who had trained the FBI agents on how to operate the jamming equipment and were present to maintain it. The Texas National Guard had more involvement--they provided the Bradleys & Combat Engineer Vehicles, etc.; but even those things were operated by the FBI.
BTW, one of the two special ops officers Reno consulted prior to the raid was BG Schoomaker, recently called out of retirement by Rumsfeld to take over as Chief of Staff of the Army. The other guy is still serving as a special ops officer on active duty. Bottom line, Clark had nothing to do with Waco.
Wrong. First, in general, the military can be used any time the President directs as part of his Constitutionally enumerated duties; that's been done numerous times-- suppressing riots and restoring order in Detroit & L.A. etc, enforcing desegregation orders in the south, shutting down the Mex-American border in 1916, and assisting states during natural disasters like Hurricane Andrew.
Second, in situations other than the Constitutional use of the military, the Posse Comitatus law prevents civil authorities from using the military to execute the laws; interpreted in general to mean make arrests, conduct search & seizures, and so on. Of note, it applies to federal forces, not the militias of the states, i.e. the National Guard.
Not only was [Waco] a disaster, it was illegal... it is rather hard to hide the troops and tanks that were there. All total there were 9 Bradley fighting vehicles, 5 Combat Engineer Vehicles, 1 Tank Retrieval vehicle and 2 Abrams Tanks. Reno tried to pass them off as "on loan" from the military.
Federal military forces at Waco were limited to a couple observers and some enlisted personnel who trained the FBI agents in how to use some electronic warfare equipment and helped to maintain it. They had been requested by DOJ through normal military channels. As for the armored vehicles, equipment is not covered by Posse Comitatus, but even then, they belonged to the Texas National Guard and were primarily operated by the FBI. The regular Army had nothing to do with them. This thing has been investigated to death--there was very little military involvement and what there was, was lawful.
Clark has major league "issues", as Oprah and my daughter would say, that in my view make him unqualified to be president. the article points that out. However, the author's crdibility is weakened by including so many inaccuracies and untruths.