DOWNSIDE LEGACY AT TWO DEGREES OF PRESIDENT CLINTON
SECTION: STATUS OF US MILITARY
SUBSECTION: POOR MORALE
Revised 8/20/99
POOR MORALE
Tampa Bay online AP 5/19/99 "....President Clinton ordered an investigation Wednesday into a troubling string of six U.S. rocket failures in less than nine months. Losses have totaled $3.5 billion. ``It is vitally important that we fully understand the root causes behind the recent launch vehicle failures and take corrective action,'' Clinton said in a memo to Defense Secretary William Cohen. .... The failed rockets were carrying three military satellites, two commercial communication satellites, and a privately owned satellite capable of taking detailed, military-quality photographs of Earth. Two of the rockets exploded on launch, three satellites were stuck in useless orbits and another satellite vaporized in the atmosphere. With 52 U.S. launches since the beginning of 1998, the six failures represent a failure rate of more than 10 percent - twice the rate experienced in the previous six years. Three of the rockets were launched by the Air Force and three by aerospace companies...."
London Telegraph 5/14/99 Ben Fenton "...THE United States army has recognised white witchcraft as a religion and has appointed chaplains to oversee pagan ceremonies on at least five bases. A Pentagon spokesman said yesterday that there were believed to be at least 100 witches attending covens at Fort Hood, Texas, the army's largest base with more than 42,000 troops. So respectful has the army become of the pagan rites that security was increased at Fort Hood's Boy Scout camp, where covens are held. The move is to deter members of Christian groups from intimidating the group. The pagans, called Wiccans, are accorded the same privileges as practitioners of Christianity, Judaism and Islam. They are encouraged to have their religious preference stamped on the metal dog-tags each soldier wears...."
www.thestate.com (Columbia, SC) 5/14/99 Dave Moniz "...The Air Force will begin preventing some of its people from leaving the service, citing personnel shortages and an immediate need to staff the air war in Yugoslavia. The seldom-used procedure, known as "Stop Loss," will affect at least 40 percent of Air Force career fields and will begin next week. The Air Force has not announced which jobs will be affected but the service is currently suffering an exodus of highly-skilled workers, from pilots to air traffic controllers to those who fix and maintain aircraft...."
Washington Times (Book Review- Regnery) 5/12/99 John R Bolton "....... Mr. [Bill] Gertz provides a series of case studies of Clinton administration failures in defense and intelligence, based largely on his own reporting for The Washington Times, that create a cumulative impact both devastating and depressing. ...Mr. Gertz demonstrates tellingly that there is a pattern to Clinton administration decision making, the result of well-thought-out and deeply held national-security philosophies. Although the author also has much to say on individual incompetence and duplicity, his central point is how completely witting and united the administration's policy leadership actually is in its wrongheaded view of America's place in the world. .....Indeed, although Mr. Gertz's emphasis is on defense matters, he does not overlook the hollowing out of America's intelligence and counterintelligence capabilities. As with declines in military spending on research and development, the cutbacks in the U.S. intelligence capability are neither easily nor quickly corrected, and form a significant obstacle to effectively reasserting U.S. interests internationally....In Mr. Gertz's analysis, spin and intelligence also intersect in the administration's repeated distortions of what it actually knows. For example, he quotes one anonymous official saying that "Madeleine Albright lied to the Senate" about North Korea's nuclear weapons program, and Mr. Gertz alleges that this incident is not a one-time occurrence..... This is not an academic book intended for defense intellectuals (although they would be remiss if they did not read it), but rather straightforward reporting covering about six years of a dangerously flawed presidency. It is troubling that so much of the book depends on government sources leaking classified information, but this unfortunate fact only underlines just how corrosive the Clinton administration's approach has been. Certainly, Mr. Gertz has given us more than ample notice of the damage caused by "the feel-good approach to national security." The remedy is obviously in our hands...."
U.S. News & World Report 5/24/99 Paul Bedard "...Navy rank and file are flashing distress calls to the Pentagon. Teams recently dispatched to bases around the nation have returned with reports full of morale and training complaints, a troubling sign as President Clinton moves to expand U.S. military participation in the Kosovo crisis. One team recently visited the Pensacola Naval Hospital in Florida and reported that "men and women felt strongly that 'military bearing and discipline is gone' and that both need to be re-emphasized especially in boot camp." Also, "Across the ranks there is a general perception that the military is not concerned for its people."...."
5/99 Lieutenant Commander Thomas Strother, U.S. Navy (Retired) "...As a then-active duty member of the military when the gay ban was lifted in 1993, I thought that lifting the ban may have served a purpose by extending basic human rights to gays and lesbians. But I also knew it eventually would hurt the recruiting of young, blue-collar males on whom the Navy so relied to man its ships, boats, and squadrons... They joined the Navy for many reasons: economic well-being, adventure, or to learn a trade. But usually the other (albeit rarely admitted) reason was to enjoy the rite of passage: to become a man. As far as helping the recruitment of enlisted people from a predominantly male, blue-collar, and conservative demographic pool, lifting the gay ban was not a brilliant move--if the intention was to sustain an all-volunteer force without a draft. Exacerbating the recruiting problems resulting from the lifting of the gay ban was the politically-correct decision to lift the ban on women serving in most combat vessels and aircraft. The arguments against lifting this ban have not focused on recruiting; they focused on bathrooms, pregnancies, jealousies that might ensue, etc. I never heard a serving senior officer openly suggest that ending the exclusion of women from combat might hurt recruiting. Yet, since allowing women to serve in combat roles, recruiting slowly has slid in the tank.. ."
LA Times 6/12/99 James Gerstenzang and Edwin Chen with Paul Richter "...Still, for all the evidence of camaraderie between the commander in chief and his GIs, there remains an undercurrent of doubt about Clinton among military figures. There has been success in the Balkans, a pay-raise proposal for the troops and a turnaround in declining Pentagon budget requests. But 6 1/2 years after he took office, to some warriors and civilian allies he is still the baby-boomer-Yale-and-Oxford president who generated controversy over gays in the military and whose initial staff included senior aides openly scornful of the armed services......"
The Washington Times 7/2/99 Wesley Pruden "...The sex really sizzles in this man's Navy Richard Danzig, the man Bill Clinton appointed to preside over the dismantling of the Navy as we've known it for 223 years, seems to think sex is the only sizzle that sells. Duty, honor, country is for old (white) coots. "Semper Fidelis" is for the birds. Reforming attitudes and eliminating obstacles in the way of making combat safe for Moms is No. 1 on Mr. Danzig's agenda as secretary of the Navy. He wants to assign women to assuage the loneliness of the long-distance submariner. And when he suggested the other day that the nuclear-submarine fleet should prepare to welcome women into the cramped crew quarters (and the fun, games and pregnancies that are sure to follow), he made a point of insulting skeptical white men, who he suggested were driven only by their egos. Danzig to Crew: Get lost...."
Associated Press 7/29/99 "...A high-ranking military leader has acknowledged that the mandatory anthrax vaccination for American troops can be potentially dangerous, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported today. Citing military documents, the paper reported Army Secretary Louis Caldera agreed in September that the government would accept the burden of potential liability claims by service members against the vaccine's manufacturer. According to a memo signed by Caldera, the vaccine ``involves unusually hazardous risks associated with the potential for adverse reactions in some recipients and the possibility that the desired immunological effect will not be obtained by all recipients.'' ..."
CNSNews.com 8/3/99 Lawrence Morahan "...The members of the Commission on Military Training and Gender-related Issues, a panel of experts studying mixed-sex training for armed services recruits, who disagree with its recent recommendation that the practice should continue are saying the decision was actually made by a "Clinton-controlled Pentagon" and does not reflect the real evidence. Some panel members voted in favor of continuing mixed-sex training even though their own evidence suggests joint training is too stressful for women, resulting in an unacceptably high physical injury rate, and not stressful enough for young men. Although this does not reflect the view of all members of the panel Anita Blair, the commission chairwoman and director of the Washington-based Independent Women's Forum, told CNSNews.com that the more evidence she studied on the issue of sex-integrated training, the less likely she was to endorse it. "After I looked at the whole record and saw the rationale for the majority, I simply could not support that. It was a straight feed from the Clinton-controlled Pentagon. And when the report comes out, people will see that the dissenting commissioner's report does not simply accept anything and everything we were told by the Pentagon," Blair said...."
Washington Times 8/7/99 Phyllis Schlafly "...Even though the voters elected a president who said he "loathes" the military, we couldn't have imagined back in 1992 how much damage Bill Clinton would actually do. Now we wonder if our once-great military can survive another year and a half of our most embarrassing commander in chief. Every service except the Marines is falling short of its recruitment goals. Our most experienced pilots are leaving in unprecedented numbers, and even large cash inducements can't prevail on them to re-enlist..... The most serious problems are the feminization of the military and U.S. involvement in foreign conflicts that bear no relation to American national security. Other morale-lowering problems are the court-martialing of honorable servicemen for such offenses as refusing to wear a United Nations uniform and refusing to be "shot" with the experimental, controversial anthrax vaccine...."
Navy Times 8/16/99 William Matthews "...After citizen's groups and environmentalists complained about low-level and supersonic training near populated areas around Fallon Naval Air Station, Nev., the Navy eventually shifted the flow of training traffic to reduce noise near those areas. When the booming sound of tanks firing at Camp Lejeune, N.C., began reverberating through the nearby community of Verona, breaking windows and cracking bricks, the Marine Corps had to halt tank training on its new firing range. In the Southwest, the Army's plan to expand its premier warfare-training center by 331,000 acres has been slowed to a crawl by the endangered desert tortoise. In Arizona, a couple hundred Sonoran pronghorn antelopes -- the last of their type -- cling to life in their parched habitat on the Barry Goldwater Gunnery Range. To avoid killing off the species, the Air Force has modified bombing practice for F-16 and A-10 warplanes. Across the country and around the world, from Okinawa to Puerto Rico, the services' access to training ranges is being challenged...."
AP Wire 8/10/99 "...A federal appeals court has dismissed a lawsuit by a veterans group that said the government broke its promise of lifetime health care benefits for those with 20 years of military service. The U.S. Court of Appeals dismissed the lawsuit Monday, saying retirees do not have the absolute right to medical and dental care, but they may be given the service subject to availability. A message left with the Justice Department seeking comment was not returned. The 9,000-member Coalition of Retired Military Veterans can ask the Court of Appeals to reconsider, appeal to the Supreme Court or resubmit the lawsuit, said chairman Jim Gunn. ``We're not asking for anything except what we earned,'' Gunn said. ``We're not freeloaders. We just want what we were told we had when we signed up.'' Gunn, a 68-year-old Korean War veteran who won a Purple Heart, said numerous military and Coast Guard recruitment brochures promised lifetime health care and dental benefits to personnel who serve at least 20 years. He says the promises were inducements to sign up. In recent years, retirees have had their access to free care at military hospitals trimmed by budget cuts and base closings. Retirees are urged to join an HMO-like system with an annual premium. They drop out of the program once they reach 65 and are eligible for Medicare...."
USA Today 8/11/99 John Omicinski "...Mixing the sexes in U.S. military training creates some problems but ought to continue, a sharply split commission told Congress this week. By a 6-3 vote, with one abstention, the Congressional Commission on Military Training and Gender-Related Issues endorsed the current system of training men and women together. The commission's findings on the highly charged issue are being sent to the House and Senate Armed Services committees. The panel's vote went against the views of its chairwoman, Anita Blair of Virginia, who is sharply critical of mixed training. Blair, who also is executive vice president of the conservative Independent Women's Forum, said in an interview that mixed training is contributing to falling discipline and amounts to little more than "baby-sitting" for already hard-pressed instructors. "Gender integration also is exacerbating discipline problems," she said. "You just have to deal with a group of men differently than you do with a group of women."..."
Yahoo! News 8/13/99 reuters "...The Pentagon plans to issue new guidelines aimed at ending abuses of the ``don't ask, don't tell'' policy for homosexuals in the military, the New York Times reported in Friday's editions. Citing ``administration officials,'' the paper said the new guidelines, expected as early as Friday, will require troops to undergo anti-gay harassment training throughout their military careers, beginning with boot camp. Under the new guidelines, a senior level of the military justice system will handle any inquiry of the sexual orientation of members of the armed forces, the Times said. Administration officials felt the need to announce the new guidelines as quickly as possible, given the uproar over the death last month of a gay soldier at Fort Campbell, Ky. The man was beaten with a baseball bat, reportedly by another soldier in his unit, the paper said...."
FOX News 8/13/99 AP "...A Marine helicopter crew chief has been sentenced to 30 days in confinement and issued a bad conduct discharge for refusing to take the anthrax vaccination required for all military personnel. Pvt. Eric Myers, 20, of Elbert, Colo., also was ordered to forfeit $400 in pay. "I stood up for myself and my health,'' Myers said after Thursday's hearing. "I think that's a right people have regardless if they are in the military.'' All 2.4 million active duty and reserve troops are required to get the anthrax vaccine as protection against biological warfare. ..."
New York Times 8/14/99 Philip Shenon "...The Pentagon on Friday announced its first major revision of guidelines for its "don't ask, don't tell" policy on homosexuals in the military, including a new requirement that commanders seek approval from senior civilian officials at the Pentagon before opening certain types of investigations of troops who admit that they are gay. The revised guidelines failed to satisfy gay rights advocates, who say that the new directives do not go far enough and that pervasive hostility toward homosexuals in uniform continues to result in violent harassment. They pointed to last month's brutal murder of an Army private in Kentucky as evidence of the entrenched hostility. Under the guidelines, the Pentagon ordered that commanders institute anti-harassment training at all levels of the military, beginning with basic training, and that low-level military lawyers consult with senior lawyers before opening an investigation of anyone suspected of being gay...."
The Washington Times 8/13/99 Bill Gertz "...Lt. Col. Ralph Zimmermann, a Desert Storm combat veteran, is retiring Jan. 2000..... But we thought Col. Zimmermann's farewell memo to his commanding general at Fort Carson, Colo., was noteworthy. We publish it, in part: "The main reason for my personal doubt is the constantly changing culture in the Army which is becoming more concerned with producing a superficial image of accomplishment, guided by false caring vs. tackling our readiness issues with up-front leadership and firm solutions. "The Army has become a 'social experiment,' geared towards promoting diversity and celebrating individual successes vs. instilling the sense of unity behind the values our Constitution, the flag and our distinguished unit colors.. ..."Programs that ought to be reviewed for overemphasis: * "Sex training" * "Consideration for Others Training. This program, called "COO," teaches soldiers their actions must "indicate a sensitivity to and regard for the feelings and needs of others . . . " * "Overemphasis on superficial inspection items, i.e. chin strap drills, 3x5 PT cards, etc. * "Too much emphasis on simulation to save money in the wrong areas. * "Overemphasis on . . . volunteerism. Most of the social services create an environment that does not emphasize soldier self-discipline, self-help, and maturity. * "Overemphasis on force protection (unfortunately, even life in the civilian world bears some risks). * "Too much emphasis on diversity (Asian week, African American week, Hispanic week etc.). Again, we fail to stress unity vs. diversity. We are all AMERICANS who should be committed to a common purpose - the defense of our nation." ..."
Bad Command Decisions!
First and Only President to put US troops under UN command
Flip Flop Command decisions: Taiwan/China, Somalia, Haiti, Rwanda, Cuba, Bosnia
Failure of US in ICC UN negotiations negotiations cause concern because with U.S. troops deployed in hot spots around the world, Washington fears they could become targets of politically motivated charges.
Letting out secrets on nuclear weapons data improperly filed or stored by executive order - Washington Times Bill Gertz 7/31/98
Aviation Week 10/12/98 David Fulghum ".Senior military officials have been stripped of at least part of their informal but traditional oversight of target and weapons selection in recent attacks launched by the U.S. as well as those being planned against Yugoslavia, say distressed Pentagon-based staff members. One service chief, when asking for details of the raids on Afghanistan and Sudan, was told early in the process, "You don't have the need to know," according to a member of his staff. During the more recent planning for strikes against Yugoslavian targets, these same staff members have complained of a Pentagon atmosphere resembling that during the Vietnam War, when targets and weapons were picked more for political reasons than military effectiveness. They contend that decisions continue to be made without adequate representation by the service chiefs.."
Jewish World Review 10/26/98 Mona Charen ".IN A LARGE ROOM in the basement of the United States Capitol Building, a group of dissidents met last week. They do not fear for their lives, but they are anxious and frustrated nonetheless. It was a gathering sponsored by the Center for Military Readiness to discuss the utter folly of pretending that women are men...Air Force Col. Jim Green told the Express-News, "I'd say we're going into a situation that is four times worse than we've ever seen in the history of our modern Air Force." What has sapped the spirit of the military? Could it be unfair promotion of women at men's expense? Could it be a climate of political correctness in which a male officer risks his career for even noticing that women are consistently under-performing? Could it be resentment that men pick up the slack when women cannot do the "heavy lifting" of military life and then watch in frustration as women are promoted for public relations?."
USA Journal Online Jon E. Dougherty ".since Bill Clinton came to Washington and inherited the role of Commander-in-Chief, many men and women who don a uniform and pledge their lives to protect this country have just about had it with Clinton's PC military experiments..Trying to mainstream gays in the military, the increase in feminization of military regimens, double standards for men and women, and placing women in some combat and combat support roles have led to so much friction that some of our military leaders are breaking tradition and speaking out publicly against their leader...back in 1993, shortly after Clinton took office, some of the highest-ranking service generals began to speak their mind openly about the ignorance of the Clinton administration's most "political" decisions. The debacles in Somalia and Haiti, the never-ending missions in Bosnia, the irresponsible handling of Saddam Hussein, and - most recently - the purely political decision to bomb Afghanistan and Sudan without even consulting military personnel have all led to widespread dissent and a loss of confidence. Besides this foolish adventurism, toss in the equation of increased missions and decreased military budgets and you have a recipe for a military disaster..I hate it that this level of discontent has become so widespread within our military that now even Marines are disobeying their oaths of office to speak out. Even though I disagree with Maj. Sellers' methods, I hear his message and so should the rest of the country. The current state of affairs [no pun intended] in our military forces are a lot more serious than our politically correct military leaders are allowed to tell you."
WSJ 10/27/98 William Moore ".The U.S. military is having a hard time finding and keeping good men. Despite retention bonuses of $60,000 and more, this year the Air Force will again suffer an excessive loss of trained pilots. Naval aviation faces a similar situation.... You can't fool the troops; they know that the military as an institution is being eroded. The American military culture, established through two centuries of tradition, is under attack like it has never been before.. The word war has become almost unspeakable. Now it is heard most often in the context of "operations other than war." .. Military leaders, it seems, have been co-opted by social engineers whose agenda is to promote "equality" rather than to prepare forces for the next war..... The Army has discontinued Basic Combat Training for all new soldiers, replacing it with Initial Entry Training, with less-demanding physical standards so as to accommodate women.. No longer do the best-qualified officers necessarily get promoted. The Army's new Officer Personnel Management System, known as OPMS 21, probably removed the last vestige of that "discriminator.".. And graduation from a service academy no longer affords officers an advantage in appointment to the regular force..."
Investor's Business Daily 10/28/98 Brian Mitchell ".Since then, however, the rift between America's cultural and governmental elites on the one hand and the military rank and file on the other only deepened. Many of Flinn's supporters continue to criticize the military's moral standards as dangerously out of step with current American values. Last November, an assistant secretary of the Army, Sara Lister, was forced to resign after calling the Marines ''extremists.'' .A nonveteran, Ricks writes admiringly of the corps' training but says that graduates of boot camp come away with a jaundiced view of American society. At a recent seminar at the U.S. Naval Academy, Ricks was critical of the military, especially the Marine Corps. ''Every other Marine captain I meet seems to believe that American society is troubled, even collapsing,'' he said. Ricks complained of a ''puritanical swing'' in parts of the military and ''an open religiosity'' of those in uniform. He questioned the professionalism of today's officers, who have become politicized and partisan, in his view.."
USA Journal Online 10/29/98 Jon E. Dougherty ".The Clinton administration has never - not once - demonstrated that it has any clue what the military is really all about and what it's proper role should be. From the early years - when White House staff were caught stealing towels and personal effects from a U.S. aircraft carrier during an official visit - to the bungling of various military operations ranging from Bosnia to Haiti to Sudan to Afghanistan, Bill Clinton and his State Department have given the military far too much to do with the resources Congress has allocated. The result of all this over-deployment has been the mass exodus of experienced personnel, a degradation of overall force readiness in all branches of service, recruiting shortfalls, and worsening economic conditions for our soldiers, sailors and airmen. Clinton seems oblivious to these problems and I say that because he's done nothing to address the issues that created them.."
Wall Street Journal 11/02/98 Thomas E. Ricks Freepr report ".The story describes an incident last week in which the crew of a Blackhawk helicopter was accidently exposed to lasers from US ground troops. The exposure may have caused permanent damage to the eyesight of two crew members. The article also cites another possible laser incident. The article says, "Some U.S. soldiers in Bosnia were disturbed by the lack of timely disclosure". A military spokesman in Bosnia says "no information was released because there had been no media inquiries about the incident". The commander of U.S. forces in Bosnia said: "We didn't see this as newsworthy". "Also (the article says), the Pentagon may not have wanted to call attention to the continuing U. S. mission in Bosnia on the eve of national elections in the U. S." Hack Notes 12/98 Bill Seagraves in a letter to Senator McCain ".As I am sure you are aware Senator, this all started on February 3, 1998, when a Marine Prowler jet struck a gondola cable just north of the Aviano Airbase killing 20 people. An Aircraft Mishap Board ("AMB") was immediately convened by the Squadron (VMAQ-2) in accordance with Standard Operating Procedures ("SOP") and statements were taken from each of the aircrew. The AMB was ordered stopped by direction of President Clinton and a Command Investigation Board convened instead. Before the Command Investigation Board could even be put together, Clinton had ordered a Judge Advocate General ("JAG") Criminal Investigation Board be convened and sent immediately to Aviano Airbase, (Colonel Blickensderfer sworn statement in the second Article 32). The incident occurred on Tuesday and no one from the Marine Corps bothered to contact us until late the following Friday. By then we had already seen all of the bad news the Marine Corps had spun to the media to include the Hard Copy video of a low level flight that had occurred one year prior. Our sons were being chastised by the Commanding Officer, Ltcol. Muegge, for family members contacting the Commandant of the Marine Corps ("CMC") and Congressional Representatives on theirbehalf. Then, when the JAG Board did arrive in Aviano it was clear that the whole process was a witch hunt and guilty until proven innocent was the focus of their investigation. Colonel Carver, the Staff Judge Advocate ("SJA"), made it clear to the aircrews defense attorneys that the aircrew would receive Courts Martials. This occurred on arrival and before the investigation had ever gotten underway.."
Wall Street Journal 12/23/98 Lawrence Kaplan ".The first clue that Operation Desert Fox would pay tribute less to the military style of Erwin Rommel than Robert McNamara came when Defense Secretary William Cohen advised that the U.S. did not intend to target Iraqi chemical and biological weapons facilities. Rather, it would strike runways, air defense sites, radio towers--strike, that is, before Ramadan, and between 10 p.m. and 4 a.m. What the president had billed as a "strong, sustained series of air strikes" was, finally, to be neither strong nor sustained.The finely calibrated four-day bombing campaign would instead be what Mr. Clinton termed a "message to Saddam." And, indeed, in purpose, scope, and duration, the sporadic fusillade directed at Iraq neatly exemplified the president's tendency to employ strictly controlled violence as a means to deliver precision-guided messages. Discarding the Powell Doctrine of overwhelming force that not long ago dominated American thinking about military power, the Clinton team has, from the day it entered office, shown a clear preference for wielding military power neither to subdue nor even to punish, but to prod adversaries to see the error of their ways. Not surprisingly, then, the administration has revived terms like "signals" and "messages," presumed after Vietnam to have been eliminated from the glossary of military affairs..Even if Saddam were guided by purely rational deliberation, why would he fear an air campaign calculated to hurt things, not people? Especially when, if willing to sacrifice a building here, an airfield there, the Iraqi dictator might forever rid himself of UN weapons inspectors? The absence of any intent to link punishment to offense merely encourages America's adversaries to conclude they enjoy more room to maneuver than Oval Office speechifying would suggest--as in fact they do."
Wall Street Journal 1/5/99 James Webb ".It has now been almost three weeks since the otherworldly spectacle of a House impeachment debate taking place at the same time the politically threatened president rained down missiles and bombs on Iraq. Few who follow national-defense issues could restrain their cynicism as a parade of heretofore antimilitary legislators praised the reliability of our military forces and attempted to shame the Republicans for voting to impeach a busy commander-in-chief. But memories are short in Washington. January brings forth the budget from the administration to Congress. And these same legislators are unlikely to be as supportive of our men and women in uniform when it comes to appropriating funds for military spending..."
Wordlenetdaily Col David Hackworth 12/31/98 ".This latest disaster wasn't our troops fault. They deployed flawlessly and then executed a difficult high risk operation with precision and professionalism. The problem was that once again Clinton sent American warriors into danger on a flawed military operation that didn't have a prayer of accomplishing its mission. I don't give the top brass high marks either. They should have challenged the President's harebrained plan, told him it wouldn't accomplish zilch and that in the end things would only be worse. If Clinton then insisted on launching, the Chiefs should have done the right thing and resigned en masse. When was the last time a general or admiral resigned over principle?."
Fort Worth Star-Telegram 1/8/99 J.R. Labbe by Freeper Stand Watch Listen ".Pershing vowed that no American soldier would answer to a foreign commander. If the general were around today to witness the escalating problem of American military personnel trying to serve two masters -- their country and the United Nations -- it would blow the collar brass right off his uniform. The issue came into focus this week after the United States was accused of infiltrating CIA operatives into teams of U.N. Special Commission inspectors to gather intelligence about secret Iraqi weapons programs.."
Washington Post Dana Priest 1/30/99 Page A16 ".As support swells within the administration for sending U.S. troops to Kosovo, senior Pentagon officials expressed willingness yesterday to put them under foreign command in exchange for keeping American participation in the mission small.."
Global Intelligence Update 2/16/99 ".The decision by President Clinton to deploy U.S. forces in Kosovo if a peace agreement is reached in Paris, represents a further deepening of peacekeeping and operations other than war as suitable missions for U.S. armed forces. Deriving from older doctrines of collective security, peacekeeping missions deploy military forces in unanticipated ways. The purpose of a military force is to destroy other military forces. The use of military forces in peacekeeping has less to do with warfare than it has to do with using peacekeepers as hostages to guarantee the peace. The fact is that there is no such thing as a neutral intervention by a superpower and therefore all peacekeeping operations, such as those in Beirut and Somalia, can result in combat. Because the assumption is made that this is an operation other than war, the normal calculus of military power is ignored..Lurking behind the intervention in Somalia is a strange assumption made by U.S. policy makers, which is that no rational party would dare attack U.S. troops on a peacekeeping mission. This assumption is made in spite of the glaring and obvious exception, Beirut. The United States intervened in Beirut in the midst of the Lebanese Civil War and an Israeli invasion. .Somalia demonstrated that regardless of intentions, intervention in a civil war for whatever reason cannot be neutral. The very act of intervention is not only perceived to be, but objectively is, an intervention on behalf of someone. The mere presence of U.S. forces shifts the balance of forces. The result puts U.S. forces in jeopardy. Beirut gives us a sense of how much jeopardy U.S. forces can be in, but the death ofU.S. Army Rangers in Somalia is in itself a painful reminder.."
Associated Press 2/16/99 ".In a statement issued early Wednesday by the official Tanjug news agency, Milosevic said ``our negative stand on the presence of foreign troops is not only the attitude of the leadership, but also of all citizens of our country.'' The deployment of an international force is a take-it-or-leave-it deal proposed by the United States and backed by other powers at the conference outside Paris. As many as 30,000 NATO troops, including some 4,000 American soldiers, would be sent to Kosovo immediately to police the agreement...Advance troops could be in place in Kosovo in a matter of hours with 6,000 to 8,000 more troops quickly following, officials said. The first forces to arrive will probably be 2,200 U.S. Marines currently in the Mediterranean. Plans for the deployment of the main 28,000-man force are expected to be finished by the end of the week. Any American peacekeepers sent to Kosovo would remain until a system of self-rule is ``up and running'' and stability is restored, the Clinton administration said Tuesday. However, other administration officials said the aim is to get the job done within three years.."
The New York Post 3/28/99 Niles Lathem Joe Cunningham "…The loss of a Stealth fighter in Yugoslavia raises big questions about the sophistication of Serbian military technology and may spell disaster for U.S. air operations. It is unclear whether the F-117A jet - the most sophisticated in the American arsenal - crashed or was shot down - which would mean the U.S. has seriously underestimated Serb technology…. The fighter is equipped with a special radar-absorbing skin and contours that reduce radar reflections. These reduce the fighter's size on radar scopes to that of an insect. However, recent trade-press articles have indicated the existence of radar technology that can pick up Stealth fighters…If the Serbs do possess the kind of technology that can target and bring down a Stealth fighter, it means that the next wave of fighter pilots - who will fly much closer to the ground to target tanks and artillery - will be facing extreme peril. In addition, since this is the first time a Stealth fighter has gone down in enemy territory, it will give the Serbs the chance to further study its technology…."
Associated Press 4/1/99 "...Military officials worry that the lofty status gained by air power in the Persian Gulf War declines with each day that ethnic atrocities continue in Kosovo despite daily NATO airstrikes. Air Force officers and an active fraternity of retired air commanders bitterly blame the Clinton administration for returning to the incremental use of force that failed to bring Hanoi to heel in the Vietnam War. ``When you fly less than 50 bombing sorties per day for seven days, you're not serious about what you're doing,'' said retired Air Force Gen. Buster Glosson, one of the key planners of the Persian Gulf War air campaign. ``At best it's sporadic bombing.'' ..."
USA TODAY 3/15/99 Andrea Stone "…White women are leaving the military before the end of their first enlistment at a far greater rate than any other group, Defense Department statistics show. The numbers, obtained by USA TODAY, show that 43% of white women fail to complete their first enlistment because of physical problems, pregnancy, failure to adapt to the military or other reasons. By contrast, just a third of black women, black men and white men are discharged during their first enlistment. Slightly fewer Hispanics, 31% of women and 26% of men, don't complete their first term. The average enlistment is three years; enlistments vary from two to six years. Defense officials say they cannot explain the phenomenon, but they find it worrisome at a time when the all-volunteer military is having difficulty filling its ranks…."
Air Force Times 3/22/99 Robert Dorr Freeper Stand Watch Listen "…At the end of his speech, Defense Secretary William Cohen clenched a fist, raised his arm and let out the infantry soldier's spirited battle cry: "Hooah!" The Pentagon's top civilian leader clearly expected his audience to raise its voices to the rafters in response. But no one reacted. The military audience stared at the secretary. Some looked at their feet. Cohen, a brilliant man of enormous personal charm, had just missed his mark, as surely as a missile that overshoots its target and flies astray…."
Forbes 3/22/99 Caspar Weinberger Freeper Stand Watch Listen "…ONE OF THE ACHIEVEMENTS of which Ronald Reagan was proudest was the extraordinary turnaround in the morale of the Armed Forces. At the Senate confirmation hearings for my appointment as Secretary of Defense, I was asked many times if the Administration would favor reinstating the draft. Low morale had seriously reduced the number of voluntary enlistments, and many in the services were not willing to reenlist. We adamantly opposed reinstating the draft; it had rent the social fabric of the country during the Vietnam War.....our military effectiveness is on a par with that of the 1970s. We can no longer carry out the basic mission that both parties have long accepted as a benchmark: the ability to fight and win two regional wars simultaneously…."
Catholic World News 3/16/99 Freeper marshmallow "…A group representing homosexual members of the US armed forces said on Monday that harassment of homosexuals in the military more than doubled last year because of the Clinton administration's "don't ask, don't tell" policy…."
Wall Street Journal 3/15/99 John Yoo "…As this seems to be the season to renounce the misguided reforms of the 1970s, such as the independent-counsel law, it is an opportune time to hail the de facto end of another Watergate-era law--the War Powers Resolution. Although the 1973 law hasn't been repealed, the Clinton administration has acted as if it doesn't exist. The resolution mandates that the president can exercise his commander-in-chief powers only if there is a declaration of war, specific authorization from Congress, or a national emergency created by attack on American forces or territory. It requires the president to consult with Congress before introducing American forces into hostilities, to report a deployment within 48 hours, and to withdraw those troops within 60 days of the report…When it comes to the use of the American military, no president has a quicker trigger finger than Mr. Clinton. Since December 1995, some 20,000 American troops have implemented the peace accords in Bosnia. American planes and missiles attack Iraq on an almost daily basis, as well as enforce a no-fly zone. Last summer, Mr. Clinton used cruise missiles to bomb terrorist targets in Sudan and Afghanistan. In 1994, he ordered 16,000 troops into Haiti to enforce its transition to civilian government. In 1993, Mr. Clinton expanded the goals of the 28,000 American troops in Somalia, originally deployed by Mr. Bush for humanitarian reasons, but then withdrew them after the deaths of soldiers in combat. On Mr. Clinton's watch American troops have participated in U.N. peacekeeping missions in dangerous places such as Macedonia and Rwanda. These operations have cost taxpayers billions of dollars, not to mention lost lives--and not once did the Clinton administration go to Congress for permission…."
National Review 3/16/99 Ramesh Ponnuru, John Miller Kate Dwyer Freeper Marcellus "…the Commission on Military Training and Gender-Related Issues was stacked with feminists. In its report ... it predictably concludes that co-ed basic training should continue. To arrive at this conclusion it must ignore not only the Baker commission’s research but its own. One commissioner ... noted the "overwhelming consensus among trainers that something is seriously flawed in gender-integrated training." For instance, high injury and dropout rates for women trainees, sexual distractions, and physical double standards.... Al Kamen’s "In the Loop" column ... zinged Dan Quayle because, omigod, his website screws up a phone number.... The header: "1-800-POT-ATOE." Hilarious. No, this isn’t liberal bias. It’s just a cheap shot…."
Wall Street Journal 3/24/99 Stephanie Gutmann "… For the third time in two years, a government-sponsored panel has examined the effectiveness of "gender integrated training" in the U.S. military--the practice of mixing young men and women for boot camp in every service but the Marines. ....at a time of crisis-level attrition and more missions than ever before (e.g., Kosovo), the military is stuck with a policy that makes the situation worse. The services are in the middle of a personnel shortage as bad as after the Vietnam War; last year every service but the Marines came up thousands short of recruitment goals, despite relaxed recruiting standards, a more generous GI Bill and snazzier ad campaigns. "There is something going on out there in the force we can't put our finger on," one Army officer was quoted as saying. What's going on is that sex integration in "initial entry training" has devastated morale and recruitment…."
Washington Post 3/28/99 Andrew Bacevich "…Despite its ostensible devotion to peace, the Clinton administration has made the use of force routine. Beginning with a cruise missile assault against Baghdad in June 1993 (the first of several all-but-forgotten pinprick attacks against Iraq), Clinton has fought (and lost) a sharp skirmish with Mohammed Farah Aideed in Somalia; occupied Haiti; bombed Bosnian Serbs who defied American efforts to broker a Balkan peace; placed U.S. troops at the forefront of a NATO-led incursion into Bosnia; inaugurated a highly publicized war on terror by obliterating a pharmaceutical factory in Sudan and a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan; threatened, postponed and then in December 1998 executed a "major" air campaign against Iraq, the prelude to a war of attrition that has continued ever since; threatened, postponed and now executed a large-scale bombing campaign to punish Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic for not signing the peace agreement proffered last month in Rambouillet, France. By almost any measure, this list of events (which omits confrontations with China and North Korea) constitutes a striking record of military activism in an era of relative peace….Among Republicans and Democrats alike, there are those who find much to applaud in the approach to using force revealed by Clinton's dual air campaigns: a chief executive eager to tap the robust powers of his office, pursuing an assertive foreign policy and willing to flex America's muscle by capitalizing on the high-tech arsenal that embodies the nation's strong suit. Those inclined toward such a view can take heart from the fact that the doomsayers were mostly wrong to predict that Clinton's earlier military adventures would end in disaster. Those failed predictions no doubt have contributed to the public perception, confirmed by recent polls, that the president is a master of statecraft. Maybe so. The rest of us are left wondering, however, when Clinton's luck--and America's--will run out…."
Capitol Hill Blue 3/31/99 Doug Thompson "…As military strategists concede the war in Kosovo may be unwinnable, the Pentagon is running low on its supply of cruise missiles. Retired Gen. Colin Powell joined the chorus of those who said the war can't be won in the air, telling a audience at Virginia Tech Tuesday the U.S. and NATO will have to use ground troops if they want to win. And the Pentagon is reluctantly admitting that things haven't gone as expected. "I think right now, it is difficult to say that we have prevented one act of brutality at this stage," Defense Department spokesman Kenneth Bacon told reporters Tuesday. In fact, military planners say that after six days of strikes, the bombing has, at best, inflicted only "minimal damage" on Yugoslavian military sites. And the US is running out of its primary weapon -- cruise missiles…."The US and NATO entered this conflict without a sound strategy and now they're paying for it," says retired Air Force General Matthew Higgins. "When you fight a war for political reasons, without a sound military plan, you end up with a conflict you can't win." At the Pentagon, military strategists admit privately they were pushed into the Kosovo campaign by a President eager to prove his manhood and divert attention away from the many scandals that have plagued his administration. "This is President Clinton's war," one high ranking officer says, "and we all know how much military experience the President has." …."
NY Post 4/1/99 Deborah Orin "...KOSOVO has sent an uneasy question rippling through Washington: whether President Clinton is up to the job of commander-in-chief at a time of war. "Here's the question: Is there something about this man and his experience that causes him to see the use of military power in a very narrow, almost one-dimensional view?" says military analyst Dan Goure. "It's almost like a kid's view - I got the bigger gun and I shot you, so you have to fall down. It lacks any sense of the complexity involved in the application of military power or the second-order consequences, like the fact that bombing hardens the will of your adversary."...He had U.S. ships turn tail in Haiti when a few thugs threatened from the wharf. Later, a Haiti invasion was averted when an 11th-hour mission, led by Colin Powell, won a deal for troops to enter peacefully....."
Washington Post 4/2/99 Charles Krauthammer "...Objective 1: "We act to protect thousands of innocent people in Kosovo from a mounting military offensive" (televised address, March 24). It is not just that the opposite has happened: savage ethnic cleansing, executions of Kosovar Albanian leaders, the forced expulsion of more than 100,000 Kosovars. That would merely imply gross presidential miscalculation. But the supreme allied commander of NATO, Gen. Wesley Clark, asserts that from the beginning "we never thought that through air power we could stop these killings on the ground." Question: "Did you tell President Clinton . . . there is no way we can stop that kind of thing with a bombing campaign alone?" Gen. Clark: "That's been said many times, and everybody understands that." And yet Clinton publicly ruled out ground troops, thus declaring that there would be nothing but an air campaign. So he starts a campaign to protect Kosovar civilians knowing all along, says NATO's top general, that "you can't stop paramilitaries going house to house with supersonic aircraft flying overhead and dropping bombs." ..."
Washington Post 4/2/99 Charles Krauthammer "...Objective 2: To keep the Kosovo conflict from blowing up and destabilizing the neighboring countries. "All around Kosovo, there are other small . . . countries that could be overwhelmed by a large new wave of refugees from Kosovo" (March 24 address, again). He meant Albania, Macedonia, and the Yugoslav republic of Montenegro -- every one of which is now overwhelmed by a large new wave of Kosovar refugees created since the start of Clinton's Balkan adventure. ....Every one of Kosovo's neighbors that Clinton was claiming to stabilize is being destabilized...."
Washington Post 4/2/99 Charles Krauthammer "...Objective 3: "We act to prevent a wider war; to defuse a powder keg in the heart of Europe that exploded twice before in this century with catastrophic results." Goodness. Where does this man get his history? World War II was not remotely caused by the Balkans. And World War I was caused not by clashing ethnics in the Balkans, but by the catastrophic decision of the Great Powers to intervene and choose sides among the contestants for Balkan power. Sound familiar?.... the fact remains that Clinton, intending to contain a minor civil war, has overnight internationalized it. ..."
Washington Post 4/2/99 Charles Krauthammer "...Objective 4: To preserve NATO. Well, NATO did rather well, thank you, for 50 years without launching any wars against sovereign states. The greatest threat to NATO right now is that the Serbia campaign will fail. The Clinton administration, ever seeking to do good, has staked NATO unity and credibility on its ability to pacify the Balkans, a task never accomplished in the century except by Marshal Tito. And he needed all the delicate machinery of a police state to do it. ...."
Defense Daily 4/2/99 Vago Muradian Freeper Stand Watch Listen "...EXCERPTS "The wreckage of the F-117 stealth fighter that crashed in Yugoslavia on Saturday should have been destroyed by either precision munitions or special operations forces to prevent potential foes from getting hold of parts of the sophisticated aircraft that could lead to the development of stealthy foreign systems, according to military officers and Pentagon officials....."I've have talked to a lot of people about why we didn't pour PGMs [precision-guided munitions] on it [the wreckage], but I haven't gotten any good answers because once you get the pilot out of there, you blow the thing to smithereens. The two reasons for that are that none of the parts are exploited, and second, you eliminate propaganda value to the enemy, which, as you can see by watching TV, they've made a lot of."..."
AFP 4/2/99 Freeper Brian Mosely "...Belgrade is prepared to give Russia remains of the US F-117 Stealth plane shot down in northern Serbia, Yugoslav Defense Minister Pavle Bulatovic told a visiting Russian parliamentary delegation, the state agency Tanjug reported...."
Columbia (SC) State 3/30/99 Dave Moniz Freeper Stand Watch Listen "...As American and NATO warplanes scream across Yugoslavia, some former commanders are reminded more of the ineffectual bombing of North Vietnam than the aerial paralysis that left Iraq smoldering in 1991. Instead of massive, unrelenting waves of jets destroying communications, power grids and the heart of Iraqi command centers, NATO allies are attacking Yugoslav targets incrementally, much like the Vietnam War....."This is an amateur operation," says John Warden, a retired Air Force colonel who helped design the bombing campaign against Iraq during the Gulf War. Warden characterizes the bombing of Yugoslavia as "pure Vietnam," a campaign orchestrated by an administration that hasn't learned the failed lessons of "gradualism" in using military force..."
Long Island Newsday 4/1/99 Adrian Peracchio Freeper Stand Watch Listen "...THE "C" WORD is getting bandied around while bombs are dropping in the Balkans. In the White House, at the Pentagon and in the council chambers of the NATO alliance in Brussels, they are talking about credibility. And about what it will take, in the face of the unraveling disaster in Kosovo, to defend the credibility of President Bill Clinton, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and, by extension, the credibility of the world's only superpower and the almighty Atlantic alliance......The only thing missing so far from the Balkan mess is serious mention of the "E" word -- escalation. We can only hope that if escalation does occur, it will have different results in the Balkans that in Southeast Asia. But don't count on that, either...."
STRATFOR's Global Intelligence Update 4/2/99 "...1715 GMT, 990402 - The American media is suddenly being filled with stories about how senior military officers originally opposed the Kosovo campaign but were overruled by the White House. Stories are appearing in sources from the Washington Post to Agence France Presse. The stories, clearly originating in the defense community, portray the White House as heedless of military warnings about the mission, including warnings that the air campaign cannot by itself achieve its goals. The importance of these articles is that they give a sense of the underlying mood in Washington. Fingers are already being pointed with the military making it very plain, very publicly that this campaign was generated by the civilian staff in the White House and not by them. This is partly a preemptive campaign to prevent the White House from accusing the military of letting them down. It is also an expression of genuine rage on the part of military leaders at having been forced to mount a campaign that they knew to be ineffective...."
The New York Times 4/4/99 Eric Schmitt "...Remember the Powell Doctrine? That was the strict and cautious set of standards espoused by Gen. Colin Powell when he was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for determining where, when and how U.S. military force should be used. It held that the United States should intervene militarily only when the nation's vital interests were at stake, only with decisive force and only when there was a clear goal and a defined strategy for getting out. But after the 1991 Persian Gulf war, those tenets were discarded as Vietnam-era relics that raised barriers to military intervention too high to suit the realities of today's world. "What's the point of having this superb military that you've always been talking about if we can't use it?" Madeleine Albright, now secretary of state, demanded of Powell when she was the country's United Nations ambassador. So the Clinton administration embraced Albright's "Doability Doctrine" -- that the United States should use its military power in more flexible ways to achieve practical, if limited, goals. Successes in providing relief to Rwanda, mounting air strikes in Bosnia and restoring some semblance of democracy in Haiti helped bolster the new thinking. Until now...."
NewYork Post 4/4/99 Deborah Orin "...KOSOVO has sent an uneasy question rippling through Washington: whether President Clinton is up to the job of commander-in-chief at a time of war. "Here's the question: Is there something about this man and his experience that causes him to see the use of military power in a very narrow, almost one-dimensional view?" says military analyst Dan Goure. "It's almost like a kid's view - I got the bigger gun and I shot you, so you have to fall down. It lacks any sense of the complexity involved in the application of military power or the second-order consequences, like the fact that bombing hardens the will of your adversary." ....Clinton & Co. seem totally dumbfounded that Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic is just as thuggishly evil as their rhetoric claimed. Why are they so surprised? One day after the airstrikes began, Clinton was playing word games about what victory means - it went down from the "moral imperative" to save the Kosovars to just "degrading" Milosevic's war machine. And there was the president this week, out playing golf - he talked to world leaders between shots - at the very same moment U.S. pilots were flying over Yugoslavia. Did that send a message of firm purpose? Some analysts say the problem is that neither Clinton nor any of his closest national security advisers has any personal experience in war. Clinton's strategy as commander-in-chief has been to avoid using ground troops - thus avoiding the risk that critics could point to his own Vietnam draft-dodging and ask why he was sending others into the line of fire. For example: *Early on, he yanked U.S. troops out of Somalia after thugs dragged a soldier's body through a dusty street to humiliate America. *He had U.S. ships turn tail in Haiti when a few thugs threatened from the wharf. Later, a Haiti invasion was averted when an 11th-hour mission, led by Colin Powell, won a deal for troops to enter peacefully. *Clinton nixed airstrikes in Bosnia until he risked embarrassment, because then-Senate GOP leader Bob Dole and Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman, horrified by Serbian atrocities, had enough votes to OK arms for Bosnia's Muslims even over a Clinton veto..... The bottom line: A sense that war can be conducted like a PAC-man computer game, where the other side can't retaliate and the video shows unmanned missiles striking targets with unerring accuracy....."
Washington Post 4/5/99 Bradley Graham"... In the weeks before NATO launched its air campaign against Yugoslavia, U.S. military chiefs expressed deep reservations about the Clinton administration's approach to Kosovo and warned that bombing alone likely would not achieve its political aims, according to sources familiar with their thinking. The Pentagon's senior four-star officers, meeting in closed-door sessions in the Pentagon's secure "tank" room, argued that the administration should use more economic sanctions and other non-military levers to compel Belgrade to make peace in the rebellious Serbian province before resorting to airstrikes. They also complained about what they saw as the lack of a long-term vision for the Balkans and questioned whether U.S. national interests there were strong enough to merit a military confrontation. "I think it's safe to say that I don't think anybody felt like there had been a compelling argument made that all of this was in our national interest," said one senior officer knowledgeable about the deliberations.... Ultimately, the chiefs agreed unanimously last month to go along with airstrikes, embracing the administration's view that U.S. leadership in NATO had to be preserved and that the looming humanitarian catastrophe in Kosovo had to be addressed, the sources said. But the earlier hesitations had been forwarded to President Clinton and his aides, and reports from the White House have said doubts from the military were weighed in the final decision to go to war....."
Washington Times Weekly Edition 4/5-11/99 Rowan Scarborough "…Senior Air Force and Navy officers are disappointed with the slow pace of NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, as the alliance for the second time announced on March 31 it was stepping up a campaign that so far has failed to achieve Western objectives.
A senior Air Force officer said in an interview that allied forces generated an average of 48 combat sorties a day in the first week, which is fewer than on the first day of the 1991 air war against Iraq. The officer told of Air Force officers in the European theater who say the campaign to date "is a disgrace." "Senior military officers think that the tempo is so disgustingly slow it makes us look inept," said this officer. Targets hit so far are insufficient to break the will of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. The officer said targeters must get broad approval for their target selections from NATO political bureaucrats in Brussels The U.S. Air Force officer said the bombing has primarily been assigned to the Air Force. Air Force pilots have flown 84 percent of sorties --defined as one combat flight -- while the allies account for 10 percent and the U.S. Navy the remaining 6 percent…."
USA Today 4/6/99 Mimi Hall Susan Page Freeper Stand Watch Listen "…And now the sniping isn't coming just from the sidelines. President Clinton's credibility as commander in chief is being undermined from within by military leaders who are making it known that they have deep reservations. Monday was Day 13 of Operation Allied Force, and when Clinton faced the cameras once again to defend his decision to use limited airstrikes, he presented a picture of a man very much alone as he copes with the most difficult and dangerous foreign policy crisis of his career....Monday's Washington Post reported that the Joint Chiefs of Staff had "expressed deep reservations about the Clinton administration's approach to Kosovo and warned that bombing alone likely would not achieve its political aims." In the weeks before the air attacks began, the military chiefs were said to have argued for tougher economic sanctions and questioned whether U.S. interests were really at stake…."
The Nation 4/19/99 Michael T. Klare "….President Clinton's decision to use military force against the Serbs was not simply a calculated response to Slobodan Milosevic's intransigence. A careful reading of recent Administration statements and Pentagon documents shows that the NATO bombing is part of a larger strategic vision. That vision has three basic components. The first is an increasingly pessimistic appraisal of the global security environment….. The second component is the assumption that as a global power with far-flung economic interests, the United States has a vested interest in maintaining international stability…..The third component is a conviction that to achieve global stability, the United States must maintain sufficient forces to conduct simultaneous military operations in widely separated areas of the world against multiple adversaries, and it must revise its existing security alliances--most of which, like NATO, are defensive in nature--so that they can better support US global expeditionary operations. Combined, these three propositions constitute a new strategic template for the US military establishment….. Less public, but no less significant, is the US effort to convert NATO from a defensive alliance in Western Europe into a regional police force governed by Washington. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright first unveiled this scheme this past December at a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Brussels. Claiming that missile-armed "rogue states" pose as great a threat to Europe as the Warsaw Pact once did, Albright called on NATO to extend its operational zone into distant areas and to combat a wide range of emerging threats. "Common sense tells us," she said, "that it is sometimes better to deal with instability when it is still at arm's length than to wait until it is at our doorstep." …"
National Post 4/7/99 Peter Goodspeed "…Despite the protestations of Lloyd Axworthy, the Foreign Minister, and other NATO leaders that they could not foresee the massive ethnic cleansing of Kosovo, U.S. newspaper reports indicate NATO officials were warned weeks ahead of time that military action against Yugoslavia might well unleash a bloodbath. While the western alliance was still pondering its war plans last October and tentatively studying proposals for both an air and ground war against Yugoslavia, U.S. intelligence officials are said to have predicted the mass human exodus that has now occurred. Weeks before the NATO air campaign began, George Tenet, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, forecast that Serb-led Yugoslav forces might respond by accelerating their campaign of ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, the Washington Post reported. Quoting sources within the American administration, the newspaper says CIA officials repeatedly raised the possibility of an expanded Serbian ethnic-cleansing campaign if the West threatened Belgrade militarily. When Bill Clinton, the U.S. president, was presented with a military report last October that warned him a ground war in Yugoslavia would require as many as 200,000 NATO troops, an accompanying CIA study predicted two possible outcomes -- a stepped-up campaign of ethnic cleansing against Kosovo's ethnic Albanians, or a quick yielding by Yugoslavia once force was applied. Mr. Tenet apparently repeated the CIA's warnings in congressional hearings in early February. At the same time, The New York Times reports that "Pentagon planners . . . said they warned the administration publicly and privately that Mr. Milosevic was likely to strike out viciously against the Kosovo Albanians . . ." U.S. military leaders are said to have expressed deep reservations about the Clinton administration's approach to Kosovo and repeatedly warned the White House that if the Serbs did launch a final all-out assault on Kosovo's Albanians, air power alone would not be sufficient to stop it…."This outcome was guaranteed by the public announcements by President Clinton that ground troops would not be committed," he added…."
New York Times 4/13/99 Richard Haass "...Increasingly it seems that the Clinton Administration's foreign policy is intended to minimize risks rather than maximize results. The result is bad politics and bad policy. Take the debate about ground troops in Kosovo. After weeks of ruling out their use, the Clinton Administration is now sending mixed messages. On Sunday, Administration officials, including Gen. Henry Shelton, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, suggested that plans for ground troops exist and could be taken off the shelf at any time. Yesterday, Defense Secretary William Cohen said that the air attacks are increasingly effective, while reiterating General Shelton's comments about ground troops. What's going on here? It seems as if foreign policy is being driven by public opinion. News photos of suffering Albanian refugees have had an enormous impact on the American people; opinion polls indicate that about half of them now favor sending ground forces into Kosovo. But the Administration also seems to have no confidence that popular support would survive the first casualties. This is no way to make foreign policy -- or win a war. It is one thing to rule out ground troops because they are not needed. It is something else again to reject them out of fear that the American people will not back their use.... "
ABC NEWS 4/12/99 Freeper Rodger Schultz "...ABCNEWS has learned the Serbs may be benefiting from insider information. U.S. and NATO officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they suspect a spy deep inside NATO is informing Yugoslav authorities before some air raids...."
Associated Press 4/13/99 Tom Cohen "...Serb infantry troops crossed into Albania Tuesday, exchanged fire with Albanian border police and seized control of a border village, Albania's interior minister said. The seized village was Kremica, which has come under Serb shelling over the past several days. There were no immediate reports on destruction or casualties...."
Associated Press 4/13/99 Robert Burns "...Why hasn't NATO hit harder? "The politicians are absolutely scared to death they will lose the political support, which was thin to begin with, if body bags start coming home," said retired Adm. Leighton Smith, who oversaw NATO's brief and successful 1995 air campaign in Bosnia, which led to the Dayton peace accords. He wasn't talking about sending ground troops; he was referring to more use of air power. Smith says pilots are trained to take great risks in combat but that U.S. and allied politicians put a higher priority on avoiding NATO casualties and minimizing "collateral damage," the military euphemism for civilian death and destruction. "We let (fear of) collateral damage outweigh the desire to kick this guy in the butt and get his attention," Smith said. The Pentagon also sees benefits in limiting Serb troop casualties...."
Drudge 4/9/99 Bill Gertz Freeper Thanatos "...The State Department is trying to get the Pentagon to pick up the millions of dollars in costs for helping the 1.3 million displaced Kosovar Albanians being forced from their homes and out of the country. The Pentagon is adamant: No. State officials say the refugees are covered by the Geneva Convention, but the Pentagon says the laws of war do not cover these refugees. State is organizing the scheduled flight of some 20,000 refugees from the Balkans to the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, aboard U.S. military and commercially chartered aircraft. State also tried to get the Pentagon to pick up the costs of Haitian refugees who fled that island and also were resettled for a time at Guantanamo. "Once again the State Department and Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright created a mess and they want the Pentagon to pick up the pieces," said one official...."
ROBERT NOVAK SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST 4/8/99 "... I received a call March 23 from a national security source who told me of secret U.S. intelligence that Serb forces were prepared to abduct American troops stationed in Macedonia. I could not confirm the tip, and besides, it seemed inconceivable that the U.S. military would permit this to happen. Wrong indeed. On March 31, three American soldiers were seized along the Macedonia-Kosovo border in an incident drenched with ambiguity and mystery. Sen. John Warner, the Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has departed from his steadfast support of the U.S.-NATO attacks on Yugoslavia to raise serious questions about what in the world the American troops were doing the day they were taken prisoner.
No answers have been given to Warner, but the most haunting question is unasked: Why was the intelligence report on the danger of abduction ignored? The chairman, a former secretary of the Navy and a stalwart friend of the military, did not ask simply because he did not know. The warning was not shared with him...."
Washington Times 4/23/99 Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough Freeper Stand Watch Listen "...The State Department wants the Pentagon to order more U.S. military personnel to take part in yet another peacekeeping operation, this one inside the unstable former Soviet Republic of Georgia, according to our informants...."
Chicago Tribune 4/22/99 Bob Kemper Freeper Stand Watch Listen "...EXCERPTS "Army Lt. Gen. William Odom had been examining President Clinton's attack plan for Yugoslavia and was blunt. "This is an irresponsible plan," he said. "As a professional military person, I could not approve it." Air Force Maj. Gen. George B. Harrison had his own doubts. "We can't predict how this is going to turn out," he said ominously, turning to a television camera, "but it really has some disturbing possibilities." Odom and Harrison are no longer active-duty generals, but they still command attention--on television as military analysts for CNN, MSNBC and other news operations. They are part of a battalion of retired military officers who once spent long hours in the War Room learning the intimate details of American military doctrine and who now share that knowledge with the world on non-stop news programs and talk shows. "..."
Washington Post 4/25/99 William M. Arkin Freeper Lonnie "...The Air Force is the main player in Operation Allied Force and provides most of the planes, but its role is decidedly passive. It is in reality an administrator of the air war, neither in charge of the target selection nor in control of the overall strategy. Those functions are retained by the North Atlantic Council--the decision-making body of NATO--and Gen. Wesley Clark, the U.S. Army officer who commands Operation Allied Force...."
Washington Times 4/30/99 Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough "...Military planners and regional commanders in chief (Cincs) are beginning to worry there may not be enough forces to handle new conflicts with Iraq or North Korea because of the war in the Balkans. The Pentagon is sending forces from the Persian Gulf and the Pacific to NATO. The drawdown has stretched the U.S. presence thin, according to a senior U.S. government national security official. "We are eroding our ability to deter a North Korean missile attack or invasion of the South, and we are lessening the pressure against Saddam,'' the official said. ..."The problem is that we used to be able to fight and win two regional conflicts, but under Clinton we have gone to one and a half and now one." The pinch is not limited to military forces. Intelligence resources also are stretched thin due to drawdowns of intelligence resources under the Clinton administration. Satellites that focus on the Middle East and the Pacific have been shifted to the Balkans, leaving bare spots in coverage of those parts of the world. Analysts also are being taken off other regions and put to work on Serbia...."
American Forces Press Service 4/30/99 Jim Garamone "...Up to 33,102 reserve component members can be called to active duty for Operation Allied Force under a presidential selected reserve call-up signed April 27 by President Clinton..... The services are also authorized to invoke Stop-Loss programs that would suspend service members' normal separation dates from active duty. The Air Force will invoke the Stop-Loss program; personnel most affected are pilots, air crews, aircraft maintenance personnel and those in other critical specialties. Air Force Maj. Gen. Susan Pamerleau, director of personnel forces management on the Air Staff, said the service invoked Stop-Loss as a matter of fairness because of the large number of reservists being called up. She said, however, that Stop-Loss will specifically target those in critical specialties needed for the operation...."
LA Times 4/30/99 Peter Gosselin "...WASHINGTON--The U.S. military, strained by continuing operations against Iraq as well as NATO's bombing campaign in Yugoslavia, is running low on some of the very weapons it needs to fight the wars of its choice. The nation's stockpile of cruise missiles--the most versatile of the current generation of "smart" weapons--is being depleted by the unexpectedly large number of attacks--and at a time when there are no production lines in operation. .... More recently, Navy officials have said they are replenishing supplies of a sea-launched version of the cruise missile--called the Tomahawk--by, among other things, refurbishing some 200 older missiles now in storage. "We need more than we have in order to be comfortable," said John Douglass, assistant Navy secretary for research and acquisitions until he left in September to become president of the Aerospace Industries Assn. "It's gradually dawning on all of us that the mean time between crises where we might want to use them is much shorter than anybody thought a few years ago." ...The Clinton administration has asked for $6 billion to pay for the current campaign, almost 10% of it for missiles. "We're short across the board in munitions, and this is the time to do something about it," said Rep. Duncan Hunter, (R-El Cajon), chairman of the House Armed Services subcommittee on procurement...."If there is anything we have learned in the last decade, it is that we cannot bomb indiscriminately because of the public backlash," said Loren Thompson, a defense analyst with the Lexington Institute, a Washington think tank. Most analysts estimate that 90% of the weapons used so far in the Yugoslav conflict have been precision-guided. "All of a sudden, the Air Force has got a new role," said Frank Robbins, director of precision strike systems at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida...."
stratfor.com 4/29/99 Freeper henbane "2109 GMT, 990429 - Operation Allied Force has taken a toll on the U.S. Air Force's inventory of key precision munitions. Speaking at a reporter's breakfast, Air Force General Richard Hawley, head of the Air Combat Command, said that the munitions have been used up so fast that the air force is having trouble keeping them in stock. Hawley said that the air force has accelerated production of the satellite-guided Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAM), carried by the B-2 stealth bomber, but it will be "touch and go" as to whether they run out before new ones are delivered next month. As well, he also noted that conventional air-launched cruise missiles (CALCM) also are in short supply and no new ones are scheduled to be delivered until September. Hawley, who is near retirement, also expressed the air force's uneasiness with the political constraints under which the air war is being fought, and concern that air power is being discredited by a strategy that has failed to use it to full advantage. "Clearly in our air force doctrine, air power works best when it's used decisively. Shock, mass are the way to achieve early results," he said. "Clearly because of the constraints in this operation we haven't seen that at this point. ..."
Insight 5/24/99 Jamie Dettmer Vol. 15, No. 19 "...How many American casualties would be acceptable, if President Clinton decides on a ground war in Yugoslavia? That's a question members of the House Armed Services Committee found themselves considering during a briefing the CIA gave them on the eve of the NATO summit. According to Langley, they should expect at least a 10 percent casualty rate -- in short, a loss of 10,000 to 15,000 soldiers, depending on American force strength in an allied army. The exact size of an American contribution to a possible NATO force is, of course, unclear at this stage. But most military experts -- and Clinton administration officials -- privately acknowledge that the overwhelming bulk of any force would have to come from the United States...While the military briefings are more public relations in nature, lawmakers are fully aware of the discontent sweeping the Pentagon. Some top Air Force generals are appalled at how the Clinton administration has seized on bombing as a panacea for overseas problems. They also are criticizing Army Gen. Wesley Clark, NATO's supreme commander. Like some lawmakers who recently visited Europe with Secretary of State William Cohen, they harbor fears that Clark is becoming "intemperate" in the face of pressure and are shocked at his gung-ho suggestion of bombing Russian tankers in the event they continue to transport fuel to Montenegrin ports....."
Wall Street Journal 5/4/99 M. Thomas Davis "...According to Pentagon doctrine, the operation in Kosovo meets the definition of a "small-scale contingency," one that U.S. forces should be able to handle while remaining ready for their primary mission of fighting two major theater wars "nearly simultaneously." These small wars, however, have disproportionately large implications for the military forces. In its latest moves, the military has activated more than 30,000 reservists and assigned 300 additional aircraft for the Kosovo operation, bringing the number of U.S. warplanes taking part in Allied Force to nearly 1,000. This is nearly half the number of aircraft used against Iraq in 1991, an astonishing figure considering that Belgrade's forces are approximately one-tenth the size of Baghdad's and occupy an operational area one-fourth as large. By these measures, American air forces are proportionately much more heavily committed against Slobodan Milosevic than they were against Saddam Hussein. And this does not account for those aircraft sill patrolling the contentious no-fly zones in northern and southern Iraq or the B-2 bombers flying 31-hour missions to the Balkans from their home base in Whitman, Mo...."
Washington Times 5/4/99 Bruce Fein Freeper Stand Watch Listen "...Presidential wars like the ongoing bombing of Yugoslavia are likely to escalate as the new millennium unfolds. What has changed from the past is the demise of the Soviet empire. During the Cold War, presidents were deterred from cavalier or ill-considered wars where the national security interests of the United States were trivial less by constitutional restraints than by fear of Soviet retaliation or countermeasures. It seems inconceivable, for instance, that President Clinton would have unleashed war against Slobodan Milosevic if the Soviet Union were still a superpower. Remember the submissiveness of the United States to its 1956 invasion of Hungary, its 1961 construction of the Berlin Wall, and its 1968 squelching of "Prague Spring." And the 1975 genocide in Cambodia graphically captured in "The Killing Fields" left the United States unmoved, although Pol Pot's human rights provocation was vastly greater than the human rights abuses President Clinton has invoked to justify his Yugoslav war....."
The Limbaugh Letter 5/99 "...Rush: All right. On Kosovo - tell me, is there anything that we've done right so far? Hackworth: In terms of military operations that my country has been engaged in, since the Republic was formed, we have never screwed one up bigger. There are nine principles of war, beginning with surprise, simplicity, mass maneuver and so on. We have succeeded in violating every one of them. So we're backing into the war in a typical Clinton way, with our butt first. We've just so badly exposed ourselves. We've telegraphed everything we're doing. Look at CNN, and you can see the number of aircraft that are going in. These are our intentions. We say we won't use ground troops, and we didn't pre-position them, which would have taken three or four months. So Serbia knows he can go and fight his battle on the ground, and so widely disperse his tactical formations, because he doesn't have to use them to defend in a tight array for a ground attack. He can spread them out. That negates the effectiveness of the air campaign. They can't find the tanks, they can't find the artillery pieces, because they're buried in the forest or buried in houses and so on. So far, Rush, we've succeeded in doing nothing right...."
Chicago Sun-Times 5/6/99 Bob Novak "...Who is responsible for an air offensive that is building anti-American anger across Europe without breaking the Serbian regime's will? The blame rests heavily on Gen. Wesley Clark, the NATO supreme commander. After 40 days, U.S.-dominated NATO air strikes no longer even pretend to aim solely at military targets. Pentagon sources admit that the attacks on the city center of Belgrade are intended to so demoralize ordinary citizens that they force President Slobodan Milosevic to yield. That has not yet happened, but diplomats believe the grave damage done to American prestige in Central and Eastern Europe will outlive this vicious little war. "The problem is Wes Clark making--at least approving--the bombing decisions," said one such diplomat, who then asked rhetorically: "How could they let a man with such a lack of judgment be [supreme allied commander of Europe]?" Through dealings with Yugoslavia that date back to 1994, Clark's propensity for mistakes has kept him in trouble while he continued moving up the chain of command thanks to a patron in the Oval Office. In the last month's American newspaper clippings, Clark emerges as the only heroic figure of a non-heroic war. Indeed, his resume is stirring: first in his class at West Point, Rhodes scholar, frequently wounded and highly decorated Vietnam combat veteran, White House fellow. He became a full general about as fast as possible in peacetime....Clark is the perfect model of a 1990s political four-star general. Clark's rapid promotions after Dayton --winning his fourth star to head the Panama-based Southern Command and then the jewel of his European post --were both opposed by the Pentagon brass. But Clark's fellow Arkansan in the White House named him anyway. The president and the general are collaborators in a failed strategy whose consequences cast a long shadow even if soon terminated by negotiation..."
The Sunday Times (London) 5/9/99 Stephen Grey, Matthew Campbell, and Hugh McManners "...YESTERDAY Nato admitted it had bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade after mistaking it for a Yugoslav government office. At least three people were killed in the attack, which threw diplomatic efforts to end the war into turmoil. Alliance officials said they had believed the building was Yugoslavia's federal directorate of supply and procurement, which organises weapons imports and exports. It was hit by three 1,000lb precision-guided freefall weapons, thought to have been dropped by a B2 stealth bomber. Last night Nato diplomats were looking to General Wesley Clark, the supreme allied commander who now has sole authority for selecting targets, to take responsibility. Allied intelligence agencies, including the CIA, were also facing severe criticism. "It is absolutely incredible not even to know where the embassy of such an important world power is situated," one diplomat said....The embassy, purpose-built for the Chinese in 1993, was hit during the heaviest bombardment of Belgrade in more than six weeks of bombing. Witnesses said two missiles struck the roof and one penetrated its side. Two journalists and a reporter's wife died. A fourth victim was reported missing. Chinese diplomats, some with bloodstained clothes, watched in tears as rescuers brought out 21 injured. ...."
Wash. Post 5/9/99 Steven Pearlstein "...Embarrassed and apologetic NATO officials today blamed an "intelligence failure" for causing Friday night's accidental bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade that left at least three dead and 20 wounded, and threatened to derail diplomatic efforts to end the military conflict in Yugoslavia. NATO said its laser-guided bombs were mistakenly aimed at the embassy because CIA officials gave military planners incorrect information about the target, which they believed was the Federal Directorate of Supply and Procurement, which the alliance described as a military facility. Military authorities said the two buildings are 150 to 200 yards apart and are similar in size and age. Four bombs hit the embassy and were dropped by one or more U.S. planes, according to Pentagon officials. In an unusual joint statement issued late Saturday, Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen and CIA Director George J. Tenet expressed regret about civilian deaths and said that "faulty information" led to the mistaken bombing...... Unlike earlier mishaps in the air war, when bombs strayed from their intended targets, officials said the Chinese Embassy was hit by four bombs that had been targeted on the new five-story building, in the belief that it was the Yugoslav military's weapons warehouse and procurement center. But throughout the day, alliance military spokesmen in Brussels and Washington could not provide details of how such a mix-up could have occurred. Officials declined repeated requests to produce a map showing where the embassy was in relation to the procurement center or even to estimate the distance between the two sites. Initial reports said missiles were used in the attack, but in fact they were laser-guided bombs...."
Washington Times 5/10/99 Rowan Scarborough "...The U.S. military's misgivings about the air-power-only war against Yugoslavia run deep into the officer corps, even down to some of the pilots dropping bombs in Operation Allied Force, according to active and retired officers. An American pilot flying missions from Italy recently sent an e-mail to a fellow pilot in Washington, complaining about how the war is being prosecuted and criticizing NATO leadership. The pilot in Washington shared a copy of the e-mail with The Washington Times on the condition the NATO aviator not be identified. "This has been a farce from the start," says the pilot's e-mail. "We have violated every principle of campaign air power I can think of." The pilot adds in the e-mail sent last weekend: "We are right to conduct military operations against Yugoslavia. The question that faced us was 'Can air power solve the crisis in Kosovo by bringing [Yugoslav President Slobodan] Milosevic to his knees?' Unfortunately, we will never know the answer due to the tragic misapplication of air power by politicians, which includes not only the national leaders in the NATO alliance but also NATO itself. . . ."I think overzealous air power advocates have, since Desert Storm, sold us as something we are not. Air power can do a lot of things. However, it can not change the mind of a dictator who has his people's tacit support. . . . It is not the USAF's fault that the air campaign is not going as well as Desert Storm. Hitting 5-8 targets a night, with sequential vice parallel operations is not the way to prosecute a campaign."..."
MSNBC 5/19/99 Norman Solomon From the perspective of a Cluster Bomb "...[Some legal scholars contend that the ongoing use of cluster bombs in the air war against Yugoslavia is a violation of protocols to the Geneva Conventions because those bombs are indiscriminate in their grisly impacts on civilians. The Pentagon acknowledges that U.S. cluster bombs are killing some civilians in Yugoslavia but claims that this does not violate international law because the intended targets are military.] A news article that I found in the May 8 edition of the San Francisco Chronicle reported that "the bombs struck next to the hospital complex and near the market, bringing death and destruction, peppering the streets of Serbia's third-largest city with shrapnel and littering the courtyards with yellow bomb casings." This was one of my few moments in the U.S. media limelight, so forgive me while I quote some more: "In a street leading from the market, dismembered bodies were strewn among carrots and other vegetables in pools of blood. A dead woman, her body covered with a sheet, was still clutching a shopping bag filled with carrots." I know, it's immodest to flaunt my press notices. But people don't get to see those sorts of news accounts very much in America! If the stories are reported at all, they're usually buried (ha ha) on back pages of newspapers and rarely even mentioned on the networks. ... BBC correspondent John Simpson has been reporting from Belgrade, and he did a rather brusque commentary that the Sunday Telegraph in London published a few days ago. "In Novi Sad and Nis, and several other places across Serbia and Kosovo where there are no foreign journalists, heavier bombing has brought more accidents," Simpson carped. He complained that cluster bombs "explode in the air and hurl shards of shrapnel over a wide radius." And he went on to say: "Used against human beings, cluster bombs are some of the most savage weapons of modern warfare." Cluster bombs like me could do without the overheated pejoratives, thank you. Fortunately, we hardly ever have to endure such indignities in the American press. But please don't forget the very real accomplishments that I can partially claim as my own. The next time you see a headline or hear a newscaster referring to the "air campaign," remember that my achievements are outrageously understated by such jargon. You see, I'm a 1,000-pound marvel, a cluster bomb with an ingenious design. When I go off, a couple of hundred "bomblets" shoot out in all directions, aided by little parachutes that look like inverted umbrellas. Those 'chutes slow down the descent of the bomblets and disperse them so they'll hit plenty of what my maker calls "soft targets." Before that happens, though, each bomblet breaks into about 300 pieces of jagged steel shrapnel. Sometimes, as a cluster bomb, I get a little jealous of the exaggerated notoriety that the news media confer on outfits like the National Rifle Association. They get credited with the proliferation of murder and mayhem. Well, they're rank amateurs! Piddling sidearms pushers! Compared to me, they're small-time retailers. I'm into wholesale. They don't know how to preserve, protect and defend the Grim Reaper as I do....."
The Hindu 5/20/99 C. V. Gopalakrishnan "....Even if so much concealment could not ensure the invulnerability of the Stealth bomber, it is an indication of both the fallibility of the elusiveness of the aircraft and the underestimated detection skills of the Yugoslav ground-based defence system. Having won its trophy, the defiant Yugoslavs were reported to have fanned out to the neighbourhood to protect the debris of the Stealth, presumably with hopes of being able to penetrate its technology. The much-bruited invisibility of the Stealth took another beating when the Yugoslav pilots of the MiG aircraft - of Soviet origin - engaged it in a dog fight, which could not have been possible had it been wholly invisible. If, as has been reported, the plane was finally brought down with a heat-seeking missile after it was chased over the Saga flatlands and was riddled with bullets, it reveals a great deal. Even if the plane had escaped radar detection over the Yugoslav airspace, this was rendered wholly futile by its vulnerability to heat- seeking missiles. This falsified the earlier claims that while the conventional planes could be homed in by heat-seeking missiles, the Stealth bomber could not be. It was believed that the mixing of the hot air with the cold in the Stealth left virtually no trace of its presence. This also seems to have gone wrong. The plane is reported to have plummeted to the ground as a ball of fire in a spectacular aerial display. There had indeed been considerable hesitation among many in the U.S. over the deployment of the Stealth aircraft for air raids over Yugoslavia. The U.S. Defence Secretary, Mr. William Cohen, is credited with the remark that sending B2, the advanced version of the Stealth into battle, would be like despatching a Rolls Royce to pick up groceries in a combat zone. A report in TheTimes (March 27) said that it has a "multitude of snags" including a radar system which could not distinguish mountain ranges from clouds. Its radar absorbing paint washed off in heavy rain. The wings developed holes and the ejection seats failed to work...."
NY Times 5/11/99 Walter Goodman "...Admiral Smith, who fought as a naval pilot in Vietnam, joined in developing a new military creed that Gen. Colin L. Powell and others in the Pentagon hoped would avoid Vietnam-like entanglements. Tonight's narrator sums it up: "The United States should never commit forces unless our vital interest is at stake, and then only with the clear intention of winning." Moreover, "the undertaking must have the support of the American people and Congress and even then force should always be the last resort." Such was the principle applied in driving Iraq out of Kuwait, but the Balkans proved more complicated. Former Vietnam doves, now in the Administration, were turned into hawks by the accounts of Serbian massacres in Bosnia and were dissatisfied with what they saw as Pentagon foot-dragging. Prominent among those whom the program calls "compassion warriors engaged in a kind of moral imperialism" was Holbrooke. He tells Peter J. Boyer, tonight's reporter, that when the bombing began in Bosnia, he was "a maximalist" who pressed for as much force as possible against Serbia and clashed repeatedly with Pentagon "minimalists, who wanted to do as little as possible." In particular, Holbrooke charges Admiral Smith with resisting his demands that Serbian war criminals be pursued and arrested. The admiral, who was later nudged into retirement, says that the mission was impractical, that "soldiers do not make good policemen." Regarding Holbrooke, he says, "He may be loud, and he may be arrogant, in fact he is both, but he's not always right, and he is not right about that." Although that dispute ended with Admiral Smith's departure, the issues it raised still resonate in Yugoslavia and in Washington. With the United States divided over the continued bombing of Serbia and the possibility of committing ground troops, Boyer sums up this revealing but unsettling hour: "So America finds itself having to fight a war with limited targets, with no ground troops, no overwhelming force. Without the military creed." ..."
New York Times 5/16/99 MICHAEL R. GORDON ERIC SCHMITT "...In a behind-the-scenes struggle over military strategy and tactics, the Pentagon is blocking a plan by the NATO commander, Gen. Wesley K. Clark, to send Apache helicopters into combat against Serbian troops, Pentagon and NATO officials say. ...."The issue is that Clark is being aggressive, and there is some resistance to doing what he wants to do," a senior American official said. ....Since General Clark first requested them 48 hours after NATO's air strikes began on March 24, the Apaches have been a particularly sensitive matter for the Clinton Administration, which has been reluctant to use combat troops in Kosovo. It took weeks for Washington to agree to General Clark's request to deploy the Apaches. Then it took weeks more to lug the men and supplies for the helicopters and the Army units that accompanied them to Albania. Further, Washington only agreed to send the Apaches and rockets on the condition that they not be used in combat without the formal approval of President Clinton. That approval, which Apache commanders expected by early May, has yet to take place, largely because top Pentagon officials have refused to recommend such a step to the White House, fearing the possible domestic and international consequences if the missions fail. Nor are the Apaches allowed to conduct "live fire" exercises without the Clinton Administration's consent. Such exercises, in which the helicopters fire their guns and missiles, are an essential prerequisite for employing them in combat. ..... But General Clark wants to conduct the "live fire" test by shooting at targets in Kosovo, and he still has not received permission to do so. Two of the helicopters have already crashed during training missions, killing two pilots....."The Army's concern is that this is a very dangerous mission," a Pentagon official said. "The avenues into Kosovo are limited, and the opportunity for shoulder-held weapons is very real. We have to really have all our act together. No one thinks the mission can't be done, but in an age when the American people believe we're in a zero-defects war, there's real apprehension we're going to bring solders back in body bags." ....Another Pentagon objection pertains to barrages of rockets and artillery that would precede the Apache attacks. While the rockets would be aimed at air defenses, there are no NATO ground troops in Kosovo to direct the fire, raising the prospect of civilian casualties....."
Defending America 5/18/99 David Hackworth "...David Gibbs and Kevin Reichert are dead. Their helicopter crashed on May 5 while on a training flight in the rugged mountains of northeast Albania. Both pilots were highly motivated and loved to fly the Army's most lethal killing machine, the Apache. One of the most dangerous soldiering jobs going. While Gibbs and Reichert are the first reported American dead from Clinton's conflict in Serbia, there surely will be more dead and wounded from their Task Force Hawk if this bad war bumbles on and cooler heads don't prevail...... So far, two birds have been lost to accidents. Aviation insiders say the mishaps might have been prevented had the crews been trained up to snuff at their home, base in Germany. But insufficient training funds cut back flying hours, and complaints of local civilians reduced night-flying exercises.....As seen on a small scale with the Apache pilots, the Army's slogan, WE FIGHT AS WE TRAIN is more spin than fact. Throughout today's military, few units are up to strength or have sufficient money to train. All are doing too much with too little because of Clinton's seven-year misuse and abuse of our forces..... An aviation battalion commander told me last week, "I have no faith in the uniformed senior leaders protecting us from the idiots in the White House." I do. The Pentagon "Four Stars" running things today were the lieutenants and captains in Vietnam. No way they've forgotten the mistakes the top brass made back then and how no one stood tall. They'll stand tall and keep asking: How can a few Army choppers make a difference when more than a thousand NATO aircraft haven't done the job in two months of bombing? ...Gen Clark is choosing instead to use the Apache solo in "Deep Strike" Missions, much as the Air Force uses planes. But the Apache won't be zipping along at 15,000 feet, it'll be flying "slow and low" against Serb grunts well supplied with hand-held, heat-seeking missiles -- the same type of missiles that ate up the Soviet gunship fleet in Afghanistan. Clark should know that the battlefield is not the place to experiment with new tactics. But, like Westmoreland in Vietnam, he's desperate to win and willing to gamble with his soldiers' lives. Unlike their Vietnam predecessors, the Four Stars of the Joint Chiefs of Staff must do their duty and ground the Apaches for now. The risk is not worth the potential gain. ...."
Freeper Molly Pitcher 5/20/99 on Rush with Bill Gertz "...He is good, and trying to answer Rush's question "Why?" He says a belief dominates the administration that the U.S. shouldn't be the dominant world power. Also mentions basic incompetence, and little interest in foreign policy. He says Clinton has NO interest in missile defense, altho they are proliferating worldwide. Clinton may SAY, tho, that he favors such a defense program, but we all know his words mean nothing. Gertz says the Chinese are very mad about the embassy bombing, believe it was deliberate, and have made none too subtle threats which seem to be ignored by media, etc. I think that the reason so much of the media is ignoring this "betrayal" is that it shares the same view as the Clinton administration: that U.S. security is not a vital interest, and everyone would be better off if other countries have nuclear capabilities, too...."
Defending America 5/25/99 David Hackworth "...Had President Clinton sat down with a group of veterans - veterans who had stormed the beaches of Normandy and Iwo Jima, stopped communist attacks onsnow-covered mountains in Korea, waded through the minefields of Vietnam and whipped Saddam in the Gulf - and asked their advice about jumping into a civil war in Yugoslavia, they'd have said, "Don't go there." And had heabided by their hard-won wisdom, America would not now be sinking in that quagmire or have kick-started another cold war with China and Russia. Unfortunately, President Clinton never calls upon our vets for advice about matters affecting the security of our country. Instead, he seeks counsel from advisors such as "It-will-be-a-short-war" Albright, "Just-give-us-a-little-more-time" Berger, and "We-are-prevailing" Cohen, an inner circle of dilettantes with a perfect record of fumbling badly in the life-and-death matters of war....."
5/28/99 UPI "...The Defense Department has placed an order with a medal-making company for 9,000 Purple Hearts, which are awarded to service members wounded or killed in action against an enemy. A spokeswoman from the Defense Logistics Agency tells the New York Post (Friday) the agency is "simply maintaining the quantity of supply."..."
http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/opinion/1999/0528/opt1.htm 5/28/99 Opinion: Irish Times Fintan O'Toole "...William J. Perry was the US deputy secretary of defence from March 1993 to February 1994, and then Bill Clinton's secretary of defence until his retirement in January 1997. Ashton Carter was assistant US secretary of defence for international security policy from 1993 to 1996. In other words, these two men are key architects of the new world order. They know what is going on at the very highest levels of political and military thinking. What they have to say about the NATO-led Partnership for Peace in a book just published in the US, Preventive Defence, deserves our attention. ...Perry and Carter are the brains behind PfP, and they can be assumed to know what it is about. This is what they have to say in their book: "The objective of a renewed Partnership for Peace should be to make the experience of partnership as close as possible, in practical military terms, to the experience of membership in NATO . . .PfP combined exercises and other military-to-military activities should advance from the partnership's early focus on peacekeeping and humanitarian operations to true combat operations. These are the activities that engage partner military personnel at their professional core." Peacekeeping and humanitarian operations, in other words, are merely the start of a much larger process. The long-term direction of that process is towards the effective abolition of a distinction between NATO and PfP. The soft, benign tasks of feeding the hungry, rescuing the afflicted and keeping the peace are a prelude to "true combat operations". The real action, the stuff that truly engages "partner military personnel at their professional core" is down the line. And when it comes, NATO will be in charge: "Any military operation requires what the military calls `unity of command', meaning that each level of command responds to one and only one superior, with no possibility of conflicting orders at a dangerous moment." ..."
New York Times 5/30/99 Steven Lee Myers and Eric Schmitt Freeper starlu "...The civilian at the top of the American military, Secretary of Defense William Cohen, rarely speaks directly to the commander running the war in the Balkans. Aides to the commander, Gen. Wesley Clark, derisively call the secretary "Senator Cohen," since he spends more time advising and cajoling his former colleagues in the Senate. The soldier at the top, Gen. Henry Shelton, is the general who speaks when spoken to. He is said to be unwilling -- or unable -- to air the Pentagon's misgivings about the war, though during a recent White House meeting he bluntly ended a discussion about sending ground troops into a "semi-permissive" situation in Kosovo without a peace agreement. "It's like being a little bit pregnant, sir," Shelton, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told President Clinton, according to an official familiar with the discussion...."
AFP 6/12/99 "...Fingers were pointed across the Atlantic by the British press Saturday, which blamed American vainglory for allowing NATO to be almost pipped to Pristina by the Russians. "Scramble for Kosovo" headlined the right-wing Times' editorial, which cautioned that "victory is too serious to be left to politicians" and went on to describe "the whole sorry performance." "By comparison, and despite more shelling of villages near the Albanian border, the accelerating Yugoslav withdrawal looked almost orderly," it wrote. US President Bill Clinton was squarely targeted for letting NATO to be caught napping, as the paper warned: "if it is not to be Bill Clinton's epitaph that he sacrificed the security of the Balkans to a media photo opportunity, this farce must end and the damage quickly undone." "NATO misses the bus" was how the right-wing Daily Telegraph described the episode, likened to a trivial version of the 1945 race between Anglo-American and Soviet forces for Berlin. "The United States bears the main responsibility," it said, adding: "there was no excuse for not having the marines ready to enter the province as soon as the Serbian withdrawal had begun." ....."
The New Australian No. 123, 14-20 6/99 Peter Zhang "...What has struck Beijing is not the fact that it was social democrats who ordered the attack on Serbia (the same people who never condemned a communist regime) but their lack of will revealed by their fear of suffering casualties. Many people have been deceived into thinking that because Clinton and Blair forced NATO into attacking Serbia this exhibited courage and determination on their part. Beijing sees it differently. Moreover, it was not impressed with the aerial bombardment. To be able to plaster from a short distance a small target like Serbia does nothing to intimidate Beijing. And as far as she is concerned, these are weapons she will soon command herself, including counter-measures.....I doubt if Americans will ever fully learn the dreadful role Clinton has played in fuelling and strengthening the PLA's ambitions. By selling it the key to America's military secrets and aiding the PLA in modernising it military it has brought closer the time when it can intimidate its neighbours. This is what most American observers have overlooked. To drive America out of most of the Pacific China does not have to threaten the nuclear destruction of American cities; she only has to apply subtle, and perhaps not so-subtle, threats against the rest of Asia. This is not so far fetched as many might think once one realises that Beijing seeks domination and not occupation....."
AP 6/1/99 Some harsh words about President Clinton from the man who commanded U-S troops in the Gulf War. Retired Army general Norman Schwarzkopf told an Australian motivational seminar today that President Clinton isn't a good leader. He said Clinton lacked the leadership to prevent military conflicts in Kosovo and Somalia. And he said Clinton's behavior in the Monica Lewinsky scandal is evidence of his bad character. U-S military involvement in Somalia's civil war began under Clinton's predecessor, George Bush..."
Original Sources 6/1/99 Mary Mostert "...Increasingly, Clinton and others compare his adventurism in Yugoslavia with Desert Storm. How DOES the current NATO bombing campain compare with Desert Storm? First, President George Bush had received the needed votes in Congress to allow him to go forward with the effort to evict Saddam Hussein from Kuwait. Clinton does not have that vote from Congress. He is now in total violation of the War Powers Act. Second, 38 days of bombing raids, prior to the ground war, were launched against the Iraqi Army in and around Kuwait in preparation for Desert Storm. We have completed 67 days of bombing of Yugoslavia. Third, after the 38-day air campaign, the ground offensive began in the desert which lasted 100 hours. Iraqi troops, tired, hungry and war-weary from six months of economic blockade and 38 days of bombing, surrendered by the thousands. In Yugoslavia, after 67 days, no ground offensive has begun in the mountainous, tree covered terrain of Yugoslavia....A fighting force of 500,000 was needed to re-take Kuwait - a conquest of the Iraqi army - not their homeland. The latest suggested figure for a ground attack force to take Yugoslavia by NATO is 90,000. Do you, or anyone else, really think we can subdue the Serbs with 90,000 ground soldiers - when after all the bombing, we KNOW that the Yugoslav Army is still mostly intact and they will die to the last man rather than surrender their homeland and the homeland of the Serbian Orthodox Church? This isn't the desert - and the Serbs know were all the caves in the mountains are - we don't. We are talking about fierce hand to hand combat between the Serbs, the best fighting force in Europe, and the feminized, don't-ask-don't-tell Army YOU, Bill Clinton, have created as your legacy...."
Defending America 6/1/99 David Hackworth "... A simple hundred page "white paper" on the situation in Yugoslavia would have told you that while that country had zilch to do with kicking off World War II, a fight with the Serbs would be a bigger mistake then dalliances with Monica in the Oval Office. It would have also told our constantly fumbling commander - in - chief that his NATO-inspired intervention would get him an "F" on his Y2K presidential report card and a lot of bad-mouthing by historians for years to come. Besides being the biggest military screw up since Gallipoli, the operation has made NATO look spastic and toothless and could well bring down that obsolete military bureaucracy. So far too, the war has cost the American taxpayers billions of bucks, while the cost of the study could have been quietly pulled out of Hillary's travel allowance by scratching just one Senate non-campaign trip to New York City. A "white paper" would have shown that: * The Serbs are a stubborn, gritty people to whom Kosovo -a province in their state of Serbia- is sacred ground not unlike Jerusalem is to the Jews or the Alamo is to Texans. Dirt they'd fight and die for even against NATO, the most powerful military coalition in world history. * The Russians have a tradition of marching to their Serbian brothers aid and will not take their being used as a NATO punching bag lightly. * Kosovo has been in a state of conflict since 1389. The rebel Kosovo Liberation Army has only heated up the civil war as this terrorist mob has become more and more violent. * Ethnic cleaning has been going on in the Balkans since before the Ottoman Empire invaded there. No world leader sounded off when the autonomous Albanian government of Kosovo ethnically cleansed more than 200,000 Serbs, Gypsies and others from Kosovo in the 1970s. Nor did the international community utter a word when more than 200,000 Serbs were ethnically cleansed by Croatia in 1995 with Clinton-authorized U.S. military assistance. An addendum on modern war would have noted that: * Never in history has a bombing campaign won a war without ground forces being assembled before the first bomb falls. * A bombing campaign unifies those being bombed and causes them to rally behind their leader even though many people - perhaps the majority - might have been opposed to him before the bombing began. * Bombing campaigns create massive refugee problems, aiding ethnic cleansing rather than relieving it. * Military operations must be about national security, have a clearly defined objective, an exit plan and the support of the nation. * Military coalitions -especially ones with 19 El Supremos like NATO- violate Unity of Command, a principle of war, and almost always screw up the soup...."
WASHINGTON TIMES 6/4/99 BILL GERTZ "... Word inside the Pentagon from the Army operations center is that Gen. Wesley Clark, the NATO commander, would like to launch a ground offensive in Kosovo on Sept. 1, if yesterday's promising peace developments fall through. The Army, however, doesn't see any way that the troops and equipment needed for such an offensive could be prepared in time. "No one has told Clark that the emperor has no clothes," said one Pentagon official...."
New Scientist 6/5/99 David Crockett Williams "....IN 1991 Doug Rokke went to the Middle East as a US army health physicist to clean up uranium left by the Gulf War. He helped decontaminate 23 armoured vehicles hit by shells in "friendly fire" incidents. Today he has difficulty breathing. His lungs are scarred and he has skin problems and kidney damage. Rokke, a major in the US Army Reserve's Medical Service Corps, has no doubt what made him ill--contact with radioactive metal.Three years after he worked in the Gulf, the US Department of Energy tested his urine. They found that the level of uranium in his sample was over 4000 times higher than the US safety limit of 0.1 micrograms per litre...."
AFP/Yahoo! 6/22/99 "...Praising NATO for its campaign in Kosovo, US President Bill Clinton said Tuesday that the alliance could intervene elsewhere in Europe or in Africa to fight repression. "In Africa or central Europe, we will not allow, only because of differences in ethnic background or religion or racism, people to be attacked. We will stop that," Clinton told US troops gathered at the Skopje airport. "We can do it now. We can do it tomorrow, if it is necessary, somewhere else," he said. Clinton earlier visited the Stenkovec camp where he got a rousing welcome from the refugees who chanted "Clinton, Clinton," or "USA, USA" or "NATO, NATO."..."
San Francisco Examiner 6/24/99 Paul Burgess "...At a news conference months ago, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army Gen. Henry Shelton, was forced to acknowledge that the timing of last year's two U.S. military operations was "absolutely incredible." His incredulity is understandable. On Aug. 20, 1998, American cruise missiles struck Sudan and Afghanistan three days after President Clinton's televised "mea sorta culpa" regarding his deposition earlier that day. Though the administration initially charged the Sudanese pharmaceutical factory with being a chemical-weapons plant, it recently unfroze $24 million worth of the owner's American assets, quietly conceding that the plant had no military value whatsoever. Operation Desert Fox (Dec. 16, 1998) commenced with air and cruise-missile strikes against Iraq mere hours before the House was to begin its impeachment debate, delaying those proceedings by a day. The president ended the operation three days later, on the same day as the impeachment vote (ostensibly out of respect for the Islamic holiday of Ramadan, though he seemed to agonize very little about bombing Yugoslavia during Easter). Gen. Shelton's amazement can only be compounded by the timing of the current Kosovo operation. Though there are many foreign-policy experts who contend there was much more negotiating to be done, the air war commenced at the same time the White House was fighting to block the recently released Cox report revealing the staggering losses of American military technology to the Chinese...."
San Francisco Examiner 6/24/99 Paul Burgess "...For those convinced that "Wag the Dog" is just a Hollywood invention, I offer a hard-to-find report titled "An Investigation into the Magnitude of Foreign Contacts." This document, penned, not by any Hollywood producer, but by Federal Reserve economists (document No. RWP97-14), is essentially a scientific quantification of the "Wag the Dog" theory. The researchers employ a lengthy and complex mathematical model to illustrate the potential advantages of small-scale wars to presidents in distress. They offer the kind of sterile, arithmetical logic that thrills academics and terrifies soldiers. Some of their conclusions: "If the information content (about the leader, and for the consumption of the electorate) of small conflicts is substantial and their costs sufficiently small, our model points to the possibility of diversionary actions being welfare-enhancing (for the leader); only when (a diversionary war) can provide information favorable to an incumbent leader can the action be successful in its purpose; even though a diversionary war may have been avoidable and may force an unwarranted cost upon the electorate, it also reveals new information about the leader's abilities which the electorate may find beneficial." ...."
San Francisco Examiner 6/24/99 Paul Burgess "...The administration's military adventures have been starkly consistent with the report's findings since its release in late 1997 (at the same time Clinton's fortunes turned south with his Paula Jones deposition). The authors hold that the benefit a leader can receive from starting a war is directly related to the perceptions that war affects in the electorate - thus, Clinton's seeming tendency to profile his wars against his scandals. Further, the president has been meticulous about keeping American casualties low and conflicts confined, possibly to keep the risks-vs.-benefits equation in balance. Finally, and most disturbingly, he seems to wage war only when it stands to benefit him personally. War has been waged neither in Rwanda nor North Korea, and we cut and ran from Somalia - humanitarian and credibility concerns notwithstanding...."
WorldNetDaily.com 6/25/99 John Dougherty "...For years defense experts and, in some cases, serving military commanders have been trying to warn Americans that the Clinton administration is decapitating U.S. nuclear weapons systems to the point where many are now non-existent. Simultaneously, with the help of a compliant mainstream press, Americans have been told that those concerns are unfounded because Russia and China are no enemies of this state, that they too are disarming as we are, and that no Russian or Chinese nuclear threats exist in the first place. Besides, Clinton apologists maintain, even if they were a threat, neither can match the "power, reach and technological superiority" of the United States. Maybe in 1988 after the Reagan years, but in terms of military technology that was a long time ago. And as hundreds of thousands of current and former military personnel will attest, a lot can happen -- or not happen -- in a decade. At this time our nuclear force is a shell of what it once was, which would be just peachy if the United States did not face any threats to our existence from potential enemies with similar or better nuclear capabilities. But America does face those threats, and the list of countries that could be aligned against us in the future is growing. Worse, the U.S. has either directly provided much of the necessary upgrading technology or, at a minimum, has -- via the taxpayers -- paid for upgrading the newest weapons systems. Hostile countries are now fielding those weapons and, if you care to, you can take a guess as to where they are being aimed. It's one thing to shut down a tank production line or scale back the number of B-2 bombers you plan to build. But in this day and age, it's quite a different (and more dangerous) thing to unilaterally rid yourself of nuclear weapons. But that is what the Clinton administration is doing....."
American Spectator (Web Site) 6/25/99 John Corry "...Betrayal: How the Clinton Administration Undermined American Security by Bill Gertz Regnery / 299 pages / $27.95 Distorting Defense: Network News and National Security by Stephen P. Aubin Praeger / 262 pages / $59.95 Reviewed by John Corry ....President Clinton's most important legacy will not be his serio-comic sex scandals, but his dead serious disarmament of the United States and his self-serving appeasement of powerful and determined enemies....The administration's policies have endangered not only the United States, but the peace and security of the entire world. And this grim prospect has come about, according to Gertz, primarily for two reasons. The administration, suspicious of the military to begin with, placed economic gains ahead of security needs. Meanwhile it put its faith in treaties, promises, and the supposed good intentions of others. Their words, not their deeds, were what counted, and realistic assessments of their potential military threats were ignored so as not to endanger "constructive engagements" and "strategic partnerships." Rather than penalizing China or Russia, say, for violating international agreements, the administration would amend the agreements. Rather than telling the public about the continuing arms buildups by China and Russia, it would pretend the buildups did not exist. Policy was tailored not for the real world, but for a world of the administration's own choosing. The White House demonstrated an unwillingness, or inability, to deal with difficult issues. Worse, it practiced outright deceit.....Distorting Defense: Network News and National Security, by Stephen P. Aubin, is a kind of companion book to Betrayal. Aubin, who holds a doctorate in national security affairs, analyzes television coverage of defense issues and finds it uninformed. One reason for this, he writes in his intelligent book, is that too often the White House, and not the Pentagon, provides the focus for coverage. Aubin also notes the ease with which the networks tend to label both persons and things as "conservative," "right-wing," or "hard-line," and their reluctance to call anyone "liberal" or "left wing." Aubin, though scrupulously nonpartisan, dryly notes that the "conservatives" are usually depicted as "bad guys." ...."
AP 7/22/99 Tampa Bay OnLine ".... The report by the House Appropriations Committee cites several examples in which the Pentagon failed to notify Congress about the redirecting of appropriated funds to projects not approved by Congress...... Asked about the report, Cohen told reporters at the Pentagon that it overstated the problem. He said the report ``comes as somewhat of a surprise to all of us in the Pentagon,'' considering that of the more than 5,000 military projects managed by the Pentagon, only six are cited as being problems. ``That is quite a significant statement in itself, that about 99.9 percent of the time we seem to be doing things right,'' Cohen said...."
New York Times Tim Weiner 7/22/99 "...Congress says in a new report that the Pentagon defied the law and the Constitution by spending hundreds of millions of dollars on military projects that lawmakers never approved, including a super-secret Air Force program. The Pentagon acknowledged some of the accusations Wednesday night, saying honest mistakes led to its failure to notify Congress about the way it was spending money..... "What do we have to do to make them understand what we mean when we say no?" Lewis asked. The Pentagon spokesman, Kenneth H. Bacon, said tonight that the failure to notify Congress about the military's redirecting of appropriated funds had taken place. "We work very hard to respond to the directives Congress gives us," Bacon said. "Do we get it right 100 percent of the time? Of course not." He acknowledged that the Air Force wrongfully started and financed a highly classified, still-secret project, known as a "black program," without informing Congress last year. The committee said that act was illegal. It also raises questions about civilian control of black programs, whose costs and nature are the most highly classified secrets in the Pentagon. Military officials refused to discuss any details of the black program. The committee's 313-page report says the Air Force tried to buy an $800 million military communications satellite without lawful authority, and illegally diverted from an unspecified program hundreds of millions of dollars to update its C-5 transport plane. It also says the Pentagon spent millions of dollars on a "Star Wars" missile defense program that was previously canceled by Congress..... "
The Washington Post 7/25/99 Vernon Loeb "…Because of a cupful of soil, the U.S. flattened this Sudanese factory. Now oneof the world's most respected labs, and some of Washington's most expensive lawyers,say Salah Idris wasn't making nerve gas for terrorists, just ibuprofen for headaches….. "Never before," former CIA official Milt Bearden would say months later, "has a single soil sample prompted an act of war against a sovereign state." …."He went to bed a major businessman--a millionaire hundreds of times over--and woke up a major terrorist," said his attorney, George R. Salem, a partner at the powerhouse Washington law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld. "He figured all the administration needed to be told was--'This is Salah Idris, a prominent Saudi businessman who owns the plant. You've made a serious mistake. Let's deal with this quietly.' But it became immediately clear that wasn't going to happen." ….Over at the White House, Clinton's national security adviser, Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger, was referring to the "so-called pharmaceutical factory in Khartoum, which we know with great certainty produces essentially the penultimate chemical to manufacture VX nerve gas." U.S. officials did not know at the time--by their own subsequent admissions--who owned the plant. They literally did not know whom they were dealing with….. "
New York Post 7/29/99 Editorial Board "...Clark committed the crime of honesty, and honesty just can't be tolerated in Clinton-land. As Michael Ignatieff details in this week's New Yorker, Clark was a man with a plan- a plan the administration and NATO were only willing to implement when it became clear they were on the verge of losing the war. From the first, Clark wanted to bomb the electrical grid and communications network that kept Slobodan Milosevic riding high. But it took from March to May for Clark to get the approval. When the strike was finally carried out, it spelled defeat for the Serbs. Clark won a war with his hands practically tied behind his back. He took the heat for the Clinton administration's dithering while arguing all the while for the right thing - a coordinated land and air attack...."
Stratfor 7/30/99 "...The first of the heads responsible for the Kosovo crisis rolled on July 27, when Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) General Wesley Clark was sacked. Clark was ordered to resign his post in April, three months before the end of his current term, to be replaced by Air Force General Joseph Ralston, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). Officially, Clark's term was shortened because otherwise Ralston, whose term as JCS vice chairman expires in February, would have been forced to retire. Instead, it is Clark who is being pensioned off, though Defense Secretary William Cohen reportedly recommended Clark be offered an ambassadorship..... General Clark was one of four top Clinton advisors most responsible for pushing the U.S. and NATO into a military confrontation over Kosovo. According to a number of reports that emerged during and after the war, Secretary of State Madeline Albright in January 1999 presented the plan under which NATO should threaten air strikes. She was backed up by Clark and by envoys Richard Holbrooke and Robert Gelbard, who argued that Milosevic would buckle under a day or two of bombing, if not merely the threat of air strikes. They, in turn, were backed by a sea of anonymous analysts in the U.S. intelligence agencies who, until the bombing began, repeatedly argued that Milosevic would quickly submit under air attacks. Skeptics included Cohen, Shelton, presidential advisor Sandy Berger, and presumably Ralston...."
Washington Times 8/11/99 "...U.S. military officials can be mighty accommodating when they want to be. Weeks after news broke that the nation's largest military base in Fort Hood, Texas, had opened its gates to a group of self-styled witches, Army officials continue to stand up for the organization's right to practice the religion of its choice. The witches recently treated a reporter from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram to a worship service, which he duly reported: " 'We are a circle within a circle with no beginning and never ending,' intoned 60 men, women and children encircling the blaze. 'Horned one, lover son, leaper ..."
Army Times 8/16/99 George Wilson "....The Washington heat wave must have addled the brains of our leaders. Otherwise, how can you explain these recent events? * European Commander Wesley Clark wins NATO's first war without losing anybody in combat but is told, "Don't let the door bruise your tail on the way out." * The House of Representatives thanks the Air Force for winning the air war and then says, "By the way, we decided to kill the plane you say you need to win the next war." * Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps leaders say they want to increase in size when they can't fill the slots they already have. * Congress busts through its own money ceilings for defense spending, but says it's not. * The secretary of state flies to Europe to discuss how much the United States will pay to repair the damage it did to the Balkans. American taxpayers must pay the factory that made the bomb, the pilot who dropped it and the crew that fills the hole. And the guy who inspired all the NATO bombing, Slobodan Milosevic, is still president of Yugoslavia with his army virtually intact...."
Aerospace Daily 8/17/99 "…Operation Allied Force may have taught NATO's European allies more than they wanted to know about U.S. capability and their own dependence on it in time of war, according to several Pentagon and European officials. Two opposing reviews of the 78-day air campaign against Yugoslavia are shaping on either side of the Atlantic. The lessons learned were considered at an Air Force Association meeting yesterday in Arlington, Va. The Pentagon and U.S. Air Force say officially that the undeclared war was a success. In the words of former AF Chief of Staff Gen. Michael J. Dugan (USAF-Ret.), the campaign "speaks volumes of the success in interoperability, training and people." The Air Force Association said "Aerospace forces conducted a near-flawless operation...a truly remarkable achievement." But some say the U.S.-led air forces came dangerously close to losing. "NATO would have collapsed if [Serb Leader Slobodan] Milosevic hadn't expelled the Albanians," said Dr. Edward N. Luttwak, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Luttwak said Germany and Italy could have used their veto power to stop the bombing until escaping Albanians overwhelmed neighboring nations with sheer numbers and horrific stories. "The campaign failed to use the full power of air power - shock and devastating effect...", said retired Air Vice-Marshal R.A. "Tony" Mason, former secretary of the Royal Air Force. "There were too few aircraft going after too few targets for too long."…"
The Washington Time 8/17/99 Bill Gertz "…The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has turned down a U.S. commander's request to use a new missile-defense radar to monitor North Korea's upcoming Taepo Dong missile launch, Pentagon officials said. Gen. Henry H. Shelton, the chairman, decided on Friday to reject an appeal from the commander of the U.S. Space Command in Colorado because of costs and because using the radar now might slow its development. The radar system is known as the Theater High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD. A senior defense official, speaking on the condition that he not be identified by name, said Gen. Shelton's decision was based on his view that the $3 million to $5 million cost of sending the radar to Japan outweighed the benefits. "By and large, you don't get enough benefit to justify the costs," the defense official said. But some military officials said monitoring the Taepo Dong with the powerful THAAD radar, which can track missiles over long distances, would have been an important test against a "real world threat." The monitoring also could have tested the radar's capability of providing early warning of a missile launch against the United States and provided valuable field training for the Army units that will eventually be deployed with the completed THAAD system, the officials said. Critics said the Pentagon bowed to pressure from Clinton administration arms-control officials who opposed sending the radar because it might upset the Russians. A new round of strategic arms talks is set to begin today in Moscow….."
WorldNetDaily 8/18/99 "…Those unhappy with General Shelton's refusal to try out the THAAD radar say his real reason isn't the money involved but the politics. Monitoring the North Koreans could offend the Russians just as U.S-Russia strategic arms talks begin this week in Moscow. One angry official told Gertz "It is pathetic that Gen. Shelton's first impulse is to wring his hands over some convoluted -- and unfounded -- arms-control concern, instead of embracing this innovative proposal that can do nothing but enhance the nation's security. ... This administration has enough political hacks willing to sacrifice national security to their political concerns." "Someone needs to be an advocate for our security interests," the official added, "it's clear that Gen. Shelton is not up to that task." …."
CIC Sleeping with the Enemy?
Joint Military exercises with China "...exchanges of military officers at junior and senior levels, as well as possible small-scale joint exercises in areas such as sea rescue and anti-piracy..." 7/6/99 BBC News
McCurry "... told a press briefing that this development is part of the efforts to establish a US-China strategic partnership. McCurry believed closer military-to-military contact "has the benefit of reducing tensions, and helping people understand better what the military strategies of both sides are." 7/9/98 Xihua News
Freeper spiker 11/19/98 reports ".Who ever thought the Viet Cong battle flag would ever fly in the United States? It is proudly flying at equal height along side Old Glory at the Ford Motor Company World Headquarters in Dearborn, Michigan. The reason for this insult on American soil is two fold. First the Ford Motor Company will be opening a plant in Vietnam next year so they want to reward the current Vietnam leadership for allowing them to do business in that communist country. Secondly, the Ford Motor Company is currently being managed by someone other than an American citizen. The Ford Motor Company has changed from the days of supporting the war effort during WW II. This company is only interested in profit. Vietnam veterans employed by the Ford Motor Company have been threatened with their jobs if the flag is touched. The Ford Motor Company has obviously forgotten about the employees who were on military leave to protect democracy during the conflict in Vietnam. They have also forgotten about the children of Ford Motor Company employees who are still missing in action. The Ford Motor company in its desire to please a communist country, does not care about the American citizens who drive by the FMC Headquarters in Dearborn, Michigan. The company does not care about anyone or any ideal.."
Joe L. Jordan, Executive Director National Vietnam P.O.W. Strike Force 12/8/98 ".NETWORK EVENING NEWS last night showed a classroom full of Hanoi gooks at the FBI Academy at Langley, Virginia.. The secret police agents now at Langley and living in luxury digs AT US TAXPAYER EXPENSE include former prison guards at the notorious "Hanoi Hilton" who participated in the beatings and torture of US POW/MIAs during interrogation. Can you imagine what the Jews would say if in the aftermath of WWII, the FBI was training SS and Gestapo agents at taxpayer expense? How can this be any different? Why is congress fixated only on the Lewinsky angle of impeachment hearings when Clinton is doing this treason behind everybody's back? ."
Whom Have We Elected? - The New American 1/22/93 William F. Jasper Freeper Rodger Schultz ".Father Richard McSorley, a radical Jesuit priest and professor from Georgetown University -- and one of Bill Clinton's anti-war comrades. Father McSorley's "testimony" comes in the form of his book, Peace Eyes, published in 1977. It is an account of his anti-war activities and travels in the U.S. and Europe. "When I got off the train in Oslo, Norway," Peace Eyes begins, "I met Bill Clinton of Georgetown University. He asked if he could go with me visiting peace people. We visited the Oslo Peace Institute and talked with conscientious objectors, with peace groups, and with university students." On November 15, 1969, I participated in the British moratorium against the Vietnam War in front of the U.S. Embassy at Grosvenor Square in London," Fr. McSorley recorded. He described the demonstrations: The activities in London supporting the second stage of the moratorium and the March of Death in Washington were initiated by Group 68 (Americans in Britain). This group had the support of British peace organizations, including the Committee on Nuclear Disarmament, the British Peace Council, and the International Committee for Disarmament and Peace .... The next day I joined with about 500 other people for the interdenominational service. Most of them were young, and many of them were Americans. As I was waiting for the ceremony to begin, Bill Clinton of Georgetown, then studying as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, came up and welcomed me. He was one of the organizers [emphasis added]. The British Peace Council, with which "organizer" Clinton was involved, is the British branch of the World Peace Council, a Soviet-front directed by the KGB. These demonstrations were not merely "anti-wary they were anti-American, pro-Vietcong, pro-Hanoi. and pro-Ho Chi Minh. They were used as propaganda by the communist and liberal media to undermine American morale.."
The New Australian 3/1-7/99 James Henry "…The Chinese military is extremely nationalistic in the worst possible way. There is no doubt that China now sees Asia and the Pacific region as its special sphere of influence, an interest threatened by a powerful American presence, despite Clinton's military expenditure cuts. (She has virtually annexed the Spratly Islands, without a peep from Clinton.) All of this is common knowledge in the intelligence community. For example, Al Santoli, an analyst at the American Foreign Policy Council, has gone public with it. Clinton has even been briefed on the Chinese military's ambitions and nationalistic fervor - and a fat lot of good it did. As one insider sighed: "He doesn't seem to care." And this is why he allowed so much advanced technology with powerful military applications to casually pass into Chinese hands. Imagine the tragic consequences for Britain if Chamberlain* had allowed its radar technology to be sold to Nazi Germany so he could fatten his political war-chest. And yet, that is exactly what Clinton has done. Despite China's aggressive behavior, the Pentagon has been ordered to strengthen contacts with the PLA. This is one helluva a one-way street and is guaranteed to significantly improve the PLA's battlefield tactics and refine its use of technology. And what will Americans get out of it? Don't even think about it. But this has all happened before…."
Global Intelligence Update 2/28/99 Red Alert Summary "…The Tuesday deadline for an agreement over Kosovo came and went as had the prior Saturday deadline. Serbia wasn't bombed and the Serbs didn't agree to let NATO peacekeepers into Kosovo. Indeed, by the weekend, Serb forces were digging in along Kosovo's borders with Macedonia (where peacekeepers would have been coming from), planting minefields, and surrounding predominantly Albanian towns. The March 15th date for a resumption of talks is, of course, a mere fig leaf. U.S. aircraft were already being rotated back to the United States. There were a host of reasons for the stand down…And of course, it was increasingly clear that attacking Serbia would have meant a serious and possibly irreparable breach with the Russians. The latter was the most important reason for declaring victory and going home. The most important event in the world this week was not the fact that the U.S. threw in the towel on Kosovo, but the extraordinary explosion that took place between the United States and China. We have been chronicling deteriorating U.S.- China relations for quite a while now, but this week's explosion between the two countries on the eve of a visit to China by Madeleine Albright was startling in its intensity. Triggered by the release of a State Department report criticizing China's human rights record, it was clear that U.S. policy makers knew the explosion was coming. Given that they knew that a breach in U.S.-China relations was in the works, they also clearly understood that a simultaneous breach with Russia was strategically unthinkable. This was one of the reasons they backed off on Kosovo. China and Russia are close enough to each other now without the U.S. deliberately driving them into each other's arms…."
Washington Post 2/28/99 Editorial "…When the Clinton administration defended its policy of engagement with China, it painted a bleak picture of the alternative. If the United States did not seek warmer relations with China, it warned, that Asian giant was more likely to become hostile. Democratization and human rights would suffer. China would not cooperate with the United States in trouble spots around the world. Well, President Clinton went to China to promote his "strategic partnership," and look what we have: a massive Chinese military buildup threatening Taiwan, according to a Pentagon report last week. A Chinese veto of a United Nations peacekeeping operation that had helped stabilize a key country in the Balkans, also last week. China intimidating Southeast Asian countries in the Spratly Islands; threatening the rule of law in Hong Kong; undermining U.S. efforts to obtain access to a suspect North Korean construction site; and, according to the Washington Times, actually cooperating with North Korea on its space program. While that last allegation remains unconfirmed, there's no doubt about Chinese threats to undermine U.S. efforts to stem missile proliferation, since the threats were communicated by a senior Chinese official. And then there's human rights…."
The New Australian 3/1-7/99 James Henry "…The Chinese military is extremely nationalistic in the worst possible way. There is no doubt that China now sees Asia and the Pacific region as its special sphere of influence, an interest threatened by a powerful American presence, despite Clinton's military expenditure cuts. (She has virtually annexed the Spratly Islands, without a peep from Clinton.) All of this is common knowledge in the intelligence community. For example, Al Santoli, an analyst at the American Foreign Policy Council, has gone public with it. Clinton has even been briefed on the Chinese military's ambitions and nationalistic fervor - and a fat lot of good it did. As one insider sighed: "He doesn't seem to care." And this is why he allowed so much advanced technology with powerful military applications to casually pass into Chinese hands. Imagine the tragic consequences for Britain if Chamberlain* had allowed its radar technology to be sold to Nazi Germany so he could fatten his political war-chest. And yet, that is exactly what Clinton has done. Despite China's aggressive behavior, the Pentagon has been ordered to strengthen contacts with the PLA. This is one helluva a one-way street and is guaranteed to significantly improve the PLA's battlefield tactics and refine its use of technology. And what will Americans get out of it? Don't even think about it. But this has all happened before…."
Global Intelligence Update 2/28/99 Red Alert Summary "…The Tuesday deadline for an agreement over Kosovo came and went as had the prior Saturday deadline. Serbia wasn't bombed and the Serbs didn't agree to let NATO peacekeepers into Kosovo. Indeed, by the weekend, Serb forces were digging in along Kosovo's borders with Macedonia (where peacekeepers would have been coming from), planting minefields, and surrounding predominantly Albanian towns. The March 15th date for a resumption of talks is, of course, a mere fig leaf. U.S. aircraft were already being rotated back to the United States. There were a host of reasons for the stand down…And of course, it was increasingly clear that attacking Serbia would have meant a serious and possibly irreparable breach with the Russians. The latter was the most important reason for declaring victory and going home. The most important event in the world this week was not the fact that the U.S. threw in the towel on Kosovo, but the extraordinary explosion that took place between the United States and China. We have been chronicling deteriorating U.S.- China relations for quite a while now, but this week's explosion between the two countries on the eve of a visit to China by Madeleine Albright was startling in its intensity. Triggered by the release of a State Department report criticizing China's human rights record, it was clear that U.S. policy makers knew the explosion was coming. Given that they knew that a breach in U.S.-China relations was in the works, they also clearly understood that a simultaneous breach with Russia was strategically unthinkable. This was one of the reasons they backed off on Kosovo. China and Russia are close enough to each other now without the U.S. deliberately driving them into each other's arms…."
Washington Post 2/28/99 Editorial "…When the Clinton administration defended its policy of engagement with China, it painted a bleak picture of the alternative. If the United States did not seek warmer relations with China, it warned, that Asian giant was more likely to become hostile. Democratization and human rights would suffer. China would not cooperate with the United States in trouble spots around the world. Well, President Clinton went to China to promote his "strategic partnership," and look what we have: a massive Chinese military buildup threatening Taiwan, according to a Pentagon report last week. A Chinese veto of a United Nations peacekeeping operation that had helped stabilize a key country in the Balkans, also last week. China intimidating Southeast Asian countries in the Spratly Islands; threatening the rule of law in Hong Kong; undermining U.S. efforts to obtain access to a suspect North Korean construction site; and, according to the Washington Times, actually cooperating with North Korea on its space program. While that last allegation remains unconfirmed, there's no doubt about Chinese threats to undermine U.S. efforts to stem missile proliferation, since the threats were communicated by a senior Chinese official. And then there's human rights…."
World Net Daily 3/9/99 Charles Smith "…Saddam Hussein and General Ding Henggao can thank Perry and Hambrecht. China did not have the technology nor the money to field advanced missile command networks. William Perry supplied the technology and William Hambrecht supplied the money. Today, the Chinese Army re-exports U.S. technology directly to the sworn enemy of America and profits from it…. COSTIND General Ding and his wife, Madam-General Nie, also made money on the Hua Mei project. There were profits enough to share. Perry, Lewis and even Mr. Hambrecht all made money on the Hua Mei export….The exported "civilian" technology now threatens the lives of Americans in the skies of Iraq and every nation around the globe. The secure line that now carries orders from Chinese generals to thermonuclear tipped missiles started with a pay-off to American officials. The direct line from pay-off, to export, to weapon of war goes through William Perry and his millionaire buddy, William Hambrecht…."
Chinese Embassy 6/2/98 "…The realization of the visit by the Vice-Chairman of the Central Military Commission and Minister of National Defense, General Chi Haotian in December 1996 brought the China-U.S. military relationship back on the track of sound development…. We attach great importance to the development of the relations between our two militaries and have noticed with gratification that through our joint efforts the relations between our two militaries have further developed in every field since December 1996. Firstly, the leaders of our two militaries have frequently exchanged visits, maintaining continuous and high-level contacts….. Secondly, a series of consultative mechanism between our two militaries have been established such as the regularized defense consultations between our senior defense officials and the consultations on the military maritime safety…. Thirdly, the functional exchanges between our two militaries have been rather active. Both sides have agreed to carry out exchanges in the fields of military training, logistics, military academies, military history and justice. Besides, both sides have agreed to share information and discuss issues related to their respective experiences in the areas of humanitarian assistance and disaster relief. Fourthly, the two militaries have agreed to enhance international cooperation in the military field…."
The New Republic 3/29/99 Editors "….the crisis for the administration's policy of "engagement" with China has only just begun. Two questions cry out for rigorous investigation and forthright answers. Should the White House have acted more swiftly when it first heard warnings from an Energy Department official that China was conducting nuclear espionage in this country--and did it drag its feet in order to prevent the espionage case from upsetting its China-friendly policy? And even more fundamentally: Why did this administration ever imagine that a genuine "partnership" with China was possible in the first place? On both counts, the man with the most explaining to do is national security adviser Sandy Berger, the de facto architect of America's foreign policy. Berger's view of the world tells him that the way to get powerful but contrary countries such as China to respect American interests is to enmesh them in a web of international law and multilateral organizations. His summum bonum is Chinese membership in the World Trade Organization. Yet China is not the state Berger imagines it to be. China is problematic for American interests and repugnant to American values. Morally, a "partnership" with the regime in Beijing must be unacceptable. (Judge them by their allies in Asia: the Khmer Rouge, North Korea, and Burma's brutal regime.) But it must also be viewed skeptically on strategic grounds. China is not a potential force for stability, but rather a proven force for disruption. It is a rising regional power with irredentist claims on Taiwan, the Spratley Islands, and border areas abutting both Vietnam and India…."
NewsMax.com 3/25/99 Joel Skousen "...In November 1997, President Clinton signed a top-secret Presidential Decision Directive (PDD-60) directing U.S. military commanders to abandon the time-honored nuclear deterrence of "launch on warning."... But the most ominous evidence is found in defectors from Russia who tell the same story: Russia is cheating on all aspects of disarmament, and is siphoning off billions in Western aid money to modernize and deploy top-of-the-line new weapons systems aimed at taking down the U.S. military in one huge, decapitating nuclear strike. Contrast this with the Clinton administration's response. Incredibly, while still paying lip service to nuclear deterrence, Assistant Secretary of Defense Edward L. Warner III went before the Congress on March 31, 1998, and bragged about the litany of unilateral disarmament this administration has forced upon the U.S. military: Warner noted the "success" the Clinton administration has had in recent years, which has: Eliminated our entire inventory of ground-launched non-strategic nuclear weapons (nuclear artillery and Lance surface-to-surface missiles). Removed all nonstrategic nuclear weapons on a day-to-day basis from surface ships, attack submarines, and land-based naval aircraft bases. Removed our strategic bombers from alert. Stood down the Minuteman II ICBMs scheduled for deactivation under Start I. Terminated the mobile Peacekeeper and mobile small ICBM programs. Terminated the SCRAM-II nuclear short-range attack missile. In January 1992, the second Presidential Nuclear Initiative took further steps which included: Limiting B-2 production to 20 bombers. Canceling the entire small ICBM program. Ceasing production of W-88 Trident SLBM (submarine-launched missile) warheads. Halting purchases of advanced cruise missiles. Stopping new production of Peacekeeper missiles (our biggest MIRV-warhead ICBM). "As a result of these significant changes, the U.S. nuclear stockpile has decreased by more than 50 percent," Warner enthused. All of this has been done without any meaningful disarmament by the Russians...."
NewsMax.com 3/25/99 Joel Skousen "...The Clinton administration would counter this charge by citing the "successful" dismantling of 3,300 strategic nuclear warheads by Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus, and the destruction of their 252 ICBMs and related silos -- all paid for with U.S. taxpayer funds to the tune of $300 million per year. But the real story is otherwise. Yes, Americans paid for the dismantling of these systems -- the oldest and most out-of-date in the Soviet inventory. They were scheduled for replacement anyway, so the U.S. taxpayer ended up saving the Russians over a billion dollars, allowing them to use this and other Western aid to develop and build new systems, coming on line right now. But that isn't all. What the administration doesn't say is that they allowed the Russians to reclaim all the nuclear warheads, and paid them to recycle the usable material into new, updated warheads. We didn't diminish the threat at all. We only helped them to transform it into something more dangerous. Thus, the Russians still maintain a more than 3-to-1 advantage over the United States in both throw-weight and nuclear delivery vehicles. That disparity is widening dramatically with the Clinton administration's unilateral disarmament while at the same time encouraging the Russians to proceed not only with the deployment of 500 new Topol-M missiles (which are mobile-launched and therefore difficult to target), but to put three MIRVed warheads on each missile instead of the treaty limit of one warhead -- for a total deployment of 1,500 warheads.......Now let's take a close look at this presumed "increased deterrence" the Clinton Department of Defense is promising. The administration claims its brand of deterrence is still based on the "mutual assured destruction" (MAD) concept -- a truly appropriate acronym. This is the presumption that, since both sides have an overwhelming capability to destroy each other, that no sane leadership would engage in nuclear war. Let's examine this closely. MAD could only stand as a viable assumption if: Both sides had sufficient weapons and delivery vehicles to inflict total devastation. Neither side had an effective anti-ballistic-missile system. Neither side had electronic jamming capability on its incoming ICBMs. Neither side had hardened shelters protecting its population and leadership. These assumptions clearly do not exist today: First, we barely have enough nuclear warheads to take out the Russian arsenal as presently constituted if we used them all at once (which no sane military commander could afford to do, leaving him with no reserves). Russia, on the other hand, has enough to devastate our entire strategic forces and still retain 60 percent of her weapons in reserve, for a prolonged conflict. Second, we have no ABM system to protect against ICBMs at all. Our dumbed-down and slowed-down Patriots are theater weapons (built to conform to the flawed ABM Treaty) and can barely catch slow, low-flying Scud missiles, let alone ICBMs that coming screaming in from space at 6 to 12 kilometers per second. The Russians have (in violation of the same ABM Treaty) a nationwide system of ABMs tied to phased-array radars and satellite guidance systems. Third, we have no electronic jamming on our missiles to help them penetrate the Russian ABM system, and the Russians claim their newest Topol-M missiles do have such a capability. Whether or not this claim is a bluff is immaterial. The fact is, they are building new, high-tech missiles and our technology is 10 years old and stagnant. We are not developing or building anything new. This aspect can only worsen as time goes on. Fourth, our civilian population is totally unprotected, while a large portion of the Russian cities have public fallout shelter facilities. New bunkers are being constructed for the Russian leadership despite the economic hardships the people suffer. This should tell us something about Russian leadership intentions. Is this Mutually Assured Destruction? Hardly. It equates to United States Assured Destruction! In every category of deterrence, we are disarming and stagnant, and the Russians are building and deploying. There is, in fact, only one type of deterrence that is capable of somewhat balancing the scales: the nuclear response doctrine of Launch on Warning...."
Washington Weekly 5/2/99 RICKI MAGNUSSEN AND MARVIN LEE "...QUESTION: What is your opinion of the revelation that apparently all U.S. nuclear weapons data was lost to China through the "Legacy codes" on the Clinton administration's watch? TIMPERLAKE: I believe it. It's accurate, it's factual, it's real, everything. It was a very clever operation. We don't know what we don't know! If we are not talking the nuclear stuff, I mean we are doing military to military, you know it's the small stuff that also hurts you. It's letting them watch logistics, it's letting the PRC having access to how air operations are run, it's letting the PRC go into our test range and into anti submarine warfare training facilities in San Diego. They see all of this. So not only is the nuclear equation in jeopardy but the conventional weaponry and the conventional tactics are being exposed to PRC in a very open and dangerous way as well. There is going to be a terrible historical accounting and those who have compromised and trimmed their sails to the prevailing wind should be held accountable…."
Washington Post 2/15/98 John Pomfret "..."They call us a technological paper tiger," quipped one U.S. Army officer. "Good equipment, but no stomach for a fight." Pentagon officials say the views expressed by some visiting officers are reinforced in recent Chinese military publications, which have argued that the United States is a declining power; that while China is a weaker power, weaker powers can often defeat superior powers; that the United States didn't win the Persian Gulf War, Saddam Hussein lost it; and that China is poised to leapfrog the United States in the race for a technologically advanced army. Chinese military analysts also believe that the United States is trying to subvert China and contain its power..... The report, "Dangerous Chinese Misperceptions: the Implications for Department of Defense," makes specific mention of Pentagon concerns that China's belief in the weakness of the United States and other U.S. trained or equipped forces could contribute to a decision to attack Taiwan, an island nation of 21 million people which Beijing claims as its own...... Since 1993, for example, Chen Xiaogong, a senior colonel in charge of the America desk for China's military intelligence, has pushed the idea that the United States aims to contain China. He spent a year at the Atlantic Council here. Chen Xulong, the director of the American studies division of a think-tank linked to the Ministry of State Security, has argued that the U.S. containment strategy won't work. He received his doctorate from George Washington University. As such, the report intimated that increased contact with China's military was not having the desired effect....... U.S. concern about a simmering hostility toward the United States prompted the Clinton administration to resume military contacts with Beijing in 1993, according to William J. Perry, then secretary of defense, who was the catalyst for the move. Perry traveled to Beijing in 1994 and was expecting a return visit from China's defense minister, Gen. Chi Haotian....We realized that things, if not attended to, could go quickly and seriously wrong," Perry said. So by mid-1996, the Pentagon had redoubled its efforts to improve ties with China's army, planning visits as a way of teaching Chinese officers about American goals and power. Exchanges also began between American nuclear weapons scientists and their Chinese counterparts. ...Over the last few months, Chinese have been escorted to Fort Hood, Tex., and flown over a mile-long formation of M1A1 Abrams tanks to impress them. Chinese officers have been flown to an aircraft carrier to underscore the financial and logistical difficulties of embarking on and maintaining a "blue water" navy. U.S. officials say they are more eager than the Chinese to improve the relationship. The Chinese have yet to agree to allow exchange visits between the commanders of the U.S. and Chinese strategic forces. And they have reacted coolly to a U.S. request to conduct joint exercises with Chinese troops to prepare for human disasters...... Congress eliminated an important component of U.S.-China military exchanges in July 1996, cutting funding for the U.S.-China Joint Defense Conversion Commission, which had been established to help China's defense industry convert its military factories to civilian production..... "
Military Action on U.S. Ground
Freeper newsman 11/30/98 report on Rush Limbaugh Show Call-in to Tony Snow ".A few minutes ago, Tony Snow talked to a Marine who voiced some misgivings about president Clinton. Toward the end of their conversation, the caller asked Snow if he had heard about the long list of questions that the commander-in-chief had his underlings ask the young Marines at his base (which he named but I didn't get). But I became much more alert when the Marine, at the close of the interview, asked and got Tony's permission to read to him the last question. This is the gist of that question: Under certain circumstances, would you be willing to fire upon American citizens? (Note: This is not a direct, verbatim quote.)."Follow-up on above from 7/26/98 Freeper Bob Evans from The Resister Combat Arms Survey This questionnaire is to gather data concerning the attitudes of combat trained personnel with regards to nontraditional missions. All of your responses are confidential..Part II. Attitudes Do you feel that U.S. Combat troops should be used within the United States for any of the following missions? 8. Drug enforcement.15. National emergency police force.16. Advisors to S.W.A.T. units, the FBI or the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (B.A.T.F.). Do you feel that U.S. combat troops under U.S. command should be used in other countries for and of the following United Nations missions?.Do you feel that U.S. combat troops should be used in other countries, under command of non-U.S. officers appointed by the United Nations for any of the following missions?.30. Police action (e.g. Korea, Vietnam, but serving under non-U.S. officers).. 35. U.S. combat troops should participate in U.N. missions under United Nations command and control.39. I feel the President of the United States has the authority to pass his responsibilities as Commander-in-Chief to the U.N. Secretary General..40. I feel there is no conflict between my oath of office and serving as a U.N. soldier...45. I would swear to the following code:"I am a United Nations fighting person. I serve in the forces which maintain world peace and every nation's way of life. I am prepared to give my life in their defense.". 46. The U.S. government declares a ban on the possession, sale, transportation, and transfer of all non-sporting firearms. A thirty (30) day amnesty period is permitted for these firearms to be turned over the local authorities. At the end of this period, a number of citizen groups refuse to turn over their firearms. Consider the following statement: I would fire upon U.S. citizens who refuse or resist confiscation of firearms banned by the U.S. government. Our civilian readers maybe wondering why the Combat Arms Survey was circulated so heavily within the Department of the Navy. The reason is simple; the Navy is not subject to USC Title 10 Posse Comitatus prohibitions against using federal military forces for domestic law enforcement. This includes the US Marine Corps. Just thought you would like to know."
Federal Computer Week 12/7/98 Daniel Verton ".The Marine Corps is gearing up for a high-tech military experiment designed to prepare Marines to fight in what some experts are calling the battlefields of the future -- the world's urban areas. Dubbed Urban Warrior, the Marine Corps' advanced warfighting experiment will take place in March throughout the streets, sewers and buildings of San Francisco. Marine Corps officials met in San Diego last month with their Navy counterparts to iron out details of the experiment, which will focus on developing technology to help Marines fight battles in a dense urban landscape.."
WorldNetDaily.com 2/10/99 David M. Bresnahan ".Local residents [Kingsville, Texas] are distraught over a near disaster during a secret Army training exercise. Local officials claim they were sworn to secrecy. Getting factual information about what happened is next to impossible. Reports from residents told of low flying, unmarked helicopters and soldiers dropping down from ropes in the center of the town after dark Monday night. WorldNetDaily was told that the police station burned and a commercial building was severely damaged. The assistant police chief confirmed what no one else would admit. "The United States Army Special Operations Command was conducting a training exercise in our area," admitted Arthur Rogers when the police chief was unavailable for comment. He refused further details. That was more than Mayor Phil Esquivel would disclose. He said he was sworn to secrecy for national security reasons. His answers were evasive and without detail.."
WorldNet Daily 2/11/99 David M. Bresnahan "..The long internal struggle in the island country of Cortina has resulted in two new republics, Cortina and Acadia. A multi-national force has been called in to establish peace. That's the made up scenario for a massive military training exercise now taking place over a 200 mile radius of Fort Polk, Louisiana. It will conclude Feb. 17, according to a public affairs spokesman. Over 5,000 strong, forces from the Army, Navy, Marines, and foreign military united to take part in the training exercise which began on Feb. 6. The peace enforcement training is being conducted by the Joint Readiness Training Center.."
WorldNetDaily 2/16/99 David M. Bresnahan ".Gov. George W. Bush, R-Texas, says it is not his job to get involved in the concerns over Army Night Stalkers using live ammunition in a civilian area of his state. The Army Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, has confirmed Operation Last Dance began in Kingsville Feb. 8 and has been continuing in other small towns near Corpus Christi... Eight black helicopters roared into town, with one nearly crashing as it hit the top of a telephone pole and started a fire near a residence. The soldiers on board staged a mock raid on two empty buildings, using real explosives and live ammunition in machine guns. The two-hour gun battle has residents and some officials furious -- and some scared to death by what they heard and saw. Police Chief Felipe Garza and Mayor Phil Esquivel were the only city officials in Kingsville involved in approving the military training exercise. At least one other Texas Mayor turned the military away for a similar request and accused them of offering a bribe. Both Garza and Esquivel have refused to provide details, insisting that they were sworn to secrecy by the Army... Kingsville is not the only place to experience Operation Last Dance. Other Texas communities are also witnessing similar events.Tomas Sanchez, emergency management coordinator for the Federal Emergency Management Agency is not pleased about what happened in his town. Yesterday he met with county commissioners in a special session to brief them on his own investigation..."I can tell you specifically. In my humble opinion, based on my background, the scenario if I were creating this ops plan," he described. He gave his belief as to the scenario the Night Stalkers were working under. "Martial law has been declared through presidential powers and war powers act, and some citizens have refused to give up their weapons. They have taken over two of the buildings in Kingsville. The police cannot handle it. So you call these guys in. They show up and they zap everybody, take all the weapons, and let the local P.D. clean it up," he said. "In urban warfare, the militarization of the police, this thing got out of order. The citizens did not comply with executive order so and so. They refused to give up their weapons," he re-emphasized. Sanchez and other military experts questioned by WorldNetDaily all pointed to Presidential Decision Directive 25 as the document being used to authorize the military to participate in domestic police action. PDD 25 is classified as Top Secret, and even Sen. Orrin Hatch was unable to obtain a copy as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Only a brief summary is available to the public. Sanchez and others believe the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act has been eliminated by PDD 25. The posse comitatus act forbids the use of the military as a domestic police force... "
WorldNet Daily 3/4/99 David Bresnahan "…The Federal Emergency Management Agency has issued plans which include the use of the military as a domestic police force in the event of Y2K civil disturbances. The plan also provides for the movement of large numbers of people into shelters in the event of a disaster associated with Y2K computer failures. The FEMA plan of action for the Y2K crisis is outlined in the report "Contingency and Consequence Management Planning for Year 2000 Conversion: A Guide for State and Local Emergency Managers." The plan was recently made available to local governments throughout the country…."
Inside The Pentagon 3/11/99 Freeper Stand Watch Listen "…The Pentagon plans to establish a joint task force that will coordinate its efforts in support of federal agencies tasked with responding to a domestic weapons of mass destruction attack, Deputy Defense Secretary John Hamre told the Senate Armed Services Committee this week. ....The Clinton administration designated DOJ last year as the lead for the new multi-agency National Domestic Preparedness Office, which will coordinate federal, state and local efforts to prevent or manage the damage from domestic terrorism (Inside the Pentagon, Dec. 24, 1998, p1).............Hamre cited three main priorities shaping the task force structure that will be recommended to Cohen and Clinton.<P. The first has to do with sensitivities over using the military in a law enforcement role, and the way that could infringe on civil liberties…."
Washington Times (Page C6) 6/7/99 AP Freeper Goldi-Lox "...Marines are scheduled for military "Scenarios" in the city of Richmond by the 22nd [Marine division]. "The purpose: to teach Marines how to fight in urban environments." ..."
USMC 6/28/99 U.S. Navy Department "...A U.S Marine from the 1st Battalion, 5th Marines runs for cover during the urban combat phase of Operation Urban Warrior March 16 in Oakland, Calif. The three-phased operation tested Marines' ability to provide humanitarian assistance in an urban environment, respond to threats of chemical and biological weapons, and restore order after a state of civil unrest. ..."
WorldNetDaily 7/23/99 Jon Dougherty "...Under the auspices of combating illegal drugs, guarding borders and preventing terrorism, new provisions in the House and Senate Defense Appropriations Bills seek to increase the use of the U.S. military in domestic law enforcement. According to sources, the bill would end the requirement for local law agencies to reimburse the federal government for any local use of military equipment, as well as enable the Department of Defense to deploy military troops in cases of anticipated or actual terrorist attacks..... Kopel said the precedent for government's current fixation on more dramatic use of the military as law enforcement personnel has its roots in Waco, Texas. There, in 1993, some 83 members of a religious group known as the Branch Davidians and their leader, David Koresh, died when a fire engulfed their community, allegedly because armored military vehicles ignited kerosene lanterns when making a forced entry. ...If passed the measure would allow military personnel to assist the Border Patrol in curbing illegal immigration by "preventing entry into the U.S." The bill also gives the military the authority to prevent entry of "drug traffickers and terrorists," and would allow military inspections of "cargo, vehicles, and aircraft at points of entry into the U.S." Gregory Nojeim, Legislative Counsel for the Washington, D.C., chapter of the ACLU, said the sum total of the new military roles in civilian law enforcement would eventually destroy "what was left of" the Posse Comitatus Act. "These provisions ... will blow a hole in Posse Comitatus large enough to drive a thousand tanks onto our city streets," he told WorldNetDaily...."
World Net Daily 7/23/99 Jon Dougherty "…Under the auspices of combating illegal drugs, guarding borders and preventing terrorism, new provisions in the House and Senate Defense Appropriations Bills seek to increase the use of the U.S. military in domestic law enforcement. According to sources, the bill would end the requirement for local law agencies to reimburse the federal government for any local use of military equipment, as well as enable the Department of Defense to deploy military troops in cases of anticipated or actual terrorist attacks….. For example, one provision would remove the requirement for local law enforcement agencies to reimburse the DOD for use of military resources, at the discretion of the Secretary of Defense. "That is currently the main practical check on the use of military equipment by local police," Kopel told WorldNetDaily. He added that he is worried about an overall growth in the federal government's "tendency to militarize local police officers." …"
Washington Post 7/26/99 William Cohen "…The United States now faces something of a superpower paradox. Our supremacy in the conventional arena is prompting adversaries to seek unconventional, asymmetric means to strike our Achilles' heel. At least 25 countries, including Iraq and North Korea, now have -- or are in the process of acquiring and developing -- weapons of mass destruction. Of particular concern is the possible persistence in some foreign military arsenals of smallpox, the horrific infectious virus that decimated entire nations down the ages and against which the global population is currently defenseless. Also looming is the chance that these terror weapons will find their way into the hands of individuals and independent groups -- fanatical terrorists and religious zealots beyond our borders, brooding loners and self-proclaimed apocalyptic prophets at home. This is not hyperbole. It is reality. Indeed, past may be prologue….What would that day look like? A biological agent would sink into the respiratory and nervous systems of the afflicted. The speed and scope of modern air travel could carry this highly contagious virus across hemispheres in hours. Indeed, the invisible contagion would be neither geographically nor numerically limited, infecting unsuspecting thousands -- with many, in turn, communicating the virus to whomever they touch. The march of the contagion could accelerate astoundingly, with doctors offering little relief. Hospitals would become warehouses for the dead and the dying. A plague more monstrous than anything we have experienced could spread with all the irrevocability of ink on tissue paper. Ancient scourges would quickly become modern nightmares… As part of a federal interagency effort launched last year by President Clinton and led by the National Security Council, the Defense Department is doing its part to prepare the nation for the catastrophic consequences of an attack that unleashes these horrific weapons…. First, any military assistance in the wake of a domestic attack must be in support of the appropriate federal civilian authority -- either the Department of Justice or the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Second, an unequivocal and unambiguous chain of responsibility, authority and accountability for that support must exist. Third, military assistance should not come at the expense of our primary mission -- fighting and winning our nation's wars… Fourth, our military response efforts will be grounded primarily in the National Guard and Reserve…. Special National Guard teams are being positioned around the nation to advise and assist communities upon request. Finally, we must not and trample on American lives and liberties in the name of preserving them. Fears about the military's role in domestic affairs are unfounded, as evidenced by a long history of reasonable and successful military support to communities ravaged by natural disasters, such as fire and flood…."
Bad Decisions on Key Positions
Daryl Jones for Air Force secretary (SEC probe on $90,000 fee from $200 million Dade County aviation bond deal.)
Wall Street Journal 11/6/98 ".Back when Bill Clinton was not inhaling at Oxford, the future commander in chief wrote a letter to an ROTC officer in Arkansas making clear his "loathing" for the U.S. military. A generation later the situation has apparently reversed itself, if we are to go by an article in last month's NavyTimes by Marine Corps Maj. Shane Sellers referring to Mr. Clinton as "an adulterous liar" and "criminal."..Marine brass have had to crack down on e-mail from officers calling for Mr. Clinton's impeachment. Even more notorious was the comment about a year ago from Mr. Clinton's assistant secretary for the army, Sara Lister, who was forced to resign after accusing the Corps of being extremists."..With respect to Maj. Sellers, it is always worth reminding our officers that, however much they may dislike the person of the president, he remains their commander in chief and as such deserving of the respect that goes with the office. But it is no contradiction for the rest of us to note that while Mr. Clinton outranks all those who take the oath of service to their nation, even the lowest buck private who remains faithful to that oath will always outclass him."
AP 6/2/99 "...President Clinton said Wednesday he would nominate F. Whitten Peters to be secretary of the Air Force. Peters, the current acting secretary, was named under secretary in November 1997...The administration's original choice for the post, attorney Charles Curtis, a former Energy Department official, withdrew his name in April over concern that his confirmation would focus on the issue of lax security at the nation's nuclear weapons labs.... Before serving as a senior executive with the federal government, Mr. Peters was a litigation partner at the Washington, D.C. law firm of Williams & Connolly, where he specialized in complex civil and criminal litigation, including the defense of government contract fraud, antitrust, tax and security cases..."
Right Magazine 8/6/99 Diane Alden "...In a July 26th op-ed for the Washington Post, Secretary of Defense William Cohen said we live in a "grave New World.".... Secretary of Defense posted this op-ed with the likely intent of advising people that if there were a terrorist attack that the military would intervene. But the tendency towards using the military as a police force has already begun. In the Balkans, Haiti, and elsewhere, the U.S. army of occupation invariably functions as a police force. In some cases, it also performs as a "meals on wheels with guns." Recent history indicates that the U.S. military has been used on occasion, to bolster federal and local police agencies. In the case of Waco, the Army provided the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms with support under the operational control of Joint Task Force 6. A request was made by the Justice Department for the Army's special operation forces to accompany BATF agents storming the Branch Davidian Compound. Had it been acted upon by the military, the siege at Waco would have been an even worse fiasco of government over-reaction, than was the case. Using the military against U.S. civilians usually creates a backlash - affecting it for decades. The two most notorious cases are Kent State and the use of the army against the bonus marchers after World War I..... "
Right Magazine 8/6/99 Diane Alden "...The Posse Comitatus Act is presumed to be the bulwark against using the military as a police force; but it has been eroded since the 80s due in no small part to the "war on drugs." According to a government source, the black helicopters everyone talks about seeing are part of the National Guard's marijuana eradication program. These flights over rural America are as a result of congressional amendments to Posse Comitatus, which created these exceptions. Other exceptions to the Act include the statutory authority of the President to use federal troops to quell domestic violence.... On the surface the excuse for using the military in emergency situations appears benign. Being prepared for chemical or biological attacks by terrorists, foreign or domestic may be the height of common sense. Cities have used the National Guard to quell disturbances the police can't handle. Ordinarily citizens trust the government in such circumstances, because military involvement comes from a need at the state or local level....No longer does the federal government merely arm the U.S. Marshall's service, the Secret Service, the FBI, the Border Patrol, DEA, BATF and the military. Today the IRS, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, EPA, the Forest Service and even the Small Business Administration are carrying firearms. In the deadly incidents of over-reaction at Ruby Ridge and Waco, hardly a flak-jacketed bureaucrat paid any meaningful price..... "
Right Magazine 8/6/99 Diane Alden "...Early one morning in July of 1997, two men went to work at the Clearwater County flood control center in rural northwest Idaho. Immediately they were accosted by six heavily armed federal agents carrying 9 mm Glock sidearms and wearing flak jackets. The agents hauled away 40 banker boxes of county records relating to the 1996 flood recovery work. The basis for the search warrant was kept secret. Local officials wondered why they weren't simply issued a subpoena for the records. Eventually, the Justice Department closed the investigation for lack of evidence. The aftermath of the Clearwater incident left residents wondering why the federal government had sent a swat team to their community when an accountant would have been sufficient. The answer to that question may be found in the growing trend towards militarization of the federal bureaucracy. For instance, the Clearwater commando raid was not conducted by the FBI but by the Federal Emergency Management Agency Office (FEMA). In a more civil time, the agency would have sent auditors to investigate allegations of financial mismanagement...."
Clinton Attitude toward the military!
Draft History WJC to Col Eugene Holmes 12/3/69 "...loathing the military..."
www.talkers.com 12/8/98 G Gordon Liddy ".When the veterans were coming back, these people felt sufficiently emboldened that they would actually spit on these veterans. Well, with the exception of Bill Clinton, most of these people are now ashamed of themselves for the way that they behaved. Bill Clinton, of course, isn't. He loathes, absolutely hates the military. There was an incident in the White House not long ago where two military guys, they were EOD specialists, who were in civilian clothes because the White House hates it when anyone wears a uniform in there, but they are there because the Secret Service needs them. If the Secret Service thinks they've got a problem, these guys are there to risk their lives for the President. The President was coming out of a bathroom one time and he spotted them. (You can spot them by their haircut. The military always have a neat hair cut.) He walked over and he said `My God, I hate you people.' And then he walked by. I mean this is how he still feels about the military.."
FoxNews 12/19/98 ".The military service of presidents from World War II to now. FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT: None. Assistant Navy secretary, a civilian post, before and during World War I. HARRY TRUMAN: Combat captain who led field artillery battery in campaigns during World War I. DWIGHT EISENHOWER: The war hero-turned-president was Supreme Allied Commander in the victory over Germany and five-star Army general. Before his presidency, a career-long soldier who graduated from West Point. JOHN KENNEDY: A Navy lieutenant assigned to a Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron, Kennedy was commanding the PT-109 when it was rammed by the Japanese destroyer Amagiri while on patrol off the Solomon Islands in August 1943. He returned to the United States at the end of the year for treatment of wartime disabilities. LYNDON JOHNSON: A member of Congress and the Naval Reserve, Johnson asked to be called to active duty after Pearl Harbor attack. Said to have been first U.S. representative to don a uniform. Received Silver Star for gallantry under fire, after a patrol bomber he was in was crippled by Japanese bullets. RICHARD NIXON: Joined Navy in 1942 as lieutenant and went to South Pacific as ground officer for Combat Air Transport Command. GERALD FORD: Served on the aircraft carrier Monterey, engaged in almost all major Pacific battles in closing phases of World War II. Earned 10 battle stars. JIMMY CARTER: Graduated from U.S. Naval Academy in 1946, Carter served in Navy until 1953, on battleships, in submarine service and as a senior officer in precommissioning crew of Sea Wolf, the second nuclear submarine. RONALD REAGAN: Called to active Army duty in 1942, Reagan was disqualified from combat duty because he was nearsighted; he made Air Force training films. GEORGE BUSH: One of the youngest Navy pilots at the time, Bush was assigned to the aircraft carrier San Jacinto as a member of a torpedo bomber squadron. His Avenger was shot down in September 1944 as he was on his way to bomb a radio tower on Chichi Jima island. He parachuted into the sea, was rescued by a submarine and returned to the carrier two months later. BILL CLINTON: None.."
Congressional Quarterly Weekly 1/5/99 ".The disclosure of Clinton's affair with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky and his attempts to conceal it have provoked unusual public criticism of the president by some in uniform, in some ways a reflection of the difficult relationship Clinton has had with the armed forces he tried so hard to stay out of during the Vietnam War. On Dec. 5, for instance, the Marine Corps effectively ended the career of a major in the reserves who in a newspaper commentary had called Clinton "a lying draft dodger" and "a moral coward" who has "always had contempt for the American military." The case is one of several in which officers have at least come close to violating a provision of military law barring use of "contemptuous speech" in referring to the president or certain other high government officials. (Code, p. 26) Some conservatives say these incidents are evidence that Clinton's personal conduct is undermining the armed services he leads as commander in chief. Though many officers say they are able to separate Clinton's personal life from his official role, the scandal highlights a stark contrast between the services' rigid norms of conduct and broader society's more flexible standards. "It's frustrating that, since we put 'integrity' so high, the polls are suggesting this is no big thing," a senior Army officer mused. "Something that is so fundamental to the military is being soundly rejected by the American people." There is a growing gap between military and civilian life that worries some top military officers and defense analysts. More than a quarter-century after the end of the draft in 1973, relatively few Americans have any military experience, or know any relatives or role models such as teachers who have been in uniform. Those who set defense policy have little direct experience. Neither Clinton, Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright, National Security Adviser Samuel R. Berger nor Defense Secretary Williams S. Cohen has been in uniform. Only Vice President Al Gore, who was an Army journalist in Vietnam, has served in the military. The proportion of members of Congress with military service has dropped from more than 75 percent in 1971 to less than 34 percent in the incoming 106th..."
Dallas Morning News 2/24/99 William Murchison Freeper Stand Watch Listen "...Defense Secretary William Cohen, sensing the emergence of a national problem, has begun praising the ideal of military service. The armed services are lagging in their quest to fill enlistment quotas. Seasoned regulars are dropping out for private-sector jobs.........It shows in that we regard the military as just another federal civil service job. It shows in that we deliberately misunderstand the purpose of training men to kill: which purpose is to let them kill in defense of their and our country. Americans' present take on the military is essentially pacifistic...."
Houston Chronicle 4/11/99 Douglas MacKinnon "...What if you gave a war and despised the very military you asked to carry out your mission? That is now the problem facing President Clinton and his administration. Past comments and actions come back to haunt them.... Military personnel in every branch openly wonder how a president who once mocked their very existence can now ask them to put their lives at risk. And why? An Army colonel asked me, "Why does a president who dodged the draft and once stated that he loathed the military now ask us to fight and possibly die thousands of miles away? Why does a president who avoided service in Vietnam now use the same rationale for Kosovo as President Johnson did for Southeast Asia? ....Many political appointees in the Clinton administration (including a number at the Pentagon and in positions of power over the military) have openly stated their disgust for the military, its code of conduct and way of life. It is fair for men and women in uniform to ask if those who would send them to die have the proper respect and understanding for the job they perform. It is right for those who serve to point at past Clinton mistakes and ask if he has learned his lesson. The colonel I spoke with mentioned Mogadishu, Somalia and the 18 elite American soldiers who were not only killed, but also stripped, disfigured and dragged through the streets as macabre trophies. In his mind, he said, this happened because "Clinton and the secretary of defense didn't send in the armor requested by the commanders on the scene." How many people today remember that Secretary of Defense Les Aspin had to resign because of that tragedy? ....Are those in uniform wrong to question the motives of the president when he bombs a pharmaceutical factory in Sudan at the same time Monica Lewinsky is scheduled to testify? Are those in uniform wrong to question the motives of the president when he bombs Iraq during his impeachment trial? Many in the military now want to know why Clinton is using them in the war over Kosovo. Is it to prevent the genocide that his military commanders and intelligence experts warned him couldn't be stopped with an air campaign -- or, is it instead to try to manufacture a page in history for the legacy of Bill Clinton? Our men and women in uniform deserve an honest answer...."
National Review 5/3/99 Mark Helprin "...President Clinton refused to study war and held all things military in contempt. He arrived in the Oval Office purposely ignorant of the most important challenge of any presidency, a tremendously difficult subject that can baffle the greatest statesmen. Even among generals only a small minority have war in their bones; the rest are bureaucrats. Seldom has a president been so preternaturally unprepared, and seldom has his unpreparedness shone so brightly In his promiscuity he has extended, to the Ukraine, guarantees of which it is hard to judge which is greater, their dangerousness or their meaninglessness. And in his confusion he has established the principle of directing our shrinking military capacity always to where it is needed least, as in nation-building in Mogadishu, the counting of endangered animals, or the destruction of African pharmaceutical factories. He accomplished the groundwork fur the present failure by simultaneously reducing NATO's military capacity to approximately 40 percent of what he had inherited, while expanding its geographical range and its roster of missions, and changing its orientation from that of a barely manageable defensive alliance to a proactive instrument of gargantuan size and spread. For half a century the brilliance of NATO has been its massive power held in reserve for essential application-but no longer. This may seem a heartless pronouncement in the face of hundreds of thousands of refugees driven front Kosovo, of mass executions, and of old people and babies dying of exposure in the inhospitable seventies of early spring, hut none of it would have happened absent American support for ethnic Albanian separatism....We made this war. Without our intervention the Serbs would not have felt the need to visit their atrocities upon the Albanians, and they would not have...."
Outrage toward the Commander in Chief
Somalia Incident/Deaths - father of Ranger awarded CMH refused his hand and said "You are not fit to command"
Washington Times John McCaslin quotes Gen. Paul W. Tibbets Jr "I don't think I could even salute the man," Gen. Tibbets replied. "If you're going to command troops, you have to have the respect of those troops, and respect is gained through leadership."
Defending America 9/23/98 Col. David Hackworth "Within our Armed Forces, Bill Clinton is as popular as a 25-mile hike in a snowstorm, a visit to the medics to retake all shots or a tour of desert duty in Saudi Arabia at Christmas time. Contrary to the majority of their civilian counterparts, many of those in uniform don't trust Clinton or think he's fit to be their commander in chief.
A Ranger leader: "He got a Monica while he was conning (Congressman H.L. "Sonny") Callahan on the phone about why our guys should be deployed to the killing fields of Bosnia! Gimme a break. He doesn't care about us. He's the same joker that got my unit shot up in Somalia and wrote it off by calling my dead pals "Unfortunate Casualties," ."
Wall Street Journal Ronald Shafer 9/25/98 ".Angry Reaction: James McDonough, a former Army colonel in Bosnia who is now in the White House drug czar's office, writes a newspaper letter blasting Clinton for allegedly having sex with Lewinsky while talking on the phone about Bosnia. McDonough calls that "callous indifference" and "reckless disregard" for American troops.."
The Review @ www.freeper.com 11/12/98 Jon Dougherty ".I believe in keeping civilian politicians in charge of our armed forces but I also think the criteria to become Commander-in-Chief could stand some tuning up. Having said that, any day that Bill Clinton remains president of the United States is not a good day for the military. And yesterday was a particularly bad one for the services because several things happened at once which illustrated the irony, folly, and disgust of having Clinton as the titular head of our nation's military forces. First of all it was Veteran's Day, which is usually a sad day for our nation's war heroes and veterans anyway.. President Clinton just had to show up [again] at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, place his ceremonial wreath, and then wax patriotic about how these brave souls really are the true heroes of this country. He doesn't for one minute believe what he's saying [he didn't even write it] nor does he have any idea what the concepts he's explaining really mean. He tells us what most thinking people already know - that our Veterans are pretty swell folks -- but considering Clinton's own "military record," it is an outright insult to have him show up at any military remembrance or celebration because he has no moral right to be there. Granted, other presidents never served either, but he is the only one who went out of his way to lie like a coward to keep from having to go - only to end up in charge of the military some 30 years later. If that isn't depressing irony.."
Washington Times 10/16/98 "The Marine Corps is considering whether to punish a major for publicly calling President Clinton an "adulterous liar" and "criminal" who should be impeached for trying to cover up his affair with Monica Lewinsky. Col. Stu Wagner, a Marine Corps spokesman, said senior Marine officers have examined an article written by Marine Maj. Shane Sellers but had not decided whether the statements in it merit administrative or legal action.."
11/10/98 Daniel J. Rabil ".The American military is subject to civilian control, and we deeply believe in that principle. We also believe, as affirmed in the Nuremberg Trials, that servicemen are not bound to obey illegal orders. But what about orders given by a known criminal? Should we trust in the integrity of directives given by a president who violates the same basic oath we take? Should we be asked to follow a morally defective leader with a demonstrated disregard for his troops? The answer is no, for implicit in the voluntary oath that all servicemen take is the promise that they will receive honorable civilian leadership. Bill Clinton has violated that covenant. It is therefore Congress' duty to remove him from office."
The Washington Times 11/11/98 Rowan Scarborough ".A reserve Marine Corps officer is under investigation for advocating the impeachment of President Clinton in an article in The Washington Times on Monday. Maj. Gen. David Mize, commander of Marine Forces Reserve in New Orleans, has appointed a colonel to conduct a preliminary inquiry into reserve Maj. Daniel J. Rabil. In a Times op-ed column, Maj. Rabil called for the president's removal. He labeled Mr. Clinton a "lying draft dodger" and "moral coward" who has "always had contempt for the American military." Maj. Paula Buckley, Gen. Mize's spokeswoman, said the investigating officer will determine whether Maj. Rabil violated Article 88 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). The code prohibits officers from making disparaging remarks about certain public officials, including their commander in chief."
Providence Journal 12/4/98 Theodore Gatchel ".DURING the 30 years I spent on active duty, I served on numerous courts-martial and investigative boards. None of those proceedings ever involved Article 88 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the provision in military law that prohibits commissioned officers from using "contemptuous language" toward specific government officials, most notably the president of the United States. Thinking back, I would have been astounded if any of my contemporaries would have felt driven to put such language in print, as have several officers recently. That is not to say that the officers I served with had a high regard for most politicians. They didn't.."
Washington Times 12/7/98 Rowan Scarborough ".The Marine Corps effectively has ended the career of a reserve officer for strongly criticizing President Clinton's sexual misconduct and calling for his removal from office in a Nov. 9 op-ed article in The Washington Times. Maj. Daniel Rabil on Saturday evening appeared before his commanding general for disciplinary action. He was told he is being transferred to non-drill reserve status and is having a letter of caution put in his personnel file. The actions by Maj. Gen. David Mize, commander of Marine Forces Reserve in New Orleans, effectively end the officer's 11-year career because he has no chance of promotion. Maj. Rabil, 34, who wrote the article while a civilian, said in an interview he is considering resignation. "The only regret is it was perceived by the Marine Corps leadership as damaging to the Marine Corps. That wasn't my intent," he said. "I don't think it was perceived by mainstream Americans as extreme based on the letters and phone calls for support I received." ."
Washington Post 1/3/99 Andrew Bacevich ".In the ranks of the military, the impeachment crisis has evoked scattered grumbling, an echo of the civil-military tensions with which the Clinton era began. In truth, most American soldiers don't much like their commander in chief. In their eyes he remains the "draft dodger" whose efforts to avoid service in Vietnam were plainly dishonorable. In contrast to the ethic of selflessness, self-discipline and honor to which they aspire, the president's recklessly self-indulgent personal life and his weaseling efforts to avoid responsibility for his actions cannot be anything but offensive. Then there is the question of double standards. Beginning with the notorious Navy Tailhook convention of 1991 and continuing through the pending matter of retired Army Maj. Gen. David Hale, charged with having had extramarital affairs, the services have been shaken by a series of high-profile cases involving sexual misconduct by senior commissioned and noncommissioned officers. The outcome in almost every instance so far has been the end of a career. Although bearing only passing resemblance to "the Lewinsky matter," these cases have convinced some in the military that, if only as a matter of fairness, the commander in chief should suffer the same consequences.."
New York Post 1/8/99 Steve Dunleavy ".I am standing between Constitution Avenue and N.W. Henry Bacon Drive. Before me on a long, painful black chiseled wall are the names of 58,214 humans who bought it in Vietnam. Gargantuan in length, ghastly in waste, but gorgeous in the simple, but supreme sacrifice for others. Pete Bushey of Great Kills, Staten Island was with his girlfriend Mary Anne Clifford. They were looking for the name of John Geary who was, as Pete said, "a friend of my father." I wanted to know what he thought about was happening in the Senate between the boy scouts and the hustler. Quietly, but politely, almost at a whisper he said: "I don't think we should mention that man's name when we are here before this wall." Pete is an EMS worker dedicated to saving lives. He will save more lives and destroy none. .."
New York Post 1/8/99 Steve Dunleavy ".Stephen Long of Laurel, Md., was looking for the name Thomas Edward Jones under the slab at W29. "We have just come from Arlington Cemetery and I don't know how that man can make a speech from there," Long said. His aunt, Carole Wilhelm of Springfield, Va., jumped in: "I will be a little bit more indelicate. I don't even know how he has the guts to talk in Arlington or around this Mall." Carole wanted to talk about Thomas Edward Jones, a helicopter lieutenant who died in a mystery field in 1969 making sure the guys and gals like you and me could live without tyranny. "He never saw his baby. His son, also called Thomas, was in his mother's arms at the memorial service. He is 30 today, but never saw his father. That man they are talking about in the Senate, he has no guts."
New York Times 3/11/99 Steven Lee Myers Freeper Stand Watch Listen "…While the numbers are small, the resisters can upset the readiness of their units, particularly with National Guard and reserve units, whose members can resign more easily than their counterparts on active duty. In January, nine A-10 pilots with the Connecticut Air National Guard -- a quarter of their squadron -- quit rather than take the vaccine. At Travis Air Force Base, where Bettendorf last served, 11 of 40 reserve pilots in the 79th Air Refueling Squadron have refused to take the vaccination, leaving the unt woefully shorthanded only weeks before heading to the Persian Gulf. Bettendorf, 25, joined the Air Force after high school in Arizona, expecting to make a career of it. But when he heard he would have to take the vaccine, he began scouring the Internet and the base library for information, compiling notes in two three-ring binders…."
3/9/99 Janet Parshall's talkers.com Janet Parshall’s 3/9/99 Freeper vitolins "…QUOTE…Listen to this! The Pentagon is sponsoring a call-in health advice line that promotes homosexuality, even though homosexual conduct is forbidden in the military. Here are some actual quotes from the 1-800 advice line: "Homosexuality is considered normal," "Studies show that homosexual partners raise children just as well as anyone," "Many young people may experiment with same-sex relationships." The phone line also repeats the completely discredited claim that homosexuals comprise about 10 percent of the population. The advice line comes from Tricare, a health care organization run by the Department of Defense for active duty personnel and their families. Regulations against homosexual behavior are in the military, and they're there to protect the health and morale of our troops. Health service information for the military should underscore, not undercut, these regulations…."
WorldNetDaily 3/29/99 Geoff Metcalf Freeper Newskeeper "…...the disagreement between the military and the White House got SO heated that Cohen warned the Joint Chiefs to "keep their troops in line on this one." Remember: this administration has a history of ignoring the advice of military and intelligence experts, preferring to listen to appointees who won't let facts get in the way of their blowing smoke up the skirts of their patrons. Capital Hill Blue reported "The tension here is incredible," says one military source. "We have officers who talk privately of defying orders, but no one is willing to risk their career to stand up to the president of the United States. It just isn't done." …."
Mike Reagan's Hot Topics 1999 Buffalo Six "….SUMMARY: While we were all asleep listening to scintillating tales of gropings and trouser droppings by our fearless leader, our sharp as a cue-ball "National Media" failed to notice the mass resignation of two dozen General officers. The Japanese have a phrase for this sort of thing; roughly translated it means "Killing it with silence." ….I had a very interesting ride on a company (UAL) DC10 yesterday into Chicago. The F/E was a retired USAF BG - '61 USAFA (with his ring on), Vietnam Thuds (shot-down once) and one of the original Viper guys at Hill. He said that in 1997 twenty-four (24) Generals retired early (all on July 7th 1997) in mass protest over the conditions in the military (due to the administration's policies). They had fought in vain to correct PC, ops tempo, deployments everywhere, readiness and pay, so they ALL went to Sec Cohen's office and resigned. Cohen and the White House told them that they knew what they were up to and they would not let them get the publicity they desired. He said they were threatened with courts martial and their non-disclosure statement (the form we all sign saying we won't discuss classified stuff after we're out) was changed to include a requirement that they not discuss their resignations or face punishment and loss of retirement benefits…."
Capitol Hill Blue 4/3/99 Doug Thompson "..."It was ill conceived, poorly executed and fatally flawed," says Arnold Crittendon, a retired intelligence analyst. "The boys at the Pentagon tell me that the amateurs at the White House rammed this thing down their throats and they are choking on it." The "amateurs" at the White House include a President who evaded military service and a bunch of limp-wristed dilettantes who think conflict is a fight with their significant other. Ask any military professional at the Pentagon about what they think of the "boys at the White House" and you will probably get either a look of disdain or despair, following by a string of invectives. They won't say it publicly. Military men and women know that public criticism of the Commander-in-Chief, even one who is a draft dodger and coward, is a quick end to a career, but privately many admit they hate the man. "He's a despicable, whore-mongering bastard," one Air Force colonel admitted over coffee the other day. "The very sight of him turns my stomach." .....But memos and the UCMJ can't stop a professional soldier from puking his or her guts out at the thought of serving under a draft dodger or from quitting when he or she can't take it any longer. The U.S. military has lost more qualified personnel in the six years of tyranny under Bill Clinton than at any time in modern history. Those who haven't lost their jobs through his numerous military cutbacks have resigned their commissions out of disgust or opted for early retirement. ...."
Capitol Hill Blue 4/6/99 Doug Thompson "…Presidential spokesman Joe Lockhart lied to reporters Monday when he said the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon unanimously supported President Clinton in his war against Kosovo, senior Pentagon officials said. "He lied. There's no other way to say it," said one Pentagon official. "They caught him in an outright lie. The Joint Chiefs did not agree with the President on his decision to pursue an limited air campaign in Kosovo. They counseled against it and they continue to counsel against it." President Clinton, pressed by reporters, downplayed the disagreements between himself and his top military advisors, but did not deny reports that his decision to go ahead with air strikes against Yugoslavia ran counter to the recommendations of the Joint Chiefs. "First, let me say that one of the jobs that the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs have is to report to me faithfully the view of the Chiefs, the Service Chiefs, the members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. And they have performed that faithfully, so that when there is a difference of opinion, when there is even a nuance, they have let me know that, as far as I know, in every important matter. Ultimately, after all, I am responsible for all these decisions, and must bear the burden of them, regardless," Clinton said. However, when reporters asked Lockhart "So you're saying that there was unanimous support within not just the national security team, but within the Joint Chiefs?", Lockhart answered "yes," then went on to claim the "unanimous support" was "for the option that we are pursuing." "A flat out lie," said one Senior Pentagon officer Monday night. "The opposition against the President's program is real and it is continuing."…Intelligence analysts Sander Owen says anger among career military officers is growing. "The military has never liked this President," Owen said. "Now the dislike is turning into outright hatred. They see him as a genuine threat to the national security." …"
4/16/99 Freeper beethoven from an email concerning the 24 generals resignation on 7/7/97 "...He watched the AF times and said the retirements were announced slowly, over several months, and only four or so of the positions were refilled. This mass protest was led by LtGen Dale Thompson, USAF, now retired...."
The Weekly Standard 4/26/99 Tod Lindberg Freeper alissa ". . .probably with the draft-dodging during the Vietnam war, then the decades of lies on that subject, continuing through gays-in-the-military and Mogadishe, not omitting Haiti and phony photo-ops at Normandy, on to Monica's services during phone conversations with congressmen about sending troops to Bosnia, proceeding to dog-wagging in Sudan and Afghanistan, all while North Korea festers, Saddam sneers, China spies, readiness deteriorates, and generals get cashiered for conduct far less discreet than their commander in chief's - culminating at last in an ill-conceived Balkan war during which the world's foremost authority on talking your way out of a jam has been unfailingly incoherent. Bill Clinton is, in this view, the White House occupant least qualified to be commander in chief in the history of the Republic."
stratfor.com 4/29/99 Freeper henbane "2109 GMT, 990429 - Operation Allied Force has taken a toll on the U.S. Air Force's inventory of key precision munitions. Speaking at a reporter's breakfast, Air Force General Richard Hawley, head of the Air Combat Command, said that the munitions have been used up so fast that the air force is having trouble keeping them in stock. Hawley said that the air force has accelerated production of the satellite-guided Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAM), carried by the B-2 stealth bomber, but it will be "touch and go" as to whether they run out before new ones are delivered next month. As well, he also noted that conventional air-launched cruise missiles (CALCM) also are in short supply and no new ones are scheduled to be delivered until September. Hawley, who is near retirement, also expressed the air force's uneasiness with the political constraints under which the air war is being fought, and concern that air power is being discredited by a strategy that has failed to use it to full advantage. "Clearly in our air force doctrine, air power works best when it's used decisively. Shock, mass are the way to achieve early results," he said. "Clearly because of the constraints in this operation we haven't seen that at this point. ..."
Capitol Hill Blue (The Rant) 5/3/99 DOUG THOMPSON "...As "Commander in Chief" (a title which makes anyone who wears a uniform sick), Clinton abandoned three American soldiers when they were captured in the opening days of his Kosovo war. Senior military officials urged sending in elite teams from the Special Operations Command. Clinton said no. Instead, he continued to try and pound Yugoslavia into submission with an air campaign that military professionals told him wouldn't work. So it took Jesse Jackson to get them out. Jesse Jackson for God's sake..... Clinton's willingness to abandon the three soldiers increased the growing animosity between the military pros at the Pentagon and the coward they most answer to in the White House. Career military officers hate Clinton's guts (as they should). They hate the fact that he refused to serve his country as a young man. They hate the fact that he has commited this country to a war with a stragtegy that can't possibly succeed. And they hate him because he abandoned three men in uniform....."
AP 5/6/99 "...The nation's largest veterans organization has urged President Clinton to immediately withdraw U.S. troops from the Balkans. ``We believe the best thing we can do to support our troops, to protect our troops, is to bring them home,'' said Harold L. ``Butch'' Miller, national commander of The American Legion. ``We believe we are getting into a bad situation in Kosovo.''.... The Legion would permit U.S. involvement if Congress passes a resolution supporting the NATO action; U.S. troops are led only by U.S. commanders; the president explains why the action is ``in our vital national interests;'' and guidelines for the campaign, including an exit strategy, are established...."
Arizona Republic 5/9/99 Steve Wilson Freeper Stand Watch Listen "...A compelling letter arrived last week, one not meant for a journalist's eyes. It was sent by a member of one of our country's elite military units, who is stationed in the Balkans, to a relative in Arizona, who passed it on to me. The soldier believes that our air attack against Serbia is illegal, immoral and illogical. He didn't know his letter would be given to a columnist, however, and publicizing it could have the unhappy consequence of a court-martial. So I won't quote him. But since my Army service ended 29 years ago, I'll violate no regulations by quoting myself. His views and mine happen to run parallel...."
The Washington Times 5/31/99 Valerie Richardson "....Mr. Clinton is slated to speak at the U.S. Air Force Academy commencement here Wednesday, just as he did in 1995. University officials say they're pleased by his repeat performance, but some locals say it's an honor they would gladly forgo. "The people here don't think he should come anywhere close to the academy," said Crystal Barnett, a bartender at a local American Legion post. "There's articles in the paper every day about how he shouldn't be doing it - it should be some old retired general or somebody who served his country." The sources of the outrage are many, but some retirees say they are particularly upset by the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal. The president had an affair with Miss Lewinsky, then lied about it, offenses that could result in a court-martial for military officers. "The talk around here is that he's just a big dang liar," said Don Jacobson, who served four years in the Air Force. "He doesn't deserve to be commander in chief. And he's been impeached. There are people in the service who are practically in jail for doing what he did."..."
Arizona Republic 6/9/99 Jim Gahar "... Infringing on any of these rights [Bill of Rights] makes the infringer a "domestic enemy of the Constitution," and there are literally millions of Americans who have sworn a sacred oath to defend the Constitution (note that -- not the government, but the Constitution) of the United States from "all enemies, both foreign and domestic." More than a million of them are currently in uniform, and pretty much despise their commander in chief as a liar, philanderer and military bungler...."
Clinton Subordinates Held to a Higher Code of Conduct!
WJC Helicopter Pilot Released for Sexual Misconduct
Adultery is a crime under military law if it hurts ''good order or discipline'' within the ranks or brings discredit to the armed services." - Investor's Business Daily 7/27/98 Editorial
Sen Dan Coats Washington Post 8/27/98 ". The sharp contrast between the admission made by the president, the commander in chief, and the military men and women he commands is deeply disturbing.."
Boston Globe 11/27/98 Louise Palmer ".The House Judiciary Committee plans to call retired military officers to testify about the potentially damaging effect of President Clinton's behavior on the military code of conduct and the Pentagon's ability to prosecute soldiers. The hearing Tuesday, which will include testimony from judges as well as people convicted of perjury, is intended to explore the issue of ''double standards'' as the panel tries to make the case that failure to punish the president for his actions in attempting to cover up an affair with former intern Monica S. Lewinsky could subvert the legal system, according to spokesmen for Republicans on the committee. Interviews with high-ranking former military officers indicate that while a united front may be presented by the panel's witnesses Tuesday, opinion is deeply divided about whether the impeachment inquiry against Clinton has affected his standing as commander in chief or the morale of the troops. Former officers are also divided about whether the case has had any impact on the military's ability to enforce a code of conduct. Members of the military are bound by a rigid code of conduct and a system of courts-martial that is separate from civilian law. Defenders of the system say its rigidity is designed to keep and maintain a high level of trust and order in the context of life-and-death decisions."
Investors Business Daily 11/12/98 Brian Mitchell ".It isn't every day that military officers risk their pensions to declare publicly that their commander in chief is a loser. But two Marine Corps majors have dared to do just that. In a recent issue of Navy Times, Maj. Shane Sellers called President Clinton an ''adulterous liar,'' prompting the Defense Department to remind all service members that they are forbidden from using ''contemptuous words'' about the president. That warning didn't stop Marine Corps Reserve Maj. Daniel Rabil, however. In a guest column in the Nov. 9 Washington Times, Rabil called Clinton a ''lying draft dodger'' and ''hypocrite- in-chief.'' ''I therefore risk my commission, as our generals will not, to urge'' Clinton's impeachment, he wrote. Rabil's column is the tip of an iceberg of discontent. Many more service members are fed up with the dishonesty they see not just in their commander in chief, but also in their civilian and military superiors in the Pentagon. As U.S. military activity in Iraq and the Balkans picks up, this discontent in the ranks is particularly worrisome. The credibility of the top brass has taken several beatings in recent months. The worst occurred when the Joint Chiefs of Staff finally admitted to the Senate on Sept. 29 what press reports had indicated for months: The services are facing severe readiness problems caused by overwork and underfunding. In February, the Joint Chiefs had told Congress there was no cause for alarm. The services were ''fundamentally healthy'' and ''fully capable'' of accomplishing all their missions. They could even fight two wars at once, as required by the National Military Strategy. Seven months later, after the discovery of an unexpected budget surplus, the chiefs' concern for readiness compelled them to asked the president and Congress for more money. The sudden turnaround irked Republican legislators who have pushed for higher defense funding against administration resistance. Sen. Bob Smith, R-N.H., pronounced the chiefs ''AWOL from the debate.'' ''We were always accused of giving more or providing more to the Pentagon than the generals and admirals asked for,'' Smith said. ''That's tough to defend out there politically.'' Defense Secretary William Cohen later tried to take the heat off the chiefs by claiming they were just following his orders. That's just the problem, say the administration's critics. ''They're following orders, and their orders are to come here and lie to Congress,'' said Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, R-Md., at a recent conference in Washington on the Pentagon's problems, sponsored by the Center for Military Readiness.."
New York Times 12/1/98 Steven Lee Meyers ".Gen. Charles Krulak, the Commandant of the Marine Corps, had just finished a long speech on "moral courage" at the Naval War College in Newport, R.I.,when the inevitable question arose. What are the nation's military officers supposed to think, a young officer in the audience asked, when the commander in chief has acknowledged behavior -- an "inappropriate relationship" with a subordinate -- that would in all likelihood ruin their careers? Krulak's answer boiled down to this: The same Uniform Code of Military Justice that prohibits adultery, fraternization and lying about either also prohibits officers from using "contemptuous words" against the president. And every man and woman in uniform swears an oath to that effect, even if it means giving up the right to speak freely. "You either obey your oath," he said, "or you have the courage to resign."."
CNN 12/8/98 ".The U.S. Army proceeded with charges Thursday stemming from a sex scandal that could lead to the first-ever court-martial of a retired Army general. Maj. Gen. David Hale faces 17 charges of lying, conduct unbecoming an officer and obstruction of justice. He is accused of making false statements to Army officials and investigators and conducting improper relationships with the wives of several subordinate officers. The charges are being forwarded to the military equivalent of a civilian grand jury. An Article 32 hearing will be held to determine if the evidence against Hale is strong enough to warrant a criminal prosecution, or whether he should be punished administratively. The charges against Hale include six counts of "making false official statements," nine counts of "conduct unbecoming an officer" and two counts of obstruction of justice. If the case goes to a military trial, Hale would become the first retired Army general to be court-martialed. If convicted, Hale could face a prison term. If punished administratively, he could lose pension benefits.."
Deseret News 12/15/98 John Robinson ".One drama was being played out in front of TV cameras to a worldwide audience with the White House serving as a backdrop. The other was going along mostly unnoticed in Chandler, Ariz. The president, with a somber look, stood in front of the cameras in the Rose Garden on Friday and again, in carefully crafted terms, said he was sorry for misleading the American people about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky and would be willing to accept a rebuke and censure from Congress. Then he walked away. How that played in Peoria and elsewhere became evident by two questions shouted at his quickly departing back: "Did you lie under oath?" and "Will you resign if impeached?" The media, not to mention the nation, have heard and seen this song and dance too many times from a man who will apparently go to any length - with the possible exception of telling the truth - to rescue his presidency. A week earlier, thousands of miles away from 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., a major in the Marine Corps Reserves received a phone call. Daniel J. Rabil was told to leave Chandler and report to New Orleans the next day. He was about to be disciplined for an article he wrote a month ago that appeared in the Washington Times under the headline: "Please, impeach my commander in chief.".His concluding phrase may have irritated those superiors sitting in judgment of him: "I therefore risk my commission, as our generals will not, to urge this of Congress: Remove this stain from our White House." Rabil was told by Maj. Gen. David Mize, the commander of the Marine Reserves, that had he been on active duty he would have been court-martialed.."
Washington Times 12/15/98 Thomas Moorer ".The House Judiciary Committee approved four articles of impeachment in the light of what the New York Times has described as "the corrosive effects on the military's code of honor of having a commander in chief who has admitted misleading the nation" (Impeachment Panel Sets Hearing On the "Consequences of Perjury," Nov. 24, 1998). The president, by his own poor choices, created a crisis of constitutional proportion within the same Armed Forces he is duty-bound to lead. It is now up to Congress to solve this crisis by holding the president accountable. When I had the honor to serve as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the early 1970s, I was the senior uniformed member of the United States Armed Forces. As such, like every other commissioned officer, I served "during the pleasure of the president." Like every other officer, I also swore to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic," and to "bear true faith and allegiance to the same.... So help me God." The subject matter of the hearings aptly described a critical problem within the Armed Forces that many civilians do not fully appreciate. The president is the commander in chief. Although he does not wear a military uniform, he is a military leader. In this regard, I have urged the committee to address two fundamental issues of military leadership: honor and accountability. Within the leadership of the United States Armed Forces, these virtues are indispensable. Without them, soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and civilians die unnecessarily..."
The Drudge Report 12/28/98 ".The SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER is preparing to report in Tuesday editions that a veteran Marine sergeant at Whidbey Island (Wash.) Naval Air Station, who was named the base's outstanding Marine of the year for 1996, faces a general court-martial on charges he had sexual relations with a 14-year-old family friend! SPI reporter Ed Offley breaks exclusive details of the story involving Sgt. Kenneth Poppy, 28, who has been charged under four counts of the Uniform Code of Military Justice after a five-month investigation by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service and Marine officials.."
CNN 1/16/99 Freeper Tim Goodenough reports Sen. Warner ".EVANS: Mr. Chairman, now that you're running the Armed Services Committee this is a pertinent, particularly for you: Would the acquittal of the president, in the face of the allegations of perjury and obstruction of justice, have any effect on military regulations involving kicking officers out of the military service, or enlisted men, for perjury/obstruction of justice? WARNER: Rollie, it will be a precedent. And I tell -- and I've talked to many -- this case troubles the military, perhaps more than any segment of our society. And I will also tell you that the Congress in the next 10 years, excuse me, the next two years -- under your first question -- will have to exercise to its absolute full responsibility reviews of all foreign policy and national security decisions, because that president, if he's to remain, will be an injured president. And the Congress has to live up to its co-equal responsibilities in reviewing each of those decisions as it relates to security and foreign policy. EVANS: Should the Senate take that into consideration, sir, as it reaches a conclusion? WARNER: This senator will take that into consideration.."
Washington Times Inside Cover 6/4/99 John Wheeler "... Wes Clark ranked first in our class. He left a Rhodes Scholarship at Oxford to lead troops in Vietnam. Badly wounded, he recalls wondering if he would ever meet his newborn son. He now commands NATO..... But if things were bad in 1965, they are worse in 1999. We live in a culture of lies. Bill Clinton is a perjurer. On policy matters since 1992 he has lied to so many members of Congress that few rely on his word. The military is saddled with teaching soldiers the core value of truthfulness which the president, like Tommy's audience in 1965, cannot possibly understand. ..... Wes Clark's job will be easier, fewer people will be killed on the battlefield and the families of soldiers will suffer less if Washington's policymakers make even a modest effort to practice the truthfulness held dear by America's troops in the field.... The honor code encompasses all aspects of a cadet's life, extending beyond the professional and academic realms into the personal realm..... An individual's nonverbal communications that create an impression or convey a message to someone else in lieu of an oral or written statement must be truthful. Equivocation is the intentional use of vague, misleading or ambiguous language. Equivocation is a subset of lying. Cadets are expected to exercise tact in social situations. Social tact is designed to spare the feelings of others. However, the cadet must not gain an advantage in exercising social tact. Three rules of thumb: (1) Does this action attempt to deceive anyone or allow anyone to be deceived? (2) Does this action gain or allow the gain of a privilege or advantage to which I or someone else would not otherwise be entitled? (3) Would I be satisfied with this outcome. if I were on the receiving end of this action?..."
Air Force Times 8/23/99 Nick Adde "…Despite the objections of retirees and veterans, Congress is requiring that just two uniformed service members be present at military funerals. The groups wanted lawmakers to stick to a plan -- passed one year ago -- calling for three-member funeral details. The new provision, included in the 2000 defense authorization bill, requires that both members of the honor guard come from either the active or reserve components of a uniformed service, with at least one representing the service of the deceased veteran or retiree. Under the previous measure, the three-member honor guards could have come from the armed services or veterans' organizations. The new bill also sets minimum standards of service at funerals. It requires uniformed honor guards to fold a U.S. flag and present it to the family of the deceased service member. The military also would provide a high-quality recording of "taps" if a bugler isn't available….."
USA Today 8/17/99 Craig Wilson "…One thousand die every day, more than 30,000 a month. Most will be gone by the year 2008. The 6.3 million remaining World War II veterans quickly are vanishing from the American landscape. They are our fathers and grandfathers and great-grandfathers. They also are our mothers, grandmothers and great-grandmothers. For the most part, they grew up in the Depression, went off to war to fight for freedom over fascism and returned home to build a better life for their young families. Most Americans would agree they are the rock upon which present-day America is built. "It is, I believe, the greatest generation any society has ever produced," NBC anchorman Tom Brokaw says in describing the men and women whose stories fill the pages of his best-selling book, The Greatest Generation. "They faced great odds and a late start, but they did not protest. They succeeded on every front. They won the war; they saved the world." …."The war made me even more loyal and patriotic," says Don Bush, who served in the Navy. "And when I see that flag flying, I still want to cry. It makes me feel bad when I don't see that same amount of patriotism and respect anymore." …."We're losing our basic fiber. We saluted the flag. Now the Supreme Court says it's OK to burn the flag. American history is no longer required in school. The list goes on and on." …."
San Francisco Chronicle 8/17/99 Debra Saunders "…THERE IS a big problem with the military's new anti-gay harassment guidelines, announced last week, to stop physical and verbal abuse against homosexuals in the military. The guidelines are seen as a response to the beating death last month of Army Pfc. Barry Winchell. He allegedly was beaten because he was gay. The problem is President Clinton's 1994 ``don't ask, don't tell'' policy, that was supposed to put an end to recruiters' and commanding officers' questions about sexual orientation, but also allows the military to discharge soldiers who say they are gay or engage in homosexual activity. The new guidelines mandate instruction during recruitment training and periodically thereafter, that would drill into the troops the news that harassment of homosexuals in the military is forbidden. The guidelines also call for special training for judges, lawyers and commanding officers who administer the ``don't ask, don't tell'' policy. So, what are military brass supposed to say? ``We can fire soldiers for being gay, but you recruits can't taunt them?'' Or: ``Calling people names is verboten, because it's insensitive, but we can take away people's livelihoods because they're gay or lesbian, and that's not harassment?'' …"
Air Force News Service 8/19/99 AFN "…The proposed pay raise, pay table reform and changes to the retirement system will have a positive influence on military retention rates, but officials are still concerned about the effects of operations tempo, said Vice Adm. Patricia A. Tracey. Tracey, deputy assistant secretary of defense for military personnel policy, also said the Department of Defense must better understand how members' concerns about their families may be causing mid-level officers and noncommissioned officers to leave the services. DOD must do more to address these quality-of-life issues, she said….. Optempo remains a problem. Optempo is the pace of operations experienced by units, especially in terms of deployments and training. Since the end of the Cold War, more U.S. service members have been deploying to hotspots around the world. Tracey said the services are looking at ways to make military life "more predictable." She said the Navy and Marine Corps have for years deployed crews and ships on a set cycle. She cited the Air Force's expeditionary aerospace force concept as a promising step toward making Air Force life more predictable. The Army, too, is looking at deployment rates and how to ensure no unit is overstressed. Some personnel tempo problems result from the turbulence created by downsizing and consolidation, she said. Perstempo refers to the degree of turbulence or turnover in individual jobs, how hard and how long individuals work and how frequently they are being deployed. Optempo generally drives perstempo, but so does how well a unit is manned…."
Kansas City Star 8/16/99 Robert Ulin "…I noted with interest the appointment of Gen. Joseph Ralston, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to become the next Supreme Allied Commander, Europe. He will be the second Air Force general in history to hold this position. The first was Gen. Lauris Norstad (1956-1962). All other leaders since the post was established in 1951 have been Army generals. The Air Force has been waiting since the end of World War II to prove that air power alone can win wars. It made a strong argument during World War II that the strategic bombing campaign against Germany shortened the war and ultimately led to Allied victory. The strategic bombing survey conducted after the war debunked that myth. With the advent of precision guided munitions, air power has become a decisive instrument of warfare. Witness the air campaign over Iraq during the Gulf War and the air campaign over Serbia. In the end, however, it's the soldier who must go in on the ground and secure victory - as in the Gulf War - or stabilize the situation on the ground - as in the war against Serbia…."
Philadelphia Inquirer 8/19/99 Gary Blied "…On May 7, I retired from my duties as a pilot in the U.S. Air Force Reserves with the rank of major after 22 years of service. It broke my heart to leave. I'm only 41 and could have served my country for years more. I miss the service, the camaraderie, the mission and the pride that I had in serving our country. What decided me on leaving was the controversy surrounding the anthrax vaccine.
In 1997, Secretary of Defense William Cohen ordered that all troops receive the vaccine by 2005. Since then, controversy has arisen concerning the safety of the vaccine. Make no mistake. Anthrax is a clear and present danger to both the armed forces and the civilian population of the United States. The Department of Defense is correct in trying to find protection for the troops against this lethal biological weapon…. In this case, however, more and more people are becoming convinced that an inadequately studied, dated and unproven vaccine may not be the answer. Out of 300,000 service members inoculated, about 100 have reported severe reactions similar to those reported by veterans with Gulf War syndrome. The Pentagon only has acknowledged short-term side effects. About 200 military personnel have refused the vaccinations…."
Army Times 8/23/99 Jim Tice "…The Army's affirmative action promotion policies have taken another hit in federal court with four field-grade officers challenging the legality of "equal opportunity" instructions used by basic-branch colonels and lieutenant colonels boards over the past decade. The officers, three regulars and one reservist, variously were passed over by active component Army Competitive Category and reserve component Army Promotion List boards that met from 1992 to 1999. Lt. Cols. Robert Siegert, Michael Ashe, Jay Jupiter and Maj. James Waldeck, claim in a suit filed Aug. 11 with the U.S. District Court in Washington that portions of instructions used by the boards violated their equal protection and due process rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution…."
THE WASHINGTON TIMES 8/17/99 Rowan Scarborough "…A majority of military recruit trainers see adultery or fraternization as a "significant threat" to operational readiness, according to a survey by a special congressional commission. In the most extensive polling ever of male and female trainers, most said the Defense Department should continue its legal prohibitions against extramarital affairs and personal relationships between seniors and subordinates. "The overwhelming opinion of recruit trainers . . . was that these behaviors can wreak havoc and harm unit cohesion, soldier morale and military readiness," said the report from the Congressional Commission on Military Training and Gender-Related Issues….. About 43 percent of trainers of both sexes said fraternization or adultery in today's military "pose a significant threat to operational readiness," according to the report. Another 16 percent of men and 10 percent of women said one of the offenses -- but not the other --presents a threat. Only about 25 percent of those questioned saw no harm to readiness…."