RAPID FIRE - Silver Bullets

Haitian Man Tits Folklore!
Nitpicker 9/23/03
http://nitpicker.blogspot.com/2003/09/now-clarks-getting-it-from-left-i.html

Now Clark's getting it from the left

I never intended for this to be the site of the Wesley Clark Defense League, but these lies are pissing me off. I found this over at Fantastic Planet. It's from an article declaring Clark a "war criminal" by Mitchel Cohen, a green. http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/COH309A.html
That's terrible. But untrue.

I wonder if you can confirm or deny these allegations, and/or provide any additional information as to the documents you are reported to having acquired?

I thank you in advance for your kind consideration and attention.

The reply, from Ira Kurzban:

Dear Mr ,

Here is Mr Kurzban's reaction to your missive:

"This story is inaccurate. As you know, Wesley Clark was the person at the Pentagon who worked with the Government of Haiti on the military intervention preceding the President's return. The events in regard to the spraying of Haitians at the detention camps occurred at Krome, not at Guantanamo. It also occurred in 1981 not 1991 when the Haitians were at Guantanamo. I have no knowledge as to whether or not Clark ran the Guantanamo camp in 1991-94 (Nitpicker does, and he didn't. See aforementioned post). There were an number of horrible things that happened at the Guantanamo camp, but I never met Clark in connection with the camps. My only dealings with him were related to the military preparations for Aristide's return. Although he was not particularly friendly toward me, I found him to be bright, competent, enlightened and relatively easy to deal with."

Kind regards,
_____________________
John C. Kozyn, Consultant
Embassy of Haiti, Washington, D.C.

Kudos to Sadly, no! for his efforts.

And, while I'm at it, kudos also to Fantastic Planet for updating readers on this issue.

(I should mention that Sadly, no! sent me these e-mails saying that he thought Nitpicker was "really the best place to mention it." Again, I give him full credit for going the extra mile and checking with primary sources. I owe him a beer.)
posted by Terry at 12:05 PM

That's terrible. But untrue.
Honestly, I have no idea whether or not people were sprayed with chemicals in Guantanamo Bay, but I do know that Clark had not a damn thing to do with it. Look at his assignment history:

February 1980-June 1982: Commander, 1st Battalion, 77th Armor, 4th Infantry Division

July 1983-July 1984: Pentagon, in staff positions

August 1984-January 1986: Commander Operations Group, National Training Center

April 1986-March 1988: Commander, 3rd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

October 1989-October 1991: Commander, National Training Center

October 1991-August 1992: Pentagon

August 1992-April 1994: Commander, 1st Cavalry Division

April 1994-June 1996: Pentagon

June 1996-July 1997: CINC, US Southern Command

July 1997-2000: Supreme Allied Commander, NATO

There are a couple of gaps, but anyone who has actually served in the military can pretty much chalk them up to school time. Otherwise, no officer leaves command time off of his biography.

The problem here is that the only time Clark might have had any control over Guantanamo was from 1996-1997, when he was the Commander-in-Chief of SOUTHCOM, when he would have been stationed in Panama, far away from the base and its detention center. However, the Haitian refugees were long gone from Guantanamo by then, having been returned to Haiti by the end of 1994. There is no way that Clark had any effect on the alleged spraying of chemicals on refugees.

Think I'm wrong? Let's look at the source here, too. This article was run on a site that also says that the WTC towers were rigged to fall, suggests that Bob Graham and Porter Goss were connected to terrorism and that the CIA also had something to do with it. Very trustworthy.

A smear's a smear, people, whether it comes from the right or the left.
posted by Terry at 11:29 AM

Time Travel Clarification
What Wesley Clark Really Said About Time Travel

by Brian McWilliams
October 14, 2003

http://www.pc-radio.com/clark-timetravel.html
On September 30, I published an article at Wired News entitled Clark Campaigns at Light Speed.
The article reported on remarks made by Democratic presidential candidate Wesley Clark during a campaign event Sept. 27 in New Castle, New Hampshire. At the event, Clark stated his belief that humans will someday be able to travel faster than the speed of light.

Due to a faulty understanding of physics on my part, I originally reported that Clark had professed a belief in the possibility of time travel. While some experts have previously said that travelling faster than light implies time travel, Clark in fact did not specifically profess an interest in time travel.

After several readers e-mailed me about this aspect of my article, later on Sept. 30 I revised the online version of the story to avoid suggesting Clark had advocated research into time travel. (The quotes attributed to him, of course, remained unchanged.)

Unfortunately, my reporting error is travelling at light speed and has been duplicated in media outlets around the world. Newspapers including the Washington Post and New York Times as well as late-night TV show hosts Jay Leno and Dave Letterman have borrowed the time travel idea from my story.

Given the current impossibility of rewinding time, my efforts now to undo this mistake may be futile. But I hope to prevent this mis-reporting of Clark's remarks from spreading further. To that end, I have made an audio recording of the relevant section of Clark's Sept. 27 campaign speech available here:

http://www.pc-radio.com/clark-nasa.mp3

The audio is about 3 min. 45 sec. and the file is about 668 KB. Clark's comments about faster-than-light travel are at about 3:05. Feel free to publicize this link, and/or to download the file and distribute it freely. I can also provide on request a high fidelity version of the audio for broadcast.

Sincerely,

Brian S. McWilliams
PC-radio.com
http://www.presidentialufo.com/time_travel.htm

WACO "RUMORS"
http://www.talkleft.com/new_archives/004501.html
Wesley Clark and Waco Rumors are re-surfacing that Ret. General Wesley Clark played a direct or indirect role in the Waco disaster because his army division supplied some military equipment to the siege effort and his deputy attended a high-level meeting five days prior to the fiery end. Response has been swift that the allegations of his playing a role are not true: bq. Federal law restricts the role of the military in civilian law enforcement operations and "we weren't involved in the planning or execution of the Waco operation in any way, shape, form or fashion," says retired Army Lt. Gen. Horace Grady "Pete" Taylor, who ran the Fort Hood military base 60 miles from the site of the Waco siege. Waco "was a civilian operation that the military provided some support to" and "any decisions about where the support came from were my decisions, not General Clark's,"
>snip
Many are calling on Clark now to make a formal statement about the extent of his knowledge of the Government's plan and any authorization he made for equipment being sent from the First Cavalry. We have no problem with that--we'd like to know too. But we're predicting the answers will be a let-down for the far right

During the last presidential Democratic Primary, there was what I would term a "swiftboat whisper campaign" that began as soon as General Clark, the most decorated officer since Eisenhower, decided to enter the presidential race. Whisper campaigns are what members of the GOP do best (see Bush vs. McCain, Bush vs. Kerry. Allen vs. Webb), in particular to anyone who threatens their monopoly on National Defense or their political well being and in most cases if there is little else in harmful "noise" at hand.

The attempted swiftboating campaign revolved around the unsubstantiated opinion of one General Hugh Shelton who uttered a smear against General Clark when asked if he would vote for the man. Gen. Shelton, a Republican, who just happened to have been the military advisor for John Edwards, another Democratic candidate who was running at the time, responded by attacking Wes Clark's integrity and character but conveniently left out the fact that it was he, Shelton, who had played a major role in Clark's early retirement in 2000.

John Edwards was queried in writing by the Clark campaign as to why he would directly associate with someone speaking nonsubstantiated smears against one of his Democratic challengers yet call himself a "positive" campaigner? "By associating with General Shelton on this campaign, you seem to have given in to the negative politics that you say you have risen above," Clark's Communications Director wrote to John Edwards.....to which John Edwards snootily replied without really addressing the issue of the smear; "Whatever your personal views on General Shelton, I'm sure you agree that he is a respected military leader who served our country with distinction".

Although Shelton never publicly elaborated further than his initial statement, low and behold, our Corporate press didn't "bother" to request further clarification from Shelton, , but instead went on the hunt, armed with the smear, to locate co-operating opinions from the rest of the military brass. As hard as "they" tried, "they" couldn't find any other high ranking generals to back up Shelton's comments, and "they" had to dig deep to find a few who had never worked with the General, but had "heard" of him. In fact, what the press found was that many of the General's cohorts held and hold the General in High opinion.

General Colin Powell on CNN - 9/28/03: "I've known Wes Clark for 20 years. He's one of the most gifted soldiers that I have ever had work for me. And beyond that, I really feel it's appropriate for me to recuse myself from any further comment now that he is a political candidate."
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0309/28/le.00.html

The Late Col. David Hackworth who initially pinned the "Perfumed Prince" tag on Clark, but later recanted commented on the whispers...."No big surprise, since he graduated first in his class from West Point , which puts him in the super-smart set with Robert E. Lee, Douglas MacArthur and Maxwell Taylor."
'All this book leanin' is unbecoming for an officer. The yankees got all the smart ones, and look where it got them."
http://www.command-post.org/oped/2_archives/008539.html

General McCaffrey:
"(He-Clark) is probably the most intelligent officer I ever served with," McCaffrey said. "(He has) great integrity, sound judgment and great kindness in dealing with people. He is a public servant of exceptional character and skill."
http://www.projo.com/extra/2003/candidates/content/projo_20030921_wpclark.6873b.html
McCaffrey told the Washington Post: "This is no insult to army culture ... but he was way too bright, way too articulate, way too good looking and perceived to be way too wired to fit in with our culture."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1044293,00.html
"I have watched him at close range for 35 years, in which I have looked at the allegation, and I found it totally unsupported," said retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey, who taught with Clark at West Point in the 1970s. "That's not to say he isn't ambitious and quick. He is probably among the top five most talented I've met in my life. I think he is a national treasure who has a lot to offer the country."
McCaffrey acknowledges that Clark was not the most popular four-star general among the Army leadership. "This is no insult to Army culture, a culture I love and admire," McCaffrey said, "but he was way too bright, way too articulate, way too good-looking and perceived to be way too wired to fit in with our culture. He was not one of the good old boys."
http://www.projo.com/extra/2003/candidates/content/projo_20030921_wpclark.6873b.html