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."

Comments

What has happened to Slashdot?

[jd.schmidt]

Is this a technology site or some kind of political blog. What has happened?

Re:What has happened to Slashdot?

[Ralph Wiggam]

All of the good editors and commentors moved to better sites. This is what's left.

I don't think he means war for 30 years

[Ken_g6]

I think he's referring to the Thirty Years' War.

The Thirty Years' War was a series of wars in Central Europe between 1618–1648. It was one of the most destructive conflicts in European history, and one of the longest...it gradually developed into a more general conflict involving most of the great powers of Europe....

Obligatory Orwell Quote (1984)

[catchblue22]

For as long as Winston can recall, Oceania has been in a constant state of war – with whom it was at war is of neither importance nor consequence.

Re:You Forgot One

[rtb61]

The US military industrial complex created them, the US military industrial complex fights them and the US military industrial complex keeps them going. It has spent years goading Russia to try and kick over the cold war again and is now poking China as well. The US military industrial complex runs around the war trying to put out fires with a flame thrower and then blaming everyone else when they fail at it.