Saturday, August 23, 2003

Regarding Wesley Clark

This is the man who, as NATO shifted from war-fighting mode into peacekeeping mode, ordered his ground commander to deploy a helicopter assault team to block a surprise Russian advance into Kosovo's major airfield — an order his British subordinate answered with a terse and chilling rejoinder: "I'm not going to start World War III for you." After both men appealed to their national commanders — a practice permitted under NATO's vague and unwieldy war-fighting conventions — cooler heads in Washington and London agreed with Clark's subordinate, concluding that NATO's unity was more important than Kosovo's airport. A humiliated Clark was forced to rescind his order. Two months later, he was unceremoniously replaced as Supreme Allied Commander-Europe (SACEUR). The turn of events stunned Clark: "I never saw myself as a 55-year-old retired general," he later said.

Alan W. Dowd on Wesley Clark on National Review Online

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