Talk:Barry McCaffrey

Investigation of Hersh charges?

Does the anon user who added the edit about the army investigation have a source for that? I have not heard about any official investigation, and my understanding was that McCaffery's only response to the charges was a failed attempt at character assassination against Hersh.--csloat 20:40, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

There was a 21 page army report, but it doesn't seem to be easily available. Excerpts from it say that at most one shell and one grenade were fired. McCaffery maintained simaltaneously that he was under fire and only returned fire against a reasonable threat, and that no shots were fired and the witnesses were too far away to see anything -

"Two company commanders say they are under fire. We had to support our soldiers and Hersh cites a scout platoon that was nine kilometers away from this action as explaining that they didn't think it was going on. It is nonsense, it is revisionist history." http://www.fas.org/news/iraq/2000/05/000516-iraq1.htm

The 2100 page report (not 21 page) referred to was done before the Hersh investigation, and the Hersh story claims the report was a coverup. There was no subsequent investigation of Hersh's claims that I am aware of.--csloat 07:11, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

Anon user copyright violation

Anon user 206.114.225.234 has been continually deleting the information on this page and replacing it with self-promotional puff that looks like it is from McCaffrey's own website. I am not opposed to some of that information being included here, but it should not be copied and pasted from another website, and it should not replace the information that is already here, some of which is more critical of McCaffrey. Only once has the user bothered to explain him/herself, and only by saying "Official biography." This is not the place for copies of an "official biography" that seems to have come from McCaffrey's office. Either justify your edits in talk or continue to be reverted (and perhaps banned from editing). Thank you.--csloat 23:20, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

War Crimes Accusations

Added second media reference to S.Hersh's investigation of McCaffrey. Unfortunately so far I've only got the abstract in linkable format. If anyone has a complete version that can be linked to, please add. -Ziomek

There is none I could find online, but I have a copy and your changes seem to accurately describe what the author wrote. I was unable to find anything specific on which sources claimed that Hersh misquoted him. however, and later reports do not seem to confirm this claim.--csloat 23:37, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

I followed up on your question about specifics, and this is what I found. Apparently Lt. Gen. John Yeosock, Lt. Gen. Ronald Griffith, Lt. Gen. Steven Arnold, Lt. Gen. James Johnson, and Lt. Col. Patrick Lamar were cited in a May 2000 interview with McCaffrey for the National Journal as disputing quotes attributed to them by Hersh. Of these Yeosock, Griffith, and Arnold apparently wrote to the magazine. Excerpts of what they apparently said are available in the National Journal interview. For brevity, I've only added a quote from Arnold to the Wiki entry. It is from a Wall St Journal article by McCaffrey, but it was also the one I see most frequently cited. Anyways, it's been an interesting read... Ziomek 16:09, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Do we need a separate article for the alleged LoW violation? It seems to dominate this article (as well as this discussion page), which has very little about his life and career and focuses on one action at the end of one war. 138.162.128.55 (talk) 04:28, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Biography error

Oops, good point. My source (citing Olin position) was outdated on the teaching post reference. I also expanded on the military awards. 152.163.100.12

Heading Title

To Commodore Sloat (in reference to comment "the controversy is about McCaffrey"). I reverted your change, reconsidered mine.

Having thought about this some more, "Seymour Hersh allegations" most accurately reflects the content of this section. Its focus is on the making of these allegations (article by Hersh) and the responses to them. Not as much the actual details of the alleged events. 64.12.116.12 20:14, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I believe this should be reverted back. This is the McCaffrey page. The allegations are about what McCaffrey did. Seymour Hersh did not make the allegations; he reported them. I'm going to leave it as is for now to see what you have to say but I am unclear on why the heading should personalize the allegations in terms of the reporter who wrote the story on them.--csloat 22:11, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I added additional sourcing; ABC confirmed the substance of the charges based on interviews with six scouts and raised significant questions about LeMoyne's investigation. I think it's appropriate to change the heading back.--csloat 22:55, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Note suggested new title. Since we seem to disagree on the source of the controversy, I think we could agree to this. Also, to give him a label of "war criminal" based on the reporting of one individual who's sources have been in some degree of dispute -- and after being cleared by an official Army investigation -- just doesn't seem fair to me. Let me know if we can reach a compromise here. Thanks 64.12.116.12 13:42, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Please read the entry itself before you change the title again. It is not "one individual." ABC interviewed six scouts who were eyewitnesses and confirmed the story with all six. They looked at the "official Army investigation" and found massive problems. They all but called LeMoyne a liar. This is ABC, not Sy Hersh. While a couple of Hersh's sources (higher-ups with a lot to lose from a real investigation) recanted, if you read Hersh's story there are many other sources confirming the incident. This is not just a Hersh story anymore.

All that said, perhaps instead of "war crimes allegations" we can say "Allegations of misconduct during the Gulf War." The point of the story should not be to vilify McCaffrey per se. He was definitely out of line, and technically committing war crimes, but I also think that his actions were consistent with the massive disproportionality of that war. Read the Newsweek article on this point:

Operation Desert Storm was intended to be a one-sided slaughter. "We didn't go up there looking for a fair fight with these people," says McCaffrey. The "new American way of war," he says, is to pulverize the enemy with overwhelming force at the cost of the fewest possible casualties. When McCaffrey was a company commander in Vietnam, GIs fought the enemy from 20 yards away with rifles and grenades. Now the goal is to annihilate the enemy before it can get off a shot. Superior technology and training made this possible in Desert Storm. The war, remarked one British commander, was "rather like a grouse shoot."

--csloat 18:38, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Recent edits

An anonymous editor changed the headings and order of the information to again make it seem like these were Seymour Hersh's allegations. They are not. They are the allegations of men who worked with and under McCaffrey, and those reports have been confirmed by ABC News. I fixed the problem that was introduced here by removing the focus on Hersh from the headings (again) and adding a separate section for the ABC confirmation of Hersh's story. The public record on this is clear, and if you read Hersh's article you will see that there are a large number of witnesses who substantiate the allegations. But I don't think this article should be focused so much on these facts. There should be more information about his work as drug czar and about his vietnam experience, as well as other accomplishments. McCaffrey was well known long before the New Yorker story for many other reasons. Rather than trying to nitpick the allegations of war crimes, which seem likely to have been accurate, I ask that the anon ip help us out by filling in other details about McCaffrey.--csloat 20:20, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

The General's War

I am tempted to simply remove the rambling defense of continuing a war after the civilian leadership has declared a ceasefire, but I'd like the anon editor who added it to at least have a chance to make it NPOV first. As it is currently written, I doubt this even accurately represents General Trainor's view of the situation. Perhaps a simple quote from the text would make the point without a long and repetitive explanation of how the troops were annoyed that the civilian leadership ended the war too early. It is bizarre, considering that the military serves the civilian leadership; this practically amounts to a defense of a military coup. Some of the stuff that was added is nonsensical, e.g. "McCaffrey's division received fire from an Iraqi, perhaps out of confusion" -- who was confused? firing Iraqis? Or Americans who mistakenly thought the Iraqis fired? The eyewitness accounts seem to support the latter response rather than the former. The last paragraph is definitely a screed that needs to be deleted. Let me know what you think.--csloat 20:59, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Washington Post article.

I wasn't sure how to add this.

Barry R. McCaffrey contributed an article to the Washington Post in June 1999 entitled "Don't Legalize Those Drugs".

Director of the National Drug Control Policy

There were allegations about corruption in place while he was Director. I am not in pro or contra to anything there, I am just noting that right now there is NO detail at all about his time as Director of the National Drug Control Policy? I am sure he did have to do something there ... ? It seems this information was somewhat forgotten to add highlights during his directorship there... [Commented at Feb 2008] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.108.103.172 (talk) 12:01, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

There definitely should be some information here about his tenure as drug czar. The big scandal I recall was the policy of using tax dollars to insert antidrug messages into prime time television shows while concealing the source of the message - a classic propaganda technique that the Bush Admin's FCC disavowed later on (I believe it is now illegal). Daniel Forbes' ground-breaking investigative report on the issue is here; I believe he published a few other articles and that McCaffrey responded (this is briefly mentioned in the article but there is no explanation and the heading says nothing about his ONDCP role). I also think this article will be helpful (I linked to the page that covers McCaffrey's tenure). I am sure other folks can find more stuff. I will start writing on this when I have time but please contribute if you know something about this too. I think you're right that his ONDCP leadership is a very important thing that is completely missing from this article. csloat (talk) 16:53, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Can we get a source on his birthplace?

I removed Fort Huachuca, since it conflicted with the data in the infobox and I could find no sourcing for it. However, the only sourcing I could find for Taunton, MA was at NNDB, whose reliability on these things is unknown, and doesn't provide further sourcing. RayAYang (talk) 06:36, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Lobbyist?

I've removed the description "lobbyist" from the article. That does seem accurate in a common sense meaning of the word (see the Barstow article and e.g. his interactions with Petraeus described there), but McCaffrey's firm wrote that "General McCaffrey is not a lobbyist" (without denying any of the specifics in Barstow's piece). So presumably there is some technical or legal sense in which he is not a lobbyist. On their front page, BR McCaffrey Associates LLC describe their activities as in part "advocacy consulting" to "get specified results for clients who want action" (same link as where they deny lobbying). I went with "paid advocate for defense companies" to replace "lobbyist". Crust (talk) 15:18, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, that looks more precise and better than consultant, which is what I went with after seeing the same statement by McCaffrey. RayAYang (talk) 16:56, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

GAO propaganda decision -- "on the basis of the evidence available to it"

I stated "on the basis of the evidence available to it" because DoD was uncooperative and did not provide some requested information. GAO felt this was significant enough to mention. I'm not expressing an opinion about whether more information would have altered the GAO's decision. -- Moss&Fern (talk) 07:55, 10 August 2009 (UTC)