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Former Department of Defense Chief Expects "30 Year War"
HughPickens.com writes Susan Page writes at USA Today that Leon Panetta, former head of the CIA and Secretary of the Department of Defense, says Americans should be braced for a long battle against the brutal terrorist group Islamic State that will test U.S. resolve. "I think we're looking at kind of a 30-year war," says Panetta, one that will have to extend beyond Islamic State to include emerging threats in Nigeria, Somalia, Yemen, Libya and elsewhere. Panetta also says that decisions made by President Obama over the past three years have made that battle more difficult — an explosive assessment by a respected policymaker of the president he served. Not pushing the Iraqi government harder to allow a residual US force to remain when troops withdrew in 2011, a deal he says could have been negotiated with more effort "created a vacuum in terms of the ability of that country to better protect itself, and it's out of that vacuum that ISIS began to breed." It is no surprise to Panetta that the assessment in his new book "Worthy Fights: A Memoir of Leadership in War and Peace" is drawing White House ire. "Look, I've been a guy who's always been honest," Panetta says. "I've been honest in politics, honest with the people that I deal with. I've been a straight talker. Some people like it; some people don't like it. But I wasn't going to write a book that kind of didn't express what I thought was the case."
It's easy for him to bash the current Regime, especially that crack about pushing harder to keep troops in Iraq. They wanted us GONE. Hell, WE wanted us GONE.
Yep, and they conveniently leave out that W signed the Status of Forces Agreement with Iraq in 2008 that got us out, including the time table for doing so.
Awful damned easy to be a Monday morning quarterback. Where was HE when the shit was getting ready to pile up?
Apparently, he was writing a book... because at no time during either of his positions under the Obama administration did I ever hear him say one word about "we must leave troops in Iraq" or anything even close to that. Maybe someone can find a quote or video for me, but this sounds a lot like pandering to a base constituency to buy his book given how popular Obama bashing is these days.
Those other guys didn't threaten to open an oil bourse denominated in Euros, or, more succinctly, "anything but the USD".
We will tolerate a lot, but threaten the petrodollar hegemony and you're done.
True Reagan negotiated, compromised and made deals with Terrorists.
FTFY
Post wwI Germany, yes.
You and the GGP couldn't be more wrong in that comparison.
The end of WWI left Germany with a functioning representative government. It's their economy we kept fucking after the war. It took the Nazi's 15 years to topple the Weimar republic after many failures (most famous of which was the beer hall push). Eventually the terms placed on the Germans by the treaty of Versailles caused so much economic damage that the Nazi's were able to get popular support.
We _DID_ learn that lesson, which is why post WWII Germany and Japan became economic powerhouses.
The lessons the US did not learn were the ones taught in Vietnam. "Don't go fucking around with the internal politics of nations that dont want you to" as well as "Invade and we will fight you".
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
An interesting prospective and not an uncommon one — for Libertarian-minded Americans. But I was curious about the opinion of Europeans and Leftist Americans — they don't think all wars are wrong...
Huh? We took over Hawaii in 1898 — 40 years before Pearl Harbor! And, whatever you think of the takeover, we didn't take it from the Japanese...
If the USSR were allowed to take over much larger swaths of the world, chances were, the sheer numbers would've allowed them to prevail upon us despite the inherent inefficiencies of the Communist/Socialist economy... You may not think so, but your arguments aren't any better than those of the people, who hold the opposite view. That's practical.
The more emotional argument is analogous to interfering, when you see somebody being beaten by thugs — no law requires you to interfere. Except honor...
Oh, you always want to use it — it is just that you only get to do so, if you have it.
Yours, BTW, is an argument against any sort of empowerment — not just a country with an army. An individual knowing karate or kung-fu may be tempted to use it in a situation, where a weakling (like today's Europe) would choose to turn away or limit himself to "raising awareness"...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.