General Clark was singed by criticism after he compared his military record with the senator's on the night of Mr. Kerry's Iowa caucus victory. General Clark said on the CNN program "Larry King Live" that "with all due respect, he's a lieutenant and I'm a general." But General Clark went on to emphasize his own decades of military service, culminating in the position of supreme allied commander of NATO.
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Under Clark's command, the U.S. bombed the Chinese Embassy by mistake, killing three Chinese journalists. Other NATO air strikes under Clark mistakenly damaged the Swiss, Spanish, Swedish, Norwegian and Hungarian ambassadors' residences. Despite the absence of ground troops, Yugoslavia took three American POWs, whose release was eventually brokered by Jesse Jackson. America was standing tall.
Clark's forces bombed a civilian convoy by mistake, killing more than 70 ethnic Albanians, and then Clark openly lied about it to the press. First he denied NATO had done it, and when forced to retract that, Clark pinned the blame on an innocent U.S. pilot. As New York Newsday reported on April 18, 1999: "American officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the staff of Army Gen. Wesley Clark, the NATO commander, pointed to an innocent F-16 Falcon pilot who was castigated by the media for blasting a refugee convoy." Eventually, even a model of probity like Bill Clinton was shocked by Clark's mendacity and FIRED him. |
