“Bosnia will be a walk in the sunshine compared to Kosovo. Didn’t we learn from Vietnam that you don’t get into someone else’s family squabbles?”COL. DAVID HACKWORTH
THE first shot fired in anger that whistled over Col. David Hackworth’s head was spitting distance from Kosovo.
“That was 53 years ago outside Trieste, Yugoslavia, when an angry Serb thought I was a good target,” Hack, an old friend, was telling me.
“My unit was supposed to be there one year. It ended up staying there for nine years, which gives you some idea of the area.”
Hack went on to Korea and Vietnam and wrote new chapters of heroism in military-history combat.
But, as one of the nation’s leading military analysts, the retired colonel has a funny taste in his mouth.
“I’m very suspicious about Clinton’s timing of his announcement that 4,000 U.S. troops may go to Kosovo,” he said.
“He didn’t wake up yesterday thinking about this, because the 24th Marine Readiness Unit knew they were going about two weeks ago.
“Kosovo is going to sink us in a swamp. We have spent $20 billion in Bosnia, and it is still a tar pit.
“We were supposed to be there for one year, and we’re still there. But Bosnia will be a walk in the sunshine compared to Kosovo.
“Didn’t we learn from Vietnam that you don’t get into someone else’s family squabbles?”
Wrongly or rightly, I too am always suspicious about Clinton’s motives, and today is no different.
Suddenly, after his entire administration of gutting the Pentagon budget like a filleted fish, he buys a fire extinguisher after the barn is burning.
Again treating the military forces like a troop of dog-catchers over his entire administration, he proposes a $12 billion boost in the budget.
Strange timing, but his tarnished place in history could have something to do with this.
Hackworth, who I was with during the Colombian drug wars and later in Bosnia, added:
“Clinton has cut almost a million troops from our readiness since the Gulf War in 1991.
“Up until now, he cut budget money for defense by 30 percent, but increased our commitment across the world by 40 percent.
“In various sizes, the U.S. military has commitments in 150 countries across the world.”
Whether it be Somalia, Bosnia, Central America, bombing Afghanistan, bombing the Sudan, getting into Haiti or bombing Iraq, we seem to have a giant plate before us.
No question there are many parts of the world where it is righteous to make our presence felt.
No question the barbarism in Kosovo sickens the soul of all humans.
“We are trying to do too much with too little, and frankly it has nothing to do with our national security,” Hackworth said.
“He has drained our defenses beyond all tolerance.”
Let us give Clinton the benefit of the doubt.
We hit the Sudan and Afghanistan to nail terrorists at a time when the impeachment hearings were red-hot.
He talks about troop commitments while history remembers him as a president who was impeached.
But still, let’s give him the benefit of the doubt. Forget impeachment, and let’s look at the case at hand.
While Congress has been yammering on about the case of Lewinsky, Bill Clinton has virtually, unilaterally run our armed- forces policy after financially denuding it.
And incidentally, Saadam Hussein is alive, well and as strong as ever.
“Yes, the violence in Kosovo does sicken the soul,” said Hackworth. “But Kosovo is a province of Yugoslavia, the same way as California is a state of the USA.
“What would this country say if all the Mexican- Americans in California who are a good, hardworking and integral part of the population, suddenly said we want to secede and return California to the Mexican government?
“You know, give up Hollywood. Give up Disneyland.
“This is a fight our dog should not be in.”
Out of the mouths of old soldiers comes wisdom beyond any doubt.