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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."
Is this a technology site or some kind of political blog. What has happened?
God damn it. Why the fuck did the US invade Iraq in 2003?. Hussein was a madman but he kept a lid on things.
BTW I'm not American so my kids aren't going to be fighting in Iraq, its the US young service men and women I feel sorry for.
I think he's referring to the Thirty Years' War.
(T>t && O(n)--) == sqrt(666)
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.
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
I like to think of it as a square. The top half of the square is the authoritarian, war is peace, big government, power hungry thieves. Those people are in it for personal power, and everyone else be damned. The bottom half of the square are the idealists who genuinely want to do what's best for the country and the people.
Somehow, the media has managed to slice this square though, not into top and bottom halves, but into left and right halves. As a result, regular people who identify themselves as Democrat, point to the upper right corner of the square and see authoritarian, power hungry scoundrels, and yell: "Evil Republicans!". Meanwhile, regular people who identify themselves as Republican, look at the top left and identify the authoritarian, power hungry scoundrels they see as: "Evil Democrats!". Each unable to see that the "misguided people in their party who are wrong on *some* issues" are just as bad the set of scoundrels they criticize.
Just notice how often big controversial issues are brought up (and their often suspicious timing - like trying to fast track immigration reform the week after the Snowden leaks), and how often those issues are actually solved (hint: never - they're far too convenient for demagogueing the other side ["we wanted to pass Issue A, but the other side wouldn't let us" vs. "Issue A be damned, but they included issue B in the bill which they wont budge on which will end America as we know it!"]).
Saddest part is that because the battle lines are so clearly (mis-)drawn in people minds, they don't listen to the people they "hate". Thus almost all information they get about the people they "hate" they find out from non-neutral 3rd parties. These 3rd parties, use their role to aide the authoritarian scumbags in painting the idealists in the opposing parties as the anti-christ (effectively flipping top and bottom of the other side in their follower's minds).
A coalition government containing: Ralph Nader, Bernie Sander, Ron Wyden, Sarah Palin, Justin Amash and Glenn Beck would oddly be more unified in purpose, more functional, and more for the people than one composed of "moderate centrists" like John McCain, John Kerry, George Bush, and Barack Obama.
The problem with the USA right now is the square is very top heavy.
Planning a 30 year war with Eastasia now is only the authoritarians following Orwell's 1984 instruction manual.
WWI was a pointless battle between imperial powers and we should have stayed the hell out of it. The Pacific battle of WWII would not have happened if we hadn't played the empire game in the Pacific, stealing Hawaii and threatening Japan with Perry's "black ships"; the European theater was a straight-up result of WWI.
We should never have been in Korea or Vietnam. Or Iraq or Afghanistan. Or the Philippines or Cuba or Puerto Rico or Guam.
Our history since the Civil War shows that the founders were 100% right about the temptations of a standing army: once you've got one, you want to use it.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
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.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen