Missteps

Attack after attack by ISIS, the entity from hell, created by military and diplomatic missteps perpetrated by Bush and Obama, continues yet unabated thanks, in large part, to a neocon foreign policy mired in failure for over 60 years beginning with the CIA's removal of Iran's Prim Minister elect Mossadegh in 1953. Since that time, the US won exactly one war, Grenada, and lost Vietnam, and, in effect, Iraq, based on lies and incredibly stupid strategic blunders that have cost trillions of dollars and millions of lives, maimed and killed thousands of Americans, destroyed legitimate nations and have generated an immigrant crisis that threatens the very existence of Europe and for what, besides lining the pockets of the MIC as you got to have a boogeyman in order to maintain profits for an entity that does not benefit the country, or the world, in any way, shape or fashion.

Most of the terrorist attacks in Western Europe in the past few years have had some link to the Islamic State. Two of the deadliest, the attacks in Paris in November 2015 and in Brussels in March 2016, were directed by the Islamic State, and carried out by operatives who trained with the group in Iraq and Syria.

Five of the deadly attacks involved gunmen, and five used a vehicle as a weapon, including the attack last year on the promenade in Nice, France, that killed 86. The Manchester attack is one of three that used explosives.

Anthony Zinni was right back in 2003 and he's right today. 

"There has been poor strategic thinking in this," says Zinni. "There has been poor operational planning and execution on the ground. And to think that we are going to 'stay the course,' the course is headed over Niagara Falls. I think it's time to change course a little bit, or at least hold somebody responsible for putting you on this course. Because it's been a failure."

Zinni spent more than 40 years serving his country as a warrior and diplomat, rising from a young lieutenant in Vietnam to four-star general with a reputation for candor.

Now, in a new book about his career, co-written with Tom Clancy, called "Battle Ready," Zinni has handed up a scathing indictment of the Pentagon and its conduct of the war in Iraq.

In the book, Zinni writes: "In the lead up to the Iraq war and its later conduct, I saw at a minimum, true dereliction, negligence and irresponsibility, at worse, lying, incompetence and corruption."

"I think there was dereliction in insufficient forces being put on the ground and fully understanding the military dimensions of the plan. I think there was dereliction in lack of planning," says Zinni. "The president is owed the finest strategic thinking. He is owed the finest operational planning. He is owed the finest tactical execution on the ground. … He got the latter. He didn't get the first two."

Anthony Zinni