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The Emperor Fabulous
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Apolyton's Resident Actor-in-Training
Aug 1999
time: 00:30
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quote:
Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Did Clark have orders? |
Here's part of a PBS interview:
quote:
GEN. WESLEY CLARK: It was a surprising moment to me. It was Sunday the 13th of June, about 8:30 in the morning. And he said, "I'm not going to take your order to block these, this runway." And so we talked about it. He was extremely agitated and emotional and making all kinds of statements. So I said, "let's get your chief of defense," his boss in the British chain of command, "on the line." I talked to General Sir Charles Guthrie, the British chief of defense, and he said, "let me talk to Mike." And so I pass the phone over and then Mike handed the phone back to me. And the British chief of defense said, "well, I agree with Mike." And he says, "so does Hugh Shelton," the American chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. I was very surprised because I had gotten word from Washington that Washington supported, in fact, suggested that I block these runways and strongly supported how I did it, how I wanted to do it. So I called Hugh. It was about 3:00 in the morning in Washington, and I said, "well, you know, here is the problem and Guthrie says you support Jackson, not me. What... Do you support me or not?" Because you can't take actions in war without support of governments. He said, "well," he said, "I did have a conversation with Guthrie. I knew you were getting this order. Guthrie and I agreed we don't want a confrontation but I do support you." So I said, "well, then you've got a policy problem." And it really was a policy problem caused by the British government's differing perception than the American government's, and by Mike Jackson's perception of the situation.
MARGARET WARNER: What does this tell you about alliance warfare? I mean, that if push comes to shove, does the whole alliance command structure break down?
GEN. WESLEY CLARK: Well, only in... It tells you the same lesson we've always known about alliances, that if you are going to lead and you have the command positions, you have to back up that command position. You have to earn it by committing the resources. Now, in this case, although we had the majority of the aircraft and the air campaign, we had done our best to avoid taking a leadership role on the ground. The British had the vast majority of the forces. They were there first. They had the capital sector around Pristina and the Pristina Airport sector, and they had the commander on the ground. So it was going to be, except for the Apaches, it was all British troops at risk, and it was a British commander and therefore it was essentially a British operation under my command. It's the same thing that we would have found in the Second World War. Eisenhower was the supreme allied commander because the United States put the bulk of the forces in, not the Brits. In this case, because the United States didn't want to take the lead by committing its resources on the ground, when push came to shove, it was another country that actually set the policies.
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Credit:PBS
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C0ckney
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Big Up The Macedonian Massive
Apr 2000
time: 05:30
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is it a degree? i've been reading william woodruff's book 'the road to nab end' (and its sequel) and he talks about doing PPE at oxford, but then doing a degree afterwards, the PPE being a sort of 2 year course but not a degree. don't know if things have changed now though.
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16-09-2003 20:30
DD, you should bother to read your own stuff... I read that when it originally came out, and I recall the New York Times doing a piece debunking that conservadope's site.
. But yeah, some generals haven't been that great, but we haven't elected generals much in the last 100 years.
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