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General
Wesley Clark, former Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) and Friend
of Bill's (FOB) is
considering a run for President of these United States. In an AP report
of 29 June, former-President William Jefferson Clinton stated that Wesley
Clark would make a fine president, if he ran. After all, what are friends
for? There is also a grassroots campaign effort to "draft
Wesley Clark" for president which states, "We believe
America needs a new president. One who can be a voice for common sense
and moderation in these dangerous, uncertain times. One with the unquestionable
leadership and foreign policy credentials necessary to win in 2004.
We believe that General Wesley Clark might just be – the one. That
is why we are trying to convince him to seek the Democratic nomination
for president."
Let us
look at what kind of a president Wesley Clark would make according
to CounterPunch of November 12, 1999, "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.
"At the beginning of the Kosovo conflict, CounterPunch delved into
the military career of General Wesley Clark and discovered that his
meteoric rise through the ranks derived from the successful manipulation
of appearances: faking the results of combat exercises, greasing to
superiors and other practices common to the general officer corps. We
correctly predicted that the unspinnable realities of a real war would
cause him to become unhinged. Given that Clark attempted to bomb the
CNN bureau in Belgrade and ordered the British General Michael Jackson
to engage Russian troops in combat at the end of the war, we feel events
amply vindicated our forecast.
"With the end of hostilities it has become clear even to Clark
that most people, apart from some fanatical members of the war party
in the White House and State Department, consider the general, as one
Pentagon official puts it, 'a horse's ass.' Defense Secretary William
Cohen is known to loathe him, and has seen to it that the Hammer of
the Serbs will be relieved of the Nato command two months early."
This is the guy who received the Kosovo Campaign Medal after having
been granted a waiver, although according to an article in Stars
and Stripes (European addition), no one seems to know who granted
the waiver in time for the general to get the first medal awarded. Even
though he led the international alliance in its 78-day blitz against
Yugoslavia, the waiver was necessary because General Clark's service
did not meet the criteria for the award which required service in the
actual theater of operation. It appears that Clark made no effort to
secure similar waivers for the thousands of service personnel who supported
the effort from bases outside the combat zone.
On 17 July 2001, General Wesley Clark was confronted in an often heated
exchange by his critics at Border's book store where the general
was promoting his book, Waging
Modern War. Although one of the axioms of Clark's book is that,
"A Political Problem Cannot be Solved by Military Force,"
what he practiced and advocated in Kosovo was just the opposite. When
confronted with questions about the misuse of air power and grossly
exaggerating the results as exposed in a Newsweek article titled
Kosovo Cover-Up of 15 May 2000, targeting civilian targets as
stated by Sen. Joe Lieberman, and consorting with KLA terrorists such
as Hashim Thaci and Agim Ceku, General Clark's replies were always the
same: the questioner was wrong, Sen. Lieberman was wrong, and Newsweek
was wrong. "I went to the presentation very much opposed to
everything Clark stood for, but it wasn't until I heard him speak and
answer questions that I realized how dangerous a man like this is,"
writes Col.
George Jatras, USAF (Ret).
'THE GUY WHO ALMOST STARTED WORLD WAR III'
In Waging
Modern War, General Clark wrote about his fury upon learning
that Russian peacekeepers had entered the airport at Pristina, Kosovo,
before British or American forces. In the article "The guy who
almost started World War III," (Aug. 3, 1999), The Guardian
(U.K.) wrote, "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 KFOR 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. The Times of London
reported on 23 May 2001 in an article titled, "Kosovo clash of
allied generals," that "General Sir Michael Jackson [was]
told that he would have to resign if he refused to obey an order by
the American commander of Nato's forces during the Kosovo war to stop
the Russians from seizing control of Pristina airport in June 1999."
If General Clark had had his way, we might have gone to war with
Russia, or at least resurrected vestiges of the Cold War and we certainly
would have had hundreds if not thousands of casualties in an ill-conceived
ground war
In his article titled, "A
Long, Tough Job," which appeared in the Washington Post
on 14 September, Clark writes, "And the American public will have
to grasp and appreciate a new approach to warfare. Our objective should
be neither revenge nor retaliation, though we will achieve both. Rather,
we must systematically target and destroy the complex, interlocking
network of international terrorism. The aim should be to attack not
buildings and facilities but the people who have masterminded, coordinated,
supported and executed these and other terrorist attacks.
"Our methods should rely first on domestic and international law,
and the support and active participation of our friends and allies around
the globe. Evidence must be collected, networks uncovered and a faceless
threat given shape and identity."
"Rely
on international law"? Clinton and his gangsters broke every international
law on the books regarding Yugoslavia. "Evidence must be collected?"
Evidence of what? The Serbs certainly did not have weapons of mass destruction;
nor did they attack us first; nor were they ever a threat to us. His
words ring hollow.
You can read "Wes" Clark's letter
to the National Albanian American Council of 1 November 2002, in which
he says, "Let's stay in touch." For an American general who
was supposed to be impartial in a civil war, it is no secret that Clark
is the Albanian lobby's fair-haired boy. And why not? He delivered Kosovo
to them.
General Clark brags about the fact that not one solder was killed under
his command. Even though the Serbs had every opportunity to kill American
soldiers, I contend that the Serbs did not want Americans to die at
their hands. This was illustrated when Sgt. Christopher Stone of Smiths
Creek, Michigan, upon his release, left a note to his prison guards
thanking them for treating him with "dignity and respect."
The Pentagon declined to release a copy of Stone's note, but a copy
was made available to The Associated Press (5 May 1999). The
note ended with "Thank you, you are very kind" and "God
help you."
Col. David Hackworth, in his 1999 commentary Defending America, wrote
of Clark: 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.
Col. Jatras writes that "General Clark is the kind of general we
saw too often during the Vietnam War and hoped never to see again in
a position of responsibility for the lives of our GIs and the security
of our nation. That it happened once again we can thank that other Rhodes
scholar from Arkansas."
In this writer's judgement, what this guy is positioning himself for
is the VP slot with Hillary running for President. It would be a marriage
made in Hell...a Hell for all of us.
Knowing all the above, why would anyone want as president or VP a guy
who was willing to start World War III for the sake of his own ego and
self-importance?
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As
a career military officer's wife, Stella Jatras has traveled widely
and has lived in many foreign countries where she not only learned about
other cultures but also became very knowledgeable regarding world affairs
and world politics. Stella Jatras lived in Moscow for two years (where
her husband, George, was the Senior Air Attaché), and while there,
worked in the Political Section of the US Embassy. Stella has also lived
in Germany, Greece and Saudi Arabia. Her travels took her to over twenty
countries.
Previous article
by Stella Jatras on Antiwar.com
Wesley
Clark: The Guy Who Almost Started World War III
8/23/03
Behind
Enemy Lines: Fact or Fiction?
5/14/02
The
Crimes of the KLA: Who Will Pay?
3/14/02
The
Case of the Invisible Trial, or, 'Where's the Beef?'
3/7/02
'Voices
of Moral Obtuseness' or 'Voices of Immoral Bigotry'?
9/29/01
The
Media's War Against the Serbs
1/15/01
If
It's Good Enough for Serbia's Goose, Why Not for Croatia's Gander?
12/7/00
Srebrenica"
– Code Word to Silence Critics of US Policy in the Balkans
7/31/00
From
Camp Swampy to Camp Bondsteell
4/6/00
Open Letter
to General Michael Short
11/3/99
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