Thus he describes the planned first phase for the air campaign against Serbia as deliberately restrained -- leaving many assets unstruck, "held hostage" as "incentives for the Serbs to halt." This is straight out of the 1965 playbook for the air war against North Vietnam. Yet in the same breath Clark describes why he felt good about the plan: "No half measures. No Vietnam."
He should have quit over this. He could/would not go "Downtown, as they used to say on "Yankee Station." And he was happy with the slow escalation.
One of the most striking features of the Kosovo campaign, in fact, was the remarkably direct role lawyers played in managing combat operations -- to a degree unprecedented in previous wars. Clark does not rail against this phenomenon, but his matter-of-fact reporting of how the process unfolded is enough to shock any student of wartime command.
This happened again in Afghanistan. Franks's JAG over ruled a strike on some Terrorist leaders because the building they were in might contain civilians. When this hit Rummys level, he and Bush blew their stack. I am very happy it happened then, because Franks won't dare let it happen again with Iraq.
Some general comments:
1) The "Multilateralism" that the anti-war crowd here wants includes the problem of restrictions on what we do. It can be fatal. We were lucky in Kosovo. You can be sure if the French were in with us they would be insisting on stopping us from hitting various targets that they had built and were owed money on, and would want to restrict our access to records. And also just being the normal, "Pain in the Ass" that the French always are in a situation like this.
2) The difference in the quality of the leadership at the White House/DOD level is obvious and devastating. God help us if that crowd was running things now.
Clark was not only weak, he was dead wrong by pushing for a ground campaign. That's Guerilla country, as the Nazi's found out to their chagrin. As I recall, the Serb's folded when we knocked out their Electic Grid and they realized we were serious. No power, no war. Until then, they thought they could "rope a dope" us with the Russians as backup.
In conclusion, the Dems are welcome to this "Political General." |
