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| 2004-01-16 |
| Via Instapundit Wesley Clark Is Either A Liar Or Delusional Writing in the Village Voice about a New Hampshire campaign moment with Wesley Clark, James Ridgeway tells us: "People began to ask him questions: How come you got relieved of your command? Clark said he wasn’t relieved, but in the interests of helping the Kosovo people, he quit his job as supreme NATO commander." Now, everybody who paid attention at the time knows exactly what happened to Wesley Clark. For anyone who didn’t pay attention, however, there is this: "Ultimately, Clark’s plan was executed as NATO’s first armed conflict. Serb police and military were replaced with an international security force in Kosovo, and costly ground conflict was avoided. It had been a limited war with limited means and objectives but successful coercive diplomacy nonetheless. Clark viewed it as a victory, and although initially shocked to find himself relieved and retired in the aftermath, he reflected that the warning signs had been there all along: ’Somewhere in the back of my mind I had been half expecting something. I had pushed very hard to make the strategy work in the Balkans. Almost from the start there had been frictions, and after [GEN John M.] Shalikashvili’s retirement in September 1997, it had been a cool relationship with the Secretary and his team.’"If you go read that, you’ll want to pay attention to footnote #36, because it’s from page 409 of his own goddamned book. In case you dodged the point, try this: Q : General Clark -- will he be invited to come in and brief us when he gets back to Washington? And isn’t this his last day today? And is he resigning as well?For anyone who doesn’t know, "relieved" means fired in MilSpeak. Now, ladies and gentlemen... Knowing good and well that all of politics is a life of lies doesn’t mitigate Clark’s face-front mendacity about what happened to his Army career. Some people might give him credit for insinuating his intent to walk the length and breadth of the Balkans in sack-cloth & ashes for The People like a textbook Arkie angler. However, even if you swallow all that right bloody horseshit, it ought to hit you like a swift kick in the teeth for him to presume that he can run it like this is 1960 and none of the peons can point it out, at large. There can only be two possibilities: 1) he is so utterly delusional that not even Americans could possibly tolerate him in the White House, or; 2) he has defined the art of political lying far below craft to something under quotidian artifice. (Credit: all of this was distilled from posts within the past ninety minutes to Ray Heizer’s superb Clinton Administration Scandals mailing list, which still -- after nine years -- includes the best damned eyeballers on the internet, bar none. The stars of this show were Ray and Edward F. Immler, spendid, as usual.) More -- Phil Carther writes: "In a general sense, you can argue that pulling an officer out of command prematurely is a form of ’relief’, and semantically, you would be right. But the problem is that in the Army, ’relief’ is a term of art. AR 600-20, the Army Command Policy, defines ’relief for cause’ in paragraph 2-17. Bear in mind that this policy is written for junior commanders, and it technically doesn’t apply to the SACEUR position. But I quote it because it defines ’relief’ as its used in the Army today."Okay: What we have here is a case where a "term of art" is important, except that it doesn’t apply to the Supreme Allied Commander, Europe. I get it. Phil would have saved a lot of effort if he’d just said, "Whatever". But I do like the cardigan sweaters and the softer, gentler Wesley. His previous starch stiff persona made me uncomfortable. I hate being conflicted! |
| Posted by:Lucky |
| #7 Yes, relieved is bad. We say "turned-over command" in the Corps for when one officer moves on to another post or whatever. When I was a company commander I turned over my command to another Captain, if I had been relieved of my command it would indicate I had been quasi-fired. Usually, there are no formal ceremonies when this occurs. However, when it comes to high ranking generals - anything is possible. |
| Posted by: Jarhead 2004-1-16 2:10:46 PM |
| #6 What do they call it when the new commander arrives and you move on to another assignment. Reassigned is what it's called. When you passed the flag to the new commander, you relinquish command. I think the formal language in the ceremony has the new commander saying "Thank you, you are relieved", or something like that. But it's not the same thing. In any branch of our military, if you hear someone has been relieved of his command, be it officer, NCO, or the whole staff, it's a bad thing. The most I personally have seen was the entire command section of our USAF support unit in the Netherlands. Never heard real reason why, one day they were just gone. Rumor was black marketing. |
| Posted by: Steve 2004-1-16 11:42:45 AM |
| #5 change of command upon promotion is not "relieved". Weasley was relieved and retired early (i.e.: don't let the door hit you in the ass, Clark)...He's a dangerous man - hyperambition and lies are a poor resume |
| Posted by: Frank G 2004-1-16 11:24:16 AM |
| #4 oh, oh, I have a question. If being releaved always means more or less being fired. What do they call it when the new commander arrives and you move on to another assignment (promotion or something?). Aren't you still releaved? Hasn't hte releaf arrived? I know "releaved of duty" probably means canned but simply releaved could have lots of interpretations. Of course he was probably fired, I'm just wondering about the semantics. |
| Posted by: ruprecht 2004-1-16 11:15:29 AM |
| #3 It was at Pristina Airport when the Russians moved in. Heres a link |
| Posted by: Yosemite Sam 2004-1-16 10:49:41 AM |
| #2 I remember hearing that the major reason for his being relieved of duty was an argument between him and the British commander. According to what I heard, he ordered the Brits to fire on some Russian troops, knowing full well that they were Russians and not Serbs. The Brit refused and told him "I'm not going to start World War 3 for you." Supposedly Clark had a fit and wanted the Brit to be relieved for insubordination. The decision from NATO, the UK and the US Army was that Clark, not the Brit, was out of line. He was relieved soon after. Is that the real reason, or is Questions' version accurate? Either way, there's no way in hell I can vote for this idiot. |
| Posted by: Desert Blondie 2004-1-16 9:05:25 AM |
| #1 "Ultimately, Clark’s plan was executed as NATO’s first armed conflict. Serb police and military were replaced with an international security force in Kosovo, and costly ground conflict was avoided. It had been a limited war with limited means and objectives but successful coercive diplomacy nonetheless." Guarding against cheap shots, perfectionism, and 20/20 hindsight -- the typical tools of unfair analysis -- wasn't there still a case at the time that the Kosovo war was a bit of a fiasco militarily? Specifically Clark's plan, which counted on Serb submission following limited bombing, and for which there was no Plan B? I've never heard/read what finally happened, but I recall things were quite ugly for NATO (Serbia defiant, Apaches unusable, no ground operation in the works) when a negotiation session took place in Bonn, and Russia inexplicably and suddenly reversed its position -- forcing a Serb climb-down. I recall the thing was so odd, some of For. Min. Ivanov's staff resigned in disgust and surprise and returned to Moscow before the meetings finished. Anyway, the sense at the time was of a very amateurish operation that prevailed only because the adversary was so puny and isolated. None of this implying poor performance by the military or the lack of good intentions by the leadership -- but hardly a feather in Clark's cap. Is this correct or do I really have to read up more on the Balkans, which I find/found singularly uninteresting? (I know there was a book out last year on the topic that was fairly critical) |
| Posted by: Questions 2004-1-16 2:36:03 AM |