Flynn: ISIS was ignored because of election year “narrative”
Retired Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, who commanded the Defense Intelligence Agency from July 2012 until he retired in August, 2014, told Jake Tapper that the Obama Administration ignored the rise of ISIS in the months before the election because it ruined their “narrative” of winning the war in Iraq, according to CNN;
The story they needed to tell, he said, was that pulling troops from Iraq would not leave the region vulnerable to rise of a radical Islamic group like ISIS.
“I think the narrative was that al Qaeda was on the run, and (Osama) bin Laden was dead … they’re dead and these guys are, we’ve beaten them,” Flynn said, but the problem was that despite how many terrorist leaders they killed they “continue to just multiply.”
Obama has been criticized by opponents for referring to ISIS as the “JV squad” and apparently underestimating the group’s threat. The Pentagon’s inspector general is investigating complaints that that top intelligence officials manipulated reports to make the threat of ISIS look minimal.
Of course, no one who reads this blog is surprised by Flynn’s revelation. It’s just nice to have validation. Flynn went on to say that it’s only a matter of time that US law enforcement run out of luck and an attack like the one in Paris a few weeks ago happens here. I would argue that Chattanooga is indicative of that eventuality.
Flynn goes on to say that ISIS wouldn’t be a force if Bush hadn’t invaded Iraq in the first place, that we should have allowed Hussein to stick his finger in the eye of the western world, that we should have let Hussein continue to fund and support terrorists around the world, and threaten his neighbors and allow his own citizens to starve while he enriched himself and his family. Flynn also misses Gaddafi. I would disagree with Flynn on that point, though.
Thanks to CB for the link.
Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden, Terror War
Shocked I tell you! Shocked!
Anyone who is really surprised by this is a die hard partisan hack.
We are dealing with people in power who have perfected feeding bullshit to the masses, scarcely covered with garnish to make it appear edible. This mass of people, who would rather eat it, and pretend that it is filet mignon wrapped with bacon that accept the truth that the world is going to hell around them are the ones to truly blame though.
Preach it!
True the attempt to feed bullshyt to the masses, but they are so stupid, they don’t get it that the majority of the masses ARE NOT EATING!!
Of course he had to kiss ass until he retired then all of a sudden it becomes important.
If he had a spine a few years ago he would have said something that would have stopped this moron from winning.
Oh, but, but, but… He had to go along to get along then.
Absolutely. Following in the footsteps of Panetta, Odierno, Dempsey, et al. Thanks, great leaders!
Or a certain grad student out in Berkeley. Can’t wait for Lars to come on here and tell us that Flynn and the rest of us are just ignorant racists. Then he’ll explain what the real issue is. Spoiler alert: it won’t involve the actions(inactions?) and policies of the current administration.
Shit. My comment was meant for rb325th. Apologies.
The real issue, of course is Lars’s desperate need for attention.
Anyway, not impressed with the general here. According to him, everything was peachy with the status quo of 2003. Forgive me if my own memory and basic knowledge of (then-) current events tells me he’s full of shit. Saddam was never, ever, a “stabilizing element” in the region. He was a mass-murdering megalomaniac with delusions of grandeur who’d already started three wars (Iran, Kuwait, Kurdistan) and would’ve kept right on doing so the moment the thought he might get away with it. His army was far from top-notch, but it was big enough that it really didn’t need to be, especially considering his neighbors. The Russians were still giving him lots of nice hardware at discount prices (they love customers who pay in cash and oil). And sooner or later, the old man would’ve croaked and one of his boys would step up. Uday Hussein was a frothing-at-the-mouth psycho who liked to feed girls to his attack dogs after he got done raping them. Little brother Qusay was a more soft-spoken maniac, less Ghadaffi and more Hitler, minus the speeches. Yeah, that would’ve gone well.
A lot of mistakes were made in Iraq. But making one less lunatic regime with a bigass military, nuclear aspirations, and the money to realize them itching for a fight wasn’t one of them.
In any case, I still say that our problems in the region can be solved by issuing the Kurds an annual allowance of 10 to 20 tactical nukes to use as they see fit.
“A lot of mistakes were made in Iraq. But making one less lunatic regime with a bigass military, nuclear aspirations, and the money to realize them itching for a fight wasn’t one of them. ”
Bingo
So, the current Administration puts scoring domestic political points above US national security? Gee, what a surprise. I’m shocked, shocked to hear that.
(Was the sarcasm above obvious enough, Taylor? I only ask because you often miss the blatantly obvious when you read others’ comments here. Especially when teddy bears are involved.)
I have a feeling someone involved in this scenario is a high functioning sociopath. I can’t wait for our grad student in residence to spell it all out for me. No doubt he is busy right now reviewing 5 second video clips. God bless him.
KAAAAAA…CHING!
Give that general a kewpie doll!
Terrorists are like cockroaches, you HAVE to keep up with exterminating them AND keeping them out!
Proud, the only way you can exterminate cockroaches and other pests is to find something that will kill them within 10 seconds or less. Since most bugs have a waxy exoskeleton, spraying them with a degreaser like 409 works quickly, and you can wipe up their shit with them.
Now, if you can come up with something like that for this other pest problem, we might have a deal.
Well, with respect to Gen Flynn, Saddaam and Gaddaffi may have been top tier a-holes, they did at least keep the lid on. Their policies and strong man dictatorships prevented a lot of what we are seeing today. With that said, I am glad we went in and Saddaam out, and I am glad Gaddaffi got snuffed. I know what I did in Iraq, and I remember the people and how happy they were that Hussein was gone.
We had sound strategic reason to take out Hussein. It was only a matter of time before that megalomaniac wannabe Saladin acquired WMD and tried again to become ruler of the entire Gulf region.
However, by 2011 I’m not sure Qadaffi posed any threat to US interests whatsoever. By 2000, published accounts indicate he’d essentially gotten out of the terrorism support business, and after 2001 he was reportedly actively cooperating with US and other Western nations, intel wise, regarding radical Islamic terrorists (he had his own problems internally along those lines). Taking him out merely – and very predictably – allowed those anti-US Islamic hardliners in Libya to become more of a threat to Western interests. Supporting his ouster was IMO a monumentally dumb thing for the US to do.
Sometimes the devil you know really is better than the devil you don’t.
I second that about Quadaffi, he quickly calmed down in 1986 after RR sent some bombs his way (FUNNY how the French Embassy accidentally got picked off, maybe it was a pilot’s way of saying “Ya know, we woulda had better aim if we were better rested, THANKS FOR THE EXTRA FLIGHT TIME!!”) and he calmed down and turned his WMD materiel over after we invaded Iraq, I definitely think he was the lesser of the other evils there.
The brutality and oppression of Saddam and Mo-Mo were just replaced by a new and more colorful bunch, just like when Khomeini took over for the Shah. Everyone bitched about how evil and oppressive the Shah was, but the only thing that changed when the Shah was removed was who was doing the oppressing.
As it ever was in the ME and will ever be….stability over freedom creates ugly choices for those who ally with whatever despot currently controls the region.
We would need at least a 70-100 year occupation with military oversight of a civilian puppet regime to make effective changes probably 30-40 years out, a paradigm shift in thinking requires that level of oversight and control. Something we appear unwilling to support at just about every level of our society and government. Consequently this will be the outcome in the ME every time we engage. Kill one group of despots so another group can fill the vacuum, wash-rinse-repeat ad infinitum until we choose to change the dynamics of the people themselves. Their tribal loyalties take precedence over nationalistic sensibilities. This is not news to anyone who has read even a single actual history book on the ME, amazingly it appears to be news to many of our leaders who seem somewhat daft when it comes to a long term strategy of effective change.
Very well stated. Look how long we remained in countries after WWII. Regardless of why we went into Iraq, keeping an occupying force under OUR terms until such time they could effectively stand on their own would have been the only way. As for the major players in WWII, even though they did some horribly uncivilized things, at least they had infrastructures, economic capabilities, and non-tribal cultures that enabled them to overcome and succeed in rebuilding. I have no idea what our “leaders” are thinking when they point at some other country and declare their leadership “bad”. We help overthrow them and then the party begins. We had an opportunity in Libya that was completely ignored when Quaddafi’s (sp)son wanted to negotiate. There could have been a multinational toehold in the region that may have actually worked out. I used to be a “glass half full” kind of guy. Not so much these days.
That worked for the British after they sent the John Company (Army) into India to put a stop to the uprisings. Lasted for well over 100 years and ended at the end of WWII.
I agree that invading Iraq was the right thing to do, but Rumsfeld’s attempts to do it on the cheap (I.e, not using enough troops and employing TPFDD by RFF) is what lead to the politicians to lose their appetite for doing right by Iraq. Instead of adjusting fire and owning our errors, we just slowly set them up for failure as we disengaged.
He said that to someone at CNN? But that doesn’t fit their meme of drooling over bodaprez and his wedgies.
While I’m a bit cynical about this statement coming after the general’s head is out from under the foot of the (lack of) administration, if push comes to shove (and it is going to, mark my words) are people like this going to be called back to fight the good fight? Or are we simply going to face another fustercluck like Vietnam?
Please don’t pull out Country Joe and the Fish at Woodstock, OK?
UNKLASSERFRIED:
GEN Flynn is a good man, we hosted him (and his students) in the Big Apple twice while he was DIR DIA and he is Irish … Speaks the truth in few words!
Here is the full interview.
http://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2015/12/01/former-dia-chief-lt-general-flynn-lead-intv-part-two.cnn
Wow, you sure waited a long time to set us straight Lars-buddy !!!
?
STFU. Lars.
This is not a surprise to those of us paying attention, but the idiots, er, willfully blind Pied Piper supporters are once again blaming evil Bush/Cheney and not their anointed one. Pretty soon, they can attach the “white men are terrorists” to this as well. #becausePPshooter
Defend, you know that the messiah has no holes. 🙂
Not condoning the way old Saddam ruled but he, at least, understood how to keep his people in check and that they only respected power and resolve and that they need to be a coordinated effort. The US has only shown one half of that coin
I don’t think there was much respect from his people, mostly fear. He was a total ass cookie.
Yeah but that fear worked.
Agree completely but, as “bighead” pointed out, it worked.