“The invasion of Iraq I believe will turn out to be the greatest strategic disaster in U.S. history,” said Retired Army Lt. Gen. William
Odom, a Vietnam veteran.
Watchdog > Ask This > What’s wrong with cutting and running?
The US invasion of Iraq only serves the interest of:
1)
Osama bin Laden (it made Iraq safe for al Qaeda, positioned US military personnel in places where al Qaeda operatives can kill them
occasionally, helps radicalize youth throughout the Arab and Muslim world, alienates America’s most important and strongest allies – the
Europeans – and squanders US military resources that otherwise might be finishing off al Qaeda in Pakistan.);
2) The Iranians
(who were invaded by Saddam and who suffered massive casualties in an eight year war with Iraq.);
3) And the extremists in both
Palestinian and Israeli political circles (who don’t really want a peace settlement without the utter destruction of the other side, and
probably believe that bogging the United States down in a war in Iraq that will surely become a war between the United States and most of
the rest of Arab world gives them the time and cover to wipe out the other side.) …
The first step, of course, is to establish
as conventional wisdom the fact that the war was never in the US interest and has not become so. It is such an obvious case to make that
I find it difficult to believe many pundits and political leaders have not already made it repeatedly.
Lieutenant General
William E. Odom, U.S. Army (Ret.), is a Senior Fellow with Hudson Institute and a professor at Yale University. He was Director of the
National Security Agency from 1985 to 1988 [mjh: under Raygun]
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Worst national security administration ever
The Bush administration and Republicans in general have made national security
their defining theme since 911, but as is so often the case, the record belies the rhetoric. On almost every front — foreign policy, the
military, intelligence, even security related domestic issues such as the deficit — the administration have damaged the country’s
security, sometimes in ways that may take a generation to repair.
Since 911, the administration have corrupted our intelligence
agencies; led the country into a ruinous war on false pretenses; added nearly $2 trillion to the national debt (and counting); increased
the trade deficit; increased the poverty rate; emasculated critically important federal agencies (such as FEMA); slighted our allies
abroad; broken a variety of international laws; and, on at least two occasions, compromised our own and other countries’ security by
leaking the identities of secret intelligence assets for purely political reasons.