Clinton Legacy Watch # 27: A Counterculture Assault On The U.S. Military and The National Sovereignty It Safeguards

A Case in Point: Daryl Jones’ Nomination to Head the Air Force

(Washington, D.C.): There is a singularly troubling aspect of the Clinton Administration’s
mismanagement of the defense and foreign policy portfolios: The prospect that damage
is
being done, apparently purposefully, to the institutions and personnel charged with
safeguarding the Nation’s security — at least some of it damage that will be exceedingly
difficult to undo.

A Bill of Particulars

Examples abound of what might best be described as a counterculture assault on the U.S.
military
and the American sovereignty it protects. Consider the following:

• ‘Hollowing Out the Military’: The military is being systematically
  “hollowed out,” thanks to
  the combined effects of its resources being reduced year after year even as the demand for its
  services grow inexorably. Never mind that this use is largely for peacekeeping, humanitarian
  functions, the extraction of American nationals from foreign crises or other non-combat
  missions. These tasks still wear out equipment and units tasked with performing
  them.
  It will take many years and immense investment to bring the U.S. armed forces back up to the
  levels of readiness and combat capability they enjoyed when Bill Clinton assumed the
  presidency.⁽¹⁾
• High Cost Technology Insecurity Policies: The Clinton Administration is
  studiously
  ignoring the high costs — in terms of dollars and, possibly, in terms of lives —
  associated with
  permitting the wholesale transfer of “dual-use” technology relevant to military activities
  to potential adversaries.⁽²⁾ Worse yet, its
  dismantling of the domestic bureaucratic
  arrangements and, in particular, the multilateral export control system governing such
  technologies means that it will be exceedingly hard, if not impossible, to recreate effective
  regimes for stanching this potentially lethal hemorrhage.
• Eroding U.S. Sovereignty: Against the possibility that the United States
  might somehow
  retain the means with which to project power effectively, the Administration is
  subordinating the Nation’s freedom of action to myriad international arrangements.
  These include: insisting on securing UN Security Council or other multilateral blessing prior to
  U.S. use of force⁽³⁾; agreeing to the Kyoto Climate Change
  Protocol which explicitly subjects
  any unilaterally mounted military operation or training activity to greenhouse gas emission
  restrictions⁽⁴⁾; embracing a Law of the Sea treaty that will
  imperil, not protect, American
  interests in freedom of navigation and use of international waters; and proposing to allow U.S.
  servicemen and women to be prosecuted by an unconstitutional International Criminal Court.
• Corrupting the Military’s Code of Conduct: In a way the cruelest — and,
  arguably, most
  insidious — cut of all, however, has been the Administration’s assault on the military’s code of
  conduct. It is bad enough having a Commander-in-Chief whose behavior betrays every
  principle of that code, from personal integrity and individual responsibility, to marital fidelity
  and a commitment to the truth. Then there are the corrupting effects of the Clinton team’s
  political correctness including: its efforts to foist open homosexuality on the military, its use of
  double-standards to claim women equally fit and eligible for combat, and its destruction of the
  careers of those who dare to challenge these practices in the correct belief that they will be
  inimical to the armed forces’ essential order and discipline.

Enter Daryl Jones

Just when it seemed things couldn’t get worse on this score, President Clinton
nominates an
individual to become Secretary of the Air Force who epitomizes all that is wrong with his
Administration’s war on the moral fiber of the U.S. military.

The nominee, Florida State Senator Daryl Jones, seems to fit the Clinton
selection criteria
perfectly: He is an Air Force Academy graduate with experience flying fighter aircraft, a
businessman and politician who happens to be an African-American. (He enjoys support from
certain Republicans for reasons that appear to stem primarily from the last of these attributes.)
Unfortunately, Mr. Jones also fits the profile of many who populate what President-elect Clinton
once promised would be the “most ethical administration in history” — he seems to have
a
chronic problem with telling the truth.

In Mr. Jones’ case, this problem has manifested itself in: the nominee’s misrepresentations —
among other places, before the Senate Armed Services Committee, which must confirm him — of
his flying record and status (according to some accounts, resulting in his receipt of unearned extra
pay for several years); his reported violation of Pentagon regulations by running for elective office
using a billboard and other promotional material displaying him in uniform; and Jones’ abuse of
his position as an officer by inducing enlisted subordinates to purchase Amway products he was
distributing. His business activities are also the subject of an SEC investigation over allegations
of possible criminal misconduct. His conflicting statements about these and other matters have
contributed to an eight-month delay so far in his confirmation and not one, but two,
FBI
background checks.

If the armed services are lucky, the individuals — often political hacks and contributors — who
fill
what are generally regarded as plum patronage positions, more ceremonial than substantive, pass
their time in office as non-entities. Occasionally, someone of genuine ability makes a real
contribution.

The position of service secretary, however, is one in which a person of flawed or
disreputable character can do real harm. As the most immediate symbol of civilian
control of
the military, such an individual can, for example, compound the lack of confidence and
demoralization that many military personnel already feel in their leadership. This may be
especially true in the Air Force, which is suffering a potentially catastrophic loss of skilled pilots
from its ranks. One of these, a twenty-year veteran and experienced F-16 pilot who served in
Jones’ reserve unit, has resigned his commission in protest over this appointment; others may well
follow suit if Clinton’s nominee is confirmed as Secretary of the Air Force.

The Bottom Line

The cost of training a front-line military pilot is estimated to be on the order of $6 million
apiece.
The loss of these critical personnel is, therefore, an economic problem as well as one that bears
upon the readiness and warfighting capability of the U.S. Air Force. Neither that service
nor
the Nation can afford a Secretary of the Air Force who is likely to compound this problem
and otherwise advance the counterculture assault on the U.S. military.

– 30 –

1. See Clinton Legacy Watch # 22: More Evidence of
A Hollow Military (No. 98-D 62, 7 April
1998) and Clinton Legacy Watch # 17: Dangers of A ‘Hollow
Military’ (No. 98-D 23, 5
February 1998).

2. Last week, thanks to a subpoena from the Senate Governmental
Affairs Committee, Dr. Peter
Leitner — a courageous whistle blower on the staff of the Defense Technology Security
Administration (DTSA) — was able to provide detailed information about the ways in which the
Clinton team has advanced its technology insecurity agenda. According to the
Washington Post,
Dr. Leitner told the Committee that:

“The Clinton administration has ‘neutered’ DTSA’s 140 employees through a variety
of means [including]: by naming Pentagon leaders who disagree with DTSA’s central
mission; by giving DTSA analysts only minutes or hours to decipher the complexities of
the 21,000 proposed high-tech transfers it reviews each year; by reducing DTSA’s
dealings with intelligence agencies knowledgeable about foreign adversaries; and by
establishing interagency procedures skewed toward sale of U.S. technology.”

For more on the Administration’s disastrous technology transfer policy — and Dr.
Leitner’s
efforts to raise alarms about it — see Broadening the Lens: Peter Leitner’s
Revelations on ’60
Minutes,’ Capitol Hill Indict Clinton Technology Insecurity (No. 97-P 82, 19 June
1997).

3. See, for example, Clinton Legacy Watch # 26: The
‘Feckless-izing’ of U.S. Security Policy
(No. 98-D 112, 16 June 1998).

4. See the following products by the William J. Casey Institute of the
Center for Security Policy:
The Plot Thickens: Stuart Eizenstat Blows More Smoke in House Hearing About
Kyoto’s
Impact on U.S. National Security (No. 98-C 83, 14
May 1998) and Effects of Clinton’s Global
Warming Treaty on U.S. Security Gives New Meaning to the Term ‘Environmental
Impact’
(No. 97-C 149, 6 October 1997).