October 17, 2002
Gen. Clark
The article “Still no decision on Kosovo medal” (Oct. 8) said
“Pentagon
brass” ensured a waiver was granted so that Gen. Wesley Clark
received
the Kosovo Campaign Medal, the first one minted, at his
retirement
ceremony in 2000. The waiver was necessary because Gen. Clark’s
service
didn’t meet the criteria for the award, even though he led the
international
alliance in its “78-day blitz” against Yugoslavia. An earlier article,
“Army
can’t explain how Clark got medal” (June 16, 2001) said, “The Army is at
a
loss to explain who granted a waiver awarding retired Gen. Wesley
Clark
the Kosovo Campaign Medal,” and that, “After four months of
repeated
queries, Army officials say they’re still not sure who approved the
medal.”
To date, we still don’t know who granted Gen. Clark the waiver. I
guess
that’s one of the unsolvable mysteries of that era, like law firm
billing
records. In the meantime, as the story said, thousands of others
who
supported the campaign at bases in England, Spain, Germany, Turkey
and
even the United States are still waiting to learn if waivers for their
eligibility
will be approved.
As a Vietnam combat veteran who had “awards and decorations” as
an
additional duty, I can understand the intricacies of determining who
deserves
the medal. Given the scope of the campaign, virtually everyone in
the
military, active and Reserve, contributed in some way. If the criterion
is
based on a combat zone defined as “in and around the Balkans,”
Gen.
Clark certainly does not deserve the medal, even given that vague
definition
of the combat zone. Gen. Clark led the campaign from Mons, Belgium.
If
the waiver was based on Gen. Clark’s contribution to the campaign
being
more important than that of the ground support troops at places such
as
Rhein-Main Air Base, Germany, or Whiteman Air Base, Mo., then
maybe
we should look at just what his contribution was.
In his book “Waging Modern War,” Gen. Clark wrote about his fury
to
learn 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.”
Gen. Clark’s buddy in Kosovo was Hashim Thaci, the leader of
the
Kosovo Liberation Army, which, according to the Belfast News
Letter
(Northern Ireland) of July 30, is engaged in sex slavery,
prostitution,
murder, kidnapping and drugs. The Daily Telegraph reported on Feb.
19
that “European drug squad officers say Albanian and Kosovo
Albanian
dealers are ruthlessly trying to seize control of the European heroin
market,
worth up to $27 billion a year, and have taken over the trade in at least
six
European countries.”
Another Clark buddy was Agim Ceku, who commanded Croatia’s
army
during “Operation Storm,” when ethnic Serbs were driven out of
their
ancestral homes in the Krajina region of Croatia in 1995 in what
columnist
Charles Krauthammer described in Newsweek on April 5, 1999, as
“the
largest ethnic cleansing of the entire Balkans wars.” This is the same
Gen.
Ceku who commanded the KLA.
The shortsightedness of Gen. Clark’s consorting with KLA thugs, whom
he
is largely responsible for putting into power in Kosovo, is borne out by
the
Washington Times article “Kosovo Albanian attitudes change; Some
see
U.N., NATO as foes.” (Sept. 21). It said, “Where once NATO
troops
were greeted with cheers, those cheers have now changed to anger
and
occasionally violent protests since the arrest of several leaders of the
former
Kosovo Liberation Army.”
As for his ability as a military leader, Gen. Clark failed on two counts —
the
air campaign and his plan for a ground campaign. While the
questionable
effectiveness of the air campaign was not solely his responsibility,
his
acquiescence to the strategy and his cover-up of the results detailed in
the
Newsweek story “Kosovo Cover Up” (May 15, 2000) are testimony to
his
dedication to power and career. As for a ground war, which Gen.
Clark
admits that he favored, he insists that he could have conducted a
successful
ground war in Kosovo by sending Apache helicopters and ground
troops
through the mountain passes between Albania and Kosovo, a plan
which
was described to me by an Apache pilot as a “hare-brained” idea.
Gen.
Clark planned to support the Apaches with “50,000 Albanian troops,”
a
statement he personally made to me at a Washington, D.C., book
signing.
There’s no doubt that a ground war with the might of 19 NATO
nations
eventually would have been successful. But at what cost and why? To
feed
Gen. Clark’s ego and ambition!
If Gen. 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.
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.”
In my opinion, Gen. 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.
Col. George Jatras
(Ret.)
Sterling,
Va
