«

(TonyaK911) wrote in message news:<. com>...
> Lieutenant General Wesley Clark, who later commanded the barbaric NATO
> air war in Kosovo, was the director of strategic plans and policy for
> the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon during the genocidal
> outbreak of killings in Rwanda and and Burundi. He and his boss Bill
> Clint0n are among those who bear direct responsibility for allowing
> this horror (which cost almost 1,000,000 human lives!) to happen.
>
> So, who is this General?...
>
> A VAIN, POMPOUS, BROWN-NOSER: MEET THE REAL GENERAL CLARK
>
> Anyone seeking to understand the bloody fiasco of the Serbian war need
> hardly look further than the person of the beribboned Supreme Allied
> Commander, General Wesley K. Clark. Politicians and journalists are
> generally according him a respectful hearing as he discourses on the
> "schedule" for the destruction of Serbia, tellingly embracing phrases
> favored by military bureaucrats such as "systematic" and "methodical".
>
> The reaction from former army subordinates is very different.
> "The poster child for everything that is wrong with the GO (general
> officer) corps," exclaims one colonel, who has had occasion to observe
> Clark in action, citing, among other examples, his command of the 1st
> Cavalry Division at Fort Hood from 1992 to 1994.
>
> While Clark's official Pentagon biography proclaims his triumph in
> "transitioning the Division into a rapidly deployable force" this
> officer describes the "1st Horse Division" as "easily the worst
> division I have ever seen in 25 years of doing this stuff."
>
> Such strong reactions are common. A major in the 3rd Brigade of the
> 4th Infantry Division at Fort Carson, Colorado when Clark was in
> command there in the early 1980s described him as a man who "regards
> each and every one of his subordinates as a potential threat to his
> career".
>
> While he regards his junior officers with watchful suspicion, he
> customarily accords the lower ranks little more than arrogant
> contempt. A veteran of Clark's tenure at Fort Hood recalls the
> general's "massive tantrum because the privates and sergeants and
> wives in the crowded (canteen) checkout lines didn't jump out of the
> way fast enough to let him through".
>
> Clark's demeanor to those above is, of course, very different, a mode
> of behavior that has earned him rich dividends over the years. Thus,
> early in 1994, he was a candidate for promotion from two to three star
> general. Only one hurdle remained - a war game exercise known as the
> Battle Command Training Program in which Clark would have to maneuver
> his division against an opposing force. The commander of the opposing
> force, or "OPFOR" was known for the military skill with which he
> routinely demolished opponents.
>
> But Clark's patrons on high were determined that no such humiliation
> should be visited on their favorite. Prior to the exercise therefore,
> strict orders came down that the battle should go Clark's way.
> Accordingly, the OPFOR was reduced in strength by half, thus enabling
> Clark, despite deploying tactics of signal ineptitude, to triumph. His
> third star came down a few weeks later.
>
> Battle exercises and war games are of course meant to test the
> fighting skills of commanders and troops. The army's most important
> venue for such training is the National Training Center at Fort Irwin,
> California, where Clark commanded from October 1989 to October 1991
> and where his men derisively nicknamed him "Section Leader Six" for
> his obsessive micro-management.
>
> At the NTC, army units face a resident OPFOR that has, through
> constant battle practice coupled with innovative tactics and close
> knowledge of the terrain, become adept at routing the visiting "Blue
> Force" opponents. For Clark, this naturally posed a problem. Not only
> were his men using unconventional tactics, they were also humiliating
> Blue Force generals who might nurture resentment against the NTC
> commander and thus discommode his career at some future date. To the
> disgust of the junior OPFOR officers Clark therefore frequently fought
> to lose, sending his men on suicidal attacks in order that the Blue
> Forces should go home happy and owing debts of gratitude to their
> obliging foe.
>
> All observers agree that Clark has always displayed an obsessive
> concern with the perquisites and appurtenances of rank. Ever since he
> acceded to the Nato command post, the entourage with which he travels
> has accordingly grown to gargantuan proportions to the point where
> even civilians are beginning to comment. A Senate aide recalls his
> appearances to testify, prior to which aides scurry about the room
> adjusting lights, polishing his chair, testing the microphone etc
> prior to the precisely timed and choreographed moment when the Supreme
> Allied Commander Europe makes his entrance.
>
> "We are state of the art pomposity and arrogance up here," remarks the
> aide. "So when a witness displays those traits so egregiously that
> even the senators notice, you know we're in trouble." His NATO
> subordinates call him, not with affection, "the Supreme Being".
>
> "Clark is smart," concludes one who has monitored his career. "But his
> whole life has been spent manipulating appearances (e.g. the doctored
> OPFOR exercise) in the interests of his career. Now he is faced with a
> reality he can't control." This observer concludes that, confronted
> with the wily Slobodan and other unavoidable variables of war, Clark
> will soon come unglued. "Watch the carpets at NATO HQ for teeth
> marks."
>
> http://www.counterpunch.org/clark.html
>
> __________________________________________________ __________
> WESLEY CLARK ALMOST TRIGGERS WORLD WAR 3
> The Guardian
>
> Robertson's plum job in a warring Nato
>
> As Blair's man is installed, Richard Norton-Taylor details the way the
> alliance generals have been fighting
>
> Tuesday August 3, 1999
>
> No sooner are we told by Britain's top generals that the Russians
> played a crucial role in ending the west's war against Yugoslavia than
> we learn that if Nato's supreme commander, the American General Wesley
> Clark, had had his way, British paratroopers would have stormed
> Pristina airport threatening to unleash the most frightening crisis
> with Moscow since the end of the cold war.
>
> "I'm not going to start the third world war for you," General Sir Mike
> Jackson, commander of the international K-For peacekeeping force, is
> reported to have told Gen Clark when he refused to accept an order to
> send assault troops to prevent Russian troops from taking over the
> airfield of Kosovo's provincial capital.
>
> Hyperbole, perhaps. But, by all accounts, Jackson was deadly serious.
> Clark, as he himself observed, was frustrated after fighting a war
> with his hands tied behind his back, and was apparently willing to
> risk everything for the sake of amour-propre .
>
> Nato's increasingly embarrassing, not to say ineffective, air assault
> on Yugoslavia, had ended. It was over, not least as General Sir
> Charles Guthrie, chief of the defence staff, acknowledged in an
> interview with the Guardian, thanks to the intervention of Moscow -
> its refusal to come to the aid of Belgrade. The point was emphatically
> underlined by Jackson in a further interview over the weekend with the
> Sunday Telegraph.
>
> "The event of June 3 [when Moscow urged Milosevic to surrender] was
> the single event that appeared to me to have the greatest significance
> in ending the war," said Jackson. Asked about the bombing campaign, he
> added pointedly: "I wasn't responsible for the air campaign, you're
> talking to the wrong person."
>
> Having helped Nato out of its predicament, Moscow was embroiled in
> arguments with Washington about the status of Russian troops in the
> K-For operation. For reasons to do with efficiency as much as power
> politics, the west insisted the Russian contingent must be "Nato-led".
> With or without Yeltsin's say-so, on June 12 a group of some 200
> Russian troops drove out of Bosnia - where they were serving with the
> Nato-led S-For stabilisation force - and in full view of the world's
> television cameras made for Pristina airport where Jackson had planned
> to set up his K-For headquarters guarded by British paratroopers.
>
> The Russians had made a political point, not a military one. It was
> apparently too much for Clark. According to the US magazine, Newsweek,
> General Clark ordered an airborne assault on the airfield by British
> and French paratroopers. General Jackson refused. Clark then asked
> Admiral James Ellis, the American commander of Nato's southern
> command, to order helicopters to occupy the airport to prevent Russian
> Ilyushin troop carriers from sending in reinforcements. Ellis replied
> that the British General Jackson would oppose such a move. In the end
> the Ilyushins were stopped when Washington persuaded Hungary, a new
> Nato member, to refuse to allow the Russian aircraft to fly over its
> territory.
>
> Jackson got full support from the British government for his refusal
> to carry out the American general's orders. When Clark appealed to
> Washington, he was allegedly given the brush-off. The American is said
> to have complained to Jackson about the British general's refusal to
> accept the order to take over Pristina airfield, and Jackson's
> subsequent appeal to his political masters when Clark visited Kosovo
> on June 24.
>
> The unsuccessful issuing of Clark's order has left a bitter taste,
> especially given the delay in US marines joining the K-For operation -
> a delay which Jackson had been prepared to indulge even though it held
> up the entry into Kosovo. Had the British general carried out Clark's
> instruction, all hope for a compromise with the Russians would have
> been shattered. In the end, Nato and Moscow reached a compromise and
> General Jackson willingly provided water and other supplies to
> stranded Russian paratroopers holed up at the airfield. He swallowed
> any hurt pride he might have had by insisting, not entirely
> convincingly, that control of the airfield was not important.
>
> The episode triggers reminiscences of the Korean war. Then, General
> Douglas MacArthur, commander of the UN force, wanted to invade, even
> nuke, China, until he was brought to heel by President Truman. So
> concerned was Clement Attlee that he urgently flew to Washington to
> put an end to such madness. MacArthur was relieved of his command.
>
> The comparison, of course, is not exact, but worth recording
> nonetheless. Last week, Clark was told in a telephone conversation
> from General Henry Shelton, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff,
> that he must leave his post early and make way for an older man,
> General Joseph Ralston, a favourite of the American defence secretary,
> William Cohen. Clark fell victim, not only to the Pristina airfield
> row, but to his tense relationship with Washington throughout the war
> - his repeated requests for more aircraft, including Apache
> helicopters (never used in conflict because of the risk to pilots),
> the need for a ground force contingency plan and an altogether more
> effective strategy against Milosevic, a man he got to know well during
> the 1995 Dayton peace negotiations on Bosnia. Asked to comment on
> Clark's forced retirement, Jackson replied: "He is my superior officer
> and that's it."
>
> So Nato will have a new supreme military commander close to Cohen and
> a new secretary-general - George Robertson - equally close to the US
> defence secretary as documents released under the US freedom of
> information act and reported today elsewhere in this newspaper
> testify. Though Nato was looking for a German - the defence minister,
> Rudolf Scharping declined - Robertson is said to have the enthusiastic
> support of the French and German governments to succeed the Spaniard,
> Javier Solana, who will take up a new post responsible for developing
> the EU's incipient common foreign and security policy.
>
> What does Robertson's appointment - expected to be formally approved
> tomorrow - signify ? He is regarded as having a "safe" pair of hands.
> He is unlikely to take risks. His main task will be to straddle the
> Atlantic, to help patch fissures in the alliance which almost cracked
> during the Kosovo war, and to persuade the Europeans to cooperate more
> effectively in the defence and security field.
>
> Robertson has talked much of "defence diplomacy". He will need to put
> this into practice, no more so than in Nato's relations with Russia,
> as the transatlantic alliance looks towards the east. The superficial
> rhetoric, Anglo-American arrogance, and the dangerously presumptuous
> approach towards Moscow, must be laid to rest.
>
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/Kosovo/Sto...208123,00.html
> __________________________________________________ _____
> CLARK DODGES MOST OF SERVICE IN VIETNAM WAR
>
> David H. Hackworth
> DEFENDING AMERICA
> April 20, 1999
> CLARK AND VIETNAM.
>
> NATO's Wesley Clark is not the Iron Duke, nor is he Stormin' Norman.
> Unlike Wellington and Schwarzkopf, Clark's not a muddy boots soldier.
> He's a military politician, without the right stuff to produce victory
> over Serbia.
>
> Known by those who've served with him as the "Ultimate Perfumed
> Prince," he's far more comfortable in a drawing room discussing
> political theories than hunkering down in the trenches where bullets
> fly and soldiers die. An intellectual in warrior's gear. A saying
> attributed to General George Patton was that it took 10 years with
> troops alone before an officer knew how to empty a bucket of spit As a
> serving soldier with 33 years of active duty under his pistol belt,
> Clark's commanded combat units -- rifle platoon to tank division - for
> only seven years. The rest of his career's been spent as an aide, an
> executive, a student and teacher and a staff weenie.
>
> Very much like generals Maxwell Taylor and William Westmoreland, the
> architect and carpenter of the Vietnam disaster, Clark was earmarked
> and then groomed early in his career for big things. At West Point he
> graduated No. 1 in his class, and even though the Vietnam War was
> raging and chewing up lieutenants faster than a machine gun can spit
> death, he was seconded to Oxford for two years of contemplating
> instead of to the trenches to lead a platoon.
>
> A year after graduating Oxford, he was sent to Vietnam, where, as a
> combat leader for several months, he was bloodied and muddied. Unlike
> most of his classmates, who did multiple combat tours in the killing
> fields of Southeast Asia, he spent the rest of the war sheltered in
> the ivy towers of West Point or learning power games first hand as a
> White House fellow.
>
> The war with Serbia has been going full tilt for almost a month and
> Clark's NATO is like a giant standing on a concrete pad wielding a
> sledgehammer crushing Serbian ants. Yet, with all its awesome might,
> NATO hasn't won a round. Instead, Milosovic is still calling all the
> shots from his Belgrade bunker, and all that's left for Clark is to
> react. Milosevic plays the fiddle and Clark dances the jig. 'Stormin'
> Norman or any good infantry sergeant major would have told Clark that
> conventional air power alone could never win a war -- it must be
> accompanied by boots on the ground.
>
> German air power didn't beat Britain. Allied air power didn't beat
> Germany. More air power than was used against the Japanese and Germans
> combined didn't win in Vietnam. Forty three days of pummeling in the
> open desert where there was no place to hide didn't KO Saddam. That
> fight ended only when Schwarzkopf unleashed the steel ground fist he'd
> carefully positioned before the first bomb fell.
>
> Doing military things exactly backwards, the scholar general is now,
> according to a high ranking Pentagon source, in "total panic mode" as
> he tries to mass the air and ground forces he finally figured out he
> needs to win the initiative. Mass is a principle of war. Clark has
> violated this rule along with the other eight vital principles. Any
> mud soldier will tell you if you don't follow the principles of war
> you lose.
>
> One of the salient reasons Wellington whipped Napoleon in 1815 at
> Waterloo is that the Corsican piecemealed his forces. Clark's done the
> same thing with his air power. He started with leisurely pinpricks and
> now is attempting to increase the pain against an opponent with an
> almost unlimited threshold. Similar gradualism was one of the reasons
> for defeat in Vietnam.
>
> Another mistake Clark's made is not knowing his enemy. Taylor and
> Westmoreland made this same error in Vietnam. Like the Vietnamese, the
> Serbs are fanatic warriors who know better than to fight
> conventionally in open formations. They'll use the rugged terrain and
> bomber bad weather to conduct the guerrilla operations they've been
> preparing for over 50 years.
>
> And they're damn good at partisan warfare. Just ask any German 70
> years or older if a fight in Serbia will be another Desert Storm. It's
> the smart general who knows when to retreat. If Clark lets pride stand
> in the way of military judgment, expect a long and bloody war.

He is a strange guy for a 4 star General!

>rom: (Jane Fondle)

Do your revealing in the right place NOT^ HERE

(Jane Fondle) wrote in
news: om:

> He is a strange guy for a 4 star General!
>

And you are strange girl that thinks r.p.d is an
appropriate place for telling us so.


Roland

How the hell did photo equipment get here???
I'm asking whoever started this cross-posting to
rec.photo.equipment.35mm, rec.photo.digital, etc. to stop this
practice.
Thank you in advance.
TK9

(Jane Fondle) wrote in message news:<. com>...
> (TonyaK911) wrote in message news:<. com>...
> > Lieutenant General Wesley Clark, who later commanded the barbaric NATO
> > air war in Kosovo, was the director of strategic plans and policy for
> > the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon during the genocidal
> > outbreak of killings in Rwanda and and Burundi. He and his boss Bill
> > Clint0n are among those who bear direct responsibility for allowing
> > this horror (which cost almost 1,000,000 human lives!) to happen.
> >
> > So, who is this General?...
> >
> > A VAIN, POMPOUS, BROWN-NOSER: MEET THE REAL GENERAL CLARK
> >
> > Anyone seeking to understand the bloody fiasco of the Serbian war need
> > hardly look further than the person of the beribboned Supreme Allied
> > Commander, General Wesley K. Clark. Politicians and journalists are
> > generally according him a respectful hearing as he discourses on the
> > "schedule" for the destruction of Serbia, tellingly embracing phrases
> > favored by military bureaucrats such as "systematic" and "methodical".
> >
> > The reaction from former army subordinates is very different.
> > "The poster child for everything that is wrong with the GO (general
> > officer) corps," exclaims one colonel, who has had occasion to observe
> > Clark in action, citing, among other examples, his command of the 1st
> > Cavalry Division at Fort Hood from 1992 to 1994.
> >
> > While Clark's official Pentagon biography proclaims his triumph in
> > "transitioning the Division into a rapidly deployable force" this
> > officer describes the "1st Horse Division" as "easily the worst
> > division I have ever seen in 25 years of doing this stuff."
> >
> > Such strong reactions are common. A major in the 3rd Brigade of the
> > 4th Infantry Division at Fort Carson, Colorado when Clark was in
> > command there in the early 1980s described him as a man who "regards
> > each and every one of his subordinates as a potential threat to his
> > career".
> >
> > While he regards his junior officers with watchful suspicion, he
> > customarily accords the lower ranks little more than arrogant
> > contempt. A veteran of Clark's tenure at Fort Hood recalls the
> > general's "massive tantrum because the privates and sergeants and
> > wives in the crowded (canteen) checkout lines didn't jump out of the
> > way fast enough to let him through".
> >
> > Clark's demeanor to those above is, of course, very different, a mode
> > of behavior that has earned him rich dividends over the years. Thus,
> > early in 1994, he was a candidate for promotion from two to three star
> > general. Only one hurdle remained - a war game exercise known as the
> > Battle Command Training Program in which Clark would have to maneuver
> > his division against an opposing force. The commander of the opposing
> > force, or "OPFOR" was known for the military skill with which he
> > routinely demolished opponents.
> >
> > But Clark's patrons on high were determined that no such humiliation
> > should be visited on their favorite. Prior to the exercise therefore,
> > strict orders came down that the battle should go Clark's way.
> > Accordingly, the OPFOR was reduced in strength by half, thus enabling
> > Clark, despite deploying tactics of signal ineptitude, to triumph. His
> > third star came down a few weeks later.
> >
> > Battle exercises and war games are of course meant to test the
> > fighting skills of commanders and troops. The army's most important
> > venue for such training is the National Training Center at Fort Irwin,
> > California, where Clark commanded from October 1989 to October 1991
> > and where his men derisively nicknamed him "Section Leader Six" for
> > his obsessive micro-management.
> >
> > At the NTC, army units face a resident OPFOR that has, through
> > constant battle practice coupled with innovative tactics and close
> > knowledge of the terrain, become adept at routing the visiting "Blue
> > Force" opponents. For Clark, this naturally posed a problem. Not only
> > were his men using unconventional tactics, they were also humiliating
> > Blue Force generals who might nurture resentment against the NTC
> > commander and thus discommode his career at some future date. To the
> > disgust of the junior OPFOR officers Clark therefore frequently fought
> > to lose, sending his men on suicidal attacks in order that the Blue
> > Forces should go home happy and owing debts of gratitude to their
> > obliging foe.
> >
> > All observers agree that Clark has always displayed an obsessive
> > concern with the perquisites and appurtenances of rank. Ever since he
> > acceded to the Nato command post, the entourage with which he travels
> > has accordingly grown to gargantuan proportions to the point where
> > even civilians are beginning to comment. A Senate aide recalls his
> > appearances to testify, prior to which aides scurry about the room
> > adjusting lights, polishing his chair, testing the microphone etc
> > prior to the precisely timed and choreographed moment when the Supreme
> > Allied Commander Europe makes his entrance.
> >
> > "We are state of the art pomposity and arrogance up here," remarks the
> > aide. "So when a witness displays those traits so egregiously that
> > even the senators notice, you know we're in trouble." His NATO
> > subordinates call him, not with affection, "the Supreme Being".
> >
> > "Clark is smart," concludes one who has monitored his career. "But his
> > whole life has been spent manipulating appearances (e.g. the doctored
> > OPFOR exercise) in the interests of his career. Now he is faced with a
> > reality he can't control." This observer concludes that, confronted
> > with the wily Slobodan and other unavoidable variables of war, Clark
> > will soon come unglued. "Watch the carpets at NATO HQ for teeth
> > marks."
> >
> > http://www.counterpunch.org/clark.html
> >
> > __________________________________________________ __________
> > WESLEY CLARK ALMOST TRIGGERS WORLD WAR 3
> > The Guardian
> >
> > Robertson's plum job in a warring Nato
> >
> > As Blair's man is installed, Richard Norton-Taylor details the way the
> > alliance generals have been fighting
> >
> > Tuesday August 3, 1999
> >
> > No sooner are we told by Britain's top generals that the Russians
> > played a crucial role in ending the west's war against Yugoslavia than
> > we learn that if Nato's supreme commander, the American General Wesley
> > Clark, had had his way, British paratroopers would have stormed
> > Pristina airport threatening to unleash the most frightening crisis
> > with Moscow since the end of the cold war.
> >
> > "I'm not going to start the third world war for you," General Sir Mike
> > Jackson, commander of the international K-For peacekeeping force, is
> > reported to have told Gen Clark when he refused to accept an order to
> > send assault troops to prevent Russian troops from taking over the
> > airfield of Kosovo's provincial capital.
> >
> > Hyperbole, perhaps. But, by all accounts, Jackson was deadly serious.
> > Clark, as he himself observed, was frustrated after fighting a war
> > with his hands tied behind his back, and was apparently willing to
> > risk everything for the sake of amour-propre .
> >
> > Nato's increasingly embarrassing, not to say ineffective, air assault
> > on Yugoslavia, had ended. It was over, not least as General Sir
> > Charles Guthrie, chief of the defence staff, acknowledged in an
> > interview with the Guardian, thanks to the intervention of Moscow -
> > its refusal to come to the aid of Belgrade. The point was emphatically
> > underlined by Jackson in a further interview over the weekend with the
> > Sunday Telegraph.
> >
> > "The event of June 3 [when Moscow urged Milosevic to surrender] was
> > the single event that appeared to me to have the greatest significance
> > in ending the war," said Jackson. Asked about the bombing campaign, he
> > added pointedly: "I wasn't responsible for the air campaign, you're
> > talking to the wrong person."
> >
> > Having helped Nato out of its predicament, Moscow was embroiled in
> > arguments with Washington about the status of Russian troops in the
> > K-For operation. For reasons to do with efficiency as much as power
> > politics, the west insisted the Russian contingent must be "Nato-led".
> > With or without Yeltsin's say-so, on June 12 a group of some 200
> > Russian troops drove out of Bosnia - where they were serving with the
> > Nato-led S-For stabilisation force - and in full view of the world's
> > television cameras made for Pristina airport where Jackson had planned
> > to set up his K-For headquarters guarded by British paratroopers.
> >
> > The Russians had made a political point, not a military one. It was
> > apparently too much for Clark. According to the US magazine, Newsweek,
> > General Clark ordered an airborne assault on the airfield by British
> > and French paratroopers. General Jackson refused. Clark then asked
> > Admiral James Ellis, the American commander of Nato's southern
> > command, to order helicopters to occupy the airport to prevent Russian
> > Ilyushin troop carriers from sending in reinforcements. Ellis replied
> > that the British General Jackson would oppose such a move. In the end
> > the Ilyushins were stopped when Washington persuaded Hungary, a new
> > Nato member, to refuse to allow the Russian aircraft to fly over its
> > territory.
> >
> > Jackson got full support from the British government for his refusal
> > to carry out the American general's orders. When Clark appealed to
> > Washington, he was allegedly given the brush-off. The American is said
> > to have complained to Jackson about the British general's refusal to
> > accept the order to take over Pristina airfield, and Jackson's
> > subsequent appeal to his political masters when Clark visited Kosovo
> > on June 24.
> >
> > The unsuccessful issuing of Clark's order has left a bitter taste,
> > especially given the delay in US marines joining the K-For operation -
> > a delay which Jackson had been prepared to indulge even though it held
> > up the entry into Kosovo. Had the British general carried out Clark's
> > instruction, all hope for a compromise with the Russians would have
> > been shattered. In the end, Nato and Moscow reached a compromise and
> > General Jackson willingly provided water and other supplies to
> > stranded Russian paratroopers holed up at the airfield. He swallowed
> > any hurt pride he might have had by insisting, not entirely
> > convincingly, that control of the airfield was not important.
> >
> > The episode triggers reminiscences of the Korean war. Then, General
> > Douglas MacArthur, commander of the UN force, wanted to invade, even
> > nuke, China, until he was brought to heel by President Truman. So
> > concerned was Clement Attlee that he urgently flew to Washington to
> > put an end to such madness. MacArthur was relieved of his command.
> >
> > The comparison, of course, is not exact, but worth recording
> > nonetheless. Last week, Clark was told in a telephone conversation
> > from General Henry Shelton, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff,
> > that he must leave his post early and make way for an older man,
> > General Joseph Ralston, a favourite of the American defence secretary,
> > William Cohen. Clark fell victim, not only to the Pristina airfield
> > row, but to his tense relationship with Washington throughout the war
> > - his repeated requests for more aircraft, including Apache
> > helicopters (never used in conflict because of the risk to pilots),
> > the need for a ground force contingency plan and an altogether more
> > effective strategy against Milosevic, a man he got to know well during
> > the 1995 Dayton peace negotiations on Bosnia. Asked to comment on
> > Clark's forced retirement, Jackson replied: "He is my superior officer
> > and that's it."
> >
> > So Nato will have a new supreme military commander close to Cohen and
> > a new secretary-general - George Robertson - equally close to the US
> > defence secretary as documents released under the US freedom of
> > information act and reported today elsewhere in this newspaper
> > testify. Though Nato was looking for a German - the defence minister,
> > Rudolf Scharping declined - Robertson is said to have the enthusiastic
> > support of the French and German governments to succeed the Spaniard,
> > Javier Solana, who will take up a new post responsible for developing
> > the EU's incipient common foreign and security policy.
> >
> > What does Robertson's appointment - expected to be formally approved
> > tomorrow - signify ? He is regarded as having a "safe" pair of hands.
> > He is unlikely to take risks. His main task will be to straddle the
> > Atlantic, to help patch fissures in the alliance which almost cracked
> > during the Kosovo war, and to persuade the Europeans to cooperate more
> > effectively in the defence and security field.
> >
> > Robertson has talked much of "defence diplomacy". He will need to put
> > this into practice, no more so than in Nato's relations with Russia,
> > as the transatlantic alliance looks towards the east. The superficial
> > rhetoric, Anglo-American arrogance, and the dangerously presumptuous
> > approach towards Moscow, must be laid to rest.
> >
> > http://www.guardian.co.uk/Kosovo/Sto...208123,00.html
> > __________________________________________________ _____
> > CLARK DODGES MOST OF SERVICE IN VIETNAM WAR
> >
> > David H. Hackworth
> > DEFENDING AMERICA
> > April 20, 1999
> > CLARK AND VIETNAM.
> >
> > NATO's Wesley Clark is not the Iron Duke, nor is he Stormin' Norman.
> > Unlike Wellington and Schwarzkopf, Clark's not a muddy boots soldier.
> > He's a military politician, without the right stuff to produce victory
> > over Serbia.
> >
> > Known by those who've served with him as the "Ultimate Perfumed
> > Prince," he's far more comfortable in a drawing room discussing
> > political theories than hunkering down in the trenches where bullets
> > fly and soldiers die. An intellectual in warrior's gear. A saying
> > attributed to General George Patton was that it took 10 years with
> > troops alone before an officer knew how to empty a bucket of spit As a
> > serving soldier with 33 years of active duty under his pistol belt,
> > Clark's commanded combat units -- rifle platoon to tank division - for
> > only seven years. The rest of his career's been spent as an aide, an
> > executive, a student and teacher and a staff weenie.
> >
> > Very much like generals Maxwell Taylor and William Westmoreland, the
> > architect and carpenter of the Vietnam disaster, Clark was earmarked
> > and then groomed early in his career for big things. At West Point he
> > graduated No. 1 in his class, and even though the Vietnam War was
> > raging and chewing up lieutenants faster than a machine gun can spit
> > death, he was seconded to Oxford for two years of contemplating
> > instead of to the trenches to lead a platoon.
> >
> > A year after graduating Oxford, he was sent to Vietnam, where, as a
> > combat leader for several months, he was bloodied and muddied. Unlike
> > most of his classmates, who did multiple combat tours in the killing
> > fields of Southeast Asia, he spent the rest of the war sheltered in
> > the ivy towers of West Point or learning power games first hand as a
> > White House fellow.
> >
> > The war with Serbia has been going full tilt for almost a month and
> > Clark's NATO is like a giant standing on a concrete pad wielding a
> > sledgehammer crushing Serbian ants. Yet, with all its awesome might,
> > NATO hasn't won a round. Instead, Milosovic is still calling all the
> > shots from his Belgrade bunker, and all that's left for Clark is to
> > react. Milosevic plays the fiddle and Clark dances the jig. 'Stormin'
> > Norman or any good infantry sergeant major would have told Clark that
> > conventional air power alone could never win a war -- it must be
> > accompanied by boots on the ground.
> >
> > German air power didn't beat Britain. Allied air power didn't beat
> > Germany. More air power than was used against the Japanese and Germans
> > combined didn't win in Vietnam. Forty three days of pummeling in the
> > open desert where there was no place to hide didn't KO Saddam. That
> > fight ended only when Schwarzkopf unleashed the steel ground fist he'd
> > carefully positioned before the first bomb fell.
> >
> > Doing military things exactly backwards, the scholar general is now,
> > according to a high ranking Pentagon source, in "total panic mode" as
> > he tries to mass the air and ground forces he finally figured out he
> > needs to win the initiative. Mass is a principle of war. Clark has
> > violated this rule along with the other eight vital principles. Any
> > mud soldier will tell you if you don't follow the principles of war
> > you lose.
> >
> > One of the salient reasons Wellington whipped Napoleon in 1815 at
> > Waterloo is that the Corsican piecemealed his forces. Clark's done the
> > same thing with his air power. He started with leisurely pinpricks and
> > now is attempting to increase the pain against an opponent with an
> > almost unlimited threshold. Similar gradualism was one of the reasons
> > for defeat in Vietnam.
> >
> > Another mistake Clark's made is not knowing his enemy. Taylor and
> > Westmoreland made this same error in Vietnam. Like the Vietnamese, the
> > Serbs are fanatic warriors who know better than to fight
> > conventionally in open formations. They'll use the rugged terrain and
> > bomber bad weather to conduct the guerrilla operations they've been
> > preparing for over 50 years.
> >
> > And they're damn good at partisan warfare. Just ask any German 70
> > years or older if a fight in Serbia will be another Desert Storm. It's
> > the smart general who knows when to retreat. If Clark lets pride stand
> > in the way of military judgment, expect a long and bloody war.
>
> He is a strange guy for a 4 star General!