{"id":135,"date":"2005-11-23T02:39:59","date_gmt":"2005-11-23T08:39:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/?p=135"},"modified":"2005-11-22T16:40:34","modified_gmt":"2005-11-22T22:40:34","slug":"the-greatest-strategic-disaster-in-us-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/nada\/dump-duhbya\/the-greatest-strategic-disaster-in-us-history\/","title":{"rendered":"the greatest strategic disaster in U.S. history"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe invasion of Iraq I believe will turn out to be the greatest strategic disaster in U.S. history,\u201d said<\/a> Retired Army Lt. Gen. William <\/p>\n

Odom, a Vietnam veteran.<\/p>\n

Nieman <\/p>\n

Watchdog > Ask This > What\u2019s wrong with cutting and running?<\/a><\/p>\n

The US invasion of Iraq only serves the interest of: <\/p>\n

1) <\/p>\n

Osama bin Laden (it made Iraq safe for al Qaeda, positioned US military personnel in places where al Qaeda operatives can kill them <\/p>\n

occasionally, helps radicalize youth throughout the Arab and Muslim world, alienates America’s most important and strongest allies \u2013 the <\/p>\n

Europeans \u2013 and squanders US military resources that otherwise might be finishing off al Qaeda in Pakistan.);<\/p>\n

2) The Iranians <\/p>\n

(who were invaded by Saddam and who suffered massive casualties in an eight year war with Iraq.); <\/p>\n

3) And the extremists in both <\/p>\n

Palestinian and Israeli political circles (who don’t really want a peace settlement without the utter destruction of the other side, and <\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

the rest of Arab world gives them the time and cover to wipe out the other side.) …<\/p>\n

The first step, of course, is to establish <\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

I find it difficult to believe many pundits and political leaders have not already made it repeatedly.<\/p>\n

\tLieutenant General <\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

National Security Agency from 1985 to 1988 [mjh: under Raygun]
\n—–<\/p>\n

BTC News \u00bb <\/p>\n

Worst national security administration ever<\/a><\/p>\n

The Bush administration and Republicans in general have made national security <\/p>\n

their defining theme since 911, but as is so often the case, the record belies the rhetoric. On almost every front \u2014 foreign policy, the <\/p>\n

military, intelligence, even security related domestic issues such as the deficit \u2014 the administration have damaged the country\u2019s <\/p>\n

security, sometimes in ways that may take a generation to repair.<\/p>\n

Since 911, the administration have corrupted our intelligence <\/p>\n

agencies; led the country into a ruinous war on false pretenses; added nearly $2 trillion to the national debt (and counting); increased <\/p>\n

the trade deficit; increased the poverty rate; emasculated critically important federal agencies (such as FEMA); slighted our allies <\/p>\n

abroad; broken a variety of international laws; and, on at least two occasions, compromised our own and other countries\u2019 security by <\/p>\n

leaking the identities of secret intelligence assets for purely political reasons.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe invasion of Iraq I believe will turn out to be the greatest strategic disaster in U.S. history,\u201d said Retired Army Lt. Gen. William Odom, a Vietnam veteran. Nieman Watchdog > Ask This > What\u2019s wrong with cutting and running? The US invasion of Iraq only serves the interest of: 1) Osama bin Laden (it … Continue reading the greatest strategic disaster in U.S. history<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dump-duhbya"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}