General Sir Mike Jackson speaks out
Submitted by Gabriele Droz on August 31, 2007 - 9:51pm.
Veterans & Military
"Macho Jacko" is wearing the check shirt, soft tobacco-coloured jacket and suede shoes of the recently retired Army man but he might just as well be in disguise because all I can see is the maroon Parachute Regiment beret, the pressed fatigues and the gaunt features of an Easter Island monolith that dominated his military campaigns. That indelible image includes the portmanteau-sized eyebags, so seductive to his female following and such a gift to photographers, even though he's since had them surgically removed - shame! - because he says they were impairing his sight. A matter of "vision, not vanity".
"His finest hour was undoubtedly Kosovo. The account of his eight months commanding Nato ground forces is the high point of his narrative, as well as of his career, culminating in a theatrical confrontation with the American commander of Nato forces, General Wesley Clark. The clash enhanced Jackson's reputation as the most colourful character of modern soldiery and exposed his contempt for Clark's aggressive stance."
"The scene was Pristina airport. Three hundred Russian troops, in a gesture of solidarity with the Serbs, seized control of the airfield. Clark ordered Jackson to block the runway to prevent Russian reinforcement. Jackson squared up to him with the famous line: "Sir, I'm not going to start World War Three for you." When Clark, his superior officer, repeated his order, Jackson retaliated: "Sir, I am a three-star general, you can't give me orders like this. I have my own judgment of the situation and I believe that this order is outside our mandate." Clark, who later described Jackson's response as "emotional", countered: "Mike, I am a four-star general, and I can tell you these things." Wonderful stuff."
Let's have some fun with this!
UK Article can be found here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/09/01/wmike101.xml
He's not going to have much of a legacy once the Brits are gone from Basra and Iran takes over there. It's one more place we're going to have to send troops from other places in Iraq, because that's where the bulk of the oil is. Jackson is trying to push his book. In every military action I've read him quoted, he's always whining about something.
in Belfast on Bloody Sunday. See below:
http://www.wsws.org/articles/1999/jun1999/jack-j19_prn.shtml
Enough said.
Secret Russian Troop Deployment Thwarted
By Robert G. Kaiser and David Hoffman
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, June 25, 1999; Page A1
Russia's surprise deployment of 200 troops to the Pristina airport on June 12 was part of a scheme to send into Kosovo a contingent of 1,000 or more men who could have tried to stake out a Russian zone in the northwest sector of the province, Western intelligence analysts have concluded.
The carefully planned operation was thwarted when the governments of Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania, prodded by the United States, denied Russian requests to use their airspace to fly more Russians into Kosovo.
When senior U.S. officials realized what the Russians had in mind, they lobbied the Eastern Europeans on overflight rights and began pursuing their Russian counterparts by telephone "at ungodly hours" on Sunday, June 13, according to one official. The Americans warned the Russians that their unilateral military moves risked obliterating the good will generated by their help in reaching a peace agreement.
Look for my comment over at the Dkos diary on this story
Someone once asked me if I had learned anything from going to war so many times.
My reply:
Yes, I learned how to cry.
Joe Galloway
Thanks for posting this article BOHICA.
It sets forth WKC's reasons for asking General Jackson to intervene. Fortunately, WKC was able to use diplomatic channels to accomplish what Jackson refused to do.
Another example of WKC's LEADERSHIP.
In his forthcoming memoir, General Clark addresses the issue of the showdown with the Russians at the Pristina Airport.
In summary, he acknowledges that he ordered General Jackson to deliver military force to the airfield, occupy it and surround it. According to Clark, Jackson assured him he would do that.
I will leave the rest of Wes Clark's version for you and others to read in his book.
All of the issues and background, and inside thoughts and discussions are laid out, some that Jackson wasn't privy too on what the US had feared and known about Russian plans for northern Kosovo etc..
I have a few iterations of response jobs on this, but that's more to push back in a graph or two against the morons that try to push the WWIII quote to more than it is. And albatross, yes. Because most people that would even believe this, eaither wouldn't take the time to read General Clark's writing on it, or the Wash Post piece.. Or can't even read at all anyway.
Anyways, Chapter 15. Waging Modern War.. Clark and Jackson and WWIII is about page 401
BOHICA's WaPo article is the best and concise handling of this incredibly complex event out there as well, but there's much more in General Clark's handling of it.
...of the Pristina Airport situation in Waging Modern War.
Someone questioned what seems to them my near obsession with the matter.
Over the last four years, at least a half dozen people have asked me about this matter. Four or five were military and remember something about it.
You hit the nail on the head when you seem to acknowledge that the average person hears the quote and thinks that WKC wanted to do something so dangerous that it might start a WW III, when the facts were that the Russians wanted to be able to influence a post-Milosevic era, and capturing a section of the airport would be a good start.
"The general (Sir Michael Jackson), who retired last year as chief of the general staff, went on to dismiss the entire American approach to tackling terrorism as "inadequate", branding it too reliant on military action rather than nation-building and diplomacy."
....Telegraph (newspaper) 9.2.07
I have always believed that Sir Michael Jackson's bombast that he wasn't going to start WW III for WKC would remain an albatross around WKC's neck.
General Jackson puts the matter front and center for WKC to deal with, although he has addressed it in the past.
The bottom line is that the Russians were up to no good at the Pristina airport.