SOME FACTS ABOUT GENERAL CLARK

Please don't insult MacArthur with this idiot. MacArthur's landing at Inchon was brilliant..he had fewer U.S. casualties than anyone in Europe during WW2...His heroics during World War 1 are profound, and he did wonders in the Rainbow Division. He also helped transform West Point out of the 19th Century into the 20th Century...MacArthur understood the nature of battle

Exactly, his brilliant "island hopping" strategy was not so self-evident at the time--just about everyone else wanted to fight like in Europe--going forward sweeping everything before you, no enemy in the rear and so on. He was also personally brave--most have heard about his personal leadership under fire in WWI--his men idolized him--but few know that he was nominated for a Medal of Honor in 1914 during the Vera Cruz intervention. And unlike Clark, who would reverse course on a dime or bend like a pretzel to to ensure what he was doing was personally satisfactory to whoever could help him get ahead, MacArthur had convictions. MacArther was relieved for being true to his principles. Clark was relieved for not having any.

It is illegal for the military to become involved in civilian situations for any reason.

Wrong. First, in general, the military can be used any time the President directs as part of his Constitutionally enumerated duties; that's been done numerous times-- suppressing riots and restoring order in Detroit & L.A. etc, enforcing desegregation orders in the south, shutting down the Mex-American border in 1916, and assisting states during natural disasters like Hurricane Andrew.

Second, in situations other than the Constitutional use of the military, the Posse Comitatus law prevents civil authorities from using the military to execute the laws; interpreted in general to mean make arrests, conduct search & seizures, and so on. Of note, it applies to federal forces, not the militias of the states, i.e. the National Guard.

Not only was [Waco] a disaster, it was illegal... it is rather hard to hide the troops and tanks that were there. All total there were 9 Bradley fighting vehicles, 5 Combat Engineer Vehicles, 1 Tank Retrieval vehicle and 2 Abrams Tanks. Reno tried to pass them off as "on loan" from the military.

Federal military forces at Waco were limited to a couple observers and some enlisted personnel who trained the FBI agents in how to use some electronic warfare equipment and helped to maintain it. They had been requested by DOJ through normal military channels. As for the armored vehicles, equipment is not covered by Posse Comitatus, but even then, they belonged to the Texas National Guard and were primarily operated by the FBI. The regular Army had nothing to do with them. This thing has been investigated to death--there was very little military involvement and what there was, was lawful.

Clark has major league "issues", as Oprah and my daughter would say, that in my view make him unqualified to be president. the article points that out. However, the author's crdibility is weakened by including so many inaccuracies and untruths.

Two, the idea of no American casualties in Kosovo will not stand up to the light of day. Figure about 50 - 100 allied aircraft lost realistically.

Wow. I compliment you Judy. Even by the somewhat liberal standards of the Balkans & Waco threads, this pushes the boundaries. Most people would hesitate to post something so patently untrue, so easily checked, so obviously illogical. Cannily, however, you realized there might be some out there who would have some doubt. So you decided to back up your post with a quote from the most trustworthy and reliable person you could think of--none other than Slobo himself!

[question]...as many as 70 or 80 NATO planes may have been lost...Milosevic's response: ...take these estimates you're hearing and divide by two or three

Not sure I follow your numbers, but hey what's a little math problem when we have 50-100 pilots who were blown up over Yugoslavia three years ago and THEY STILL DON'T KNOW IT! Who's gonna tell those guys what happened to them? Sure hope I don't get that job. And what about their families? I wonder if any of them realize their son or husband or father hasn't returned? And how about those forlorn ground crews, still hanging around the flight line at Aviano 40 months later waiting for good ol Major "Duke" to bring that baby in? And especially what about the poor Wing Property Book Officer? "Dammit, Captain. You graduated from the Academy. I know you can count. Judywillow says we are missing 50-100 planes. Get out there and count them again!" "YESSIR!"

So let's summarize, shall we?

1. You're putting stock into what Milosevic says, long after he's lost any claim to credibility.

2. You are referencing Venik's Aviation site, which is not a source of information, but simply a repeater site for the claims of Milosevic's regime as far as Allied Force goes.

3. It is now 4 years after Allied Force, and the only aircraft recovered by the Serbs are the F-16 and F-117 that NATO admitted to losing at the time - there were non-combat losses, and damaged aircraft, but no other aircraft besides the two who's wrecks were recovered by the Serbs were shot down.

4. You are a Serbian partisan when it comes to Kosovo - all you offer is a conversation with the dead, i.e., your side has been victimized, and you'll brook no acceptance of the fact that the Serbs were the biggest violaters of human rights in the Balkans in the 1990's (or 1980's in Kosovo, for that matter.)

So: you place a foreign interest, being Milosevic's now non-existent Serbia, over the interests of the United States of America, and will even go so far as to attack our military in your perverse quest to defend Milosevic and his crimes.

I have your measure now, shorty.

I trained at NTC while Clark commanded it. We visiting troops were told we couldn't use the PX because Mrs Clark was upset that we tracked too much dirt into "her" PX. Also when stationed in Bosnia I was talking to someone who had visited the site where an APC had rolled down a mountainside, struck a mine and killed 3 US officers. He told me that his analysis was that the APC was leading a Humvee carrying Clark and Richard Holbrooke when someone in the Humvee got impatient about the pace and ordered the APC to pull over to let them pass. The edge of the road collapsed, the APC went careening down the mountainside and 3 people were killed. Both of these are examples of Clark's disrespecting anything that gets in his way or isn't to his benefit. No way should he ever get close to the White House.

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