{"id":10127,"date":"2015-07-17T06:44:25","date_gmt":"2015-07-17T11:44:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=10127"},"modified":"2015-07-17T06:44:25","modified_gmt":"2015-07-17T11:44:25","slug":"retired-general-drones-create-more-terrorists-than-they-kill-iraq-war-helped-create-isis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=10127","title":{"rendered":"Retired General: Drones Create More Terrorists Than They Kill, Iraq War Helped Create ISIS"},"content":{"rendered":"

Retired General: Drones Create More Terrorists Than They Kill, Iraq War Helped Create ISIS<\/a><\/h3>\n
Retired Army Gen. Mike Flynn, a top intelligence official in the post-9\/11 wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, says in a\u00a0forthcoming interview<\/a>\u00a0on\u00a0Al Jazeera English that the drone war is creating more terrorists than it is killing. He also asserts that the U.S. invasion of Iraq helped create the Islamic State and that U.S. soldiers involved in torturing detainees need to be held legally accountable for their actions.<\/div>\n

Flynn, who in 2014 was\u00a0forced out<\/a>\u00a0as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, has in recent months\u00a0become an outspoken critic of the Obama administration\u2019s\u00a0Middle East strategy, calling for a more hawkish approach to the\u00a0Islamic State<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Iran<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But his enthusiasm for the application of force doesn\u2019t extend to the use of drones. In the interview with\u00a0Al Jazeera presenter Mehdi Hasan, set to air July 31, the former three star general says: \u201cWhen you drop a bomb from a drone \u2026 you are going to cause more damage than you are going to cause good.\u201d Pressed by Hasan as to whether\u00a0drone strikes are creating more terrorists than they kill, Flynn says, \u201cI don\u2019t disagree with that.\u201d He describes the present approach\u00a0of drone warfare as \u201ca failed strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we have is this continued investment in conflict,\u201d the retired general says. \u201cThe more weapons we give, the more bombs we drop, that just \u2026 fuels the conflict.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prior to serving as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Flynn was director of Intelligence for the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. During his time in Iraq, Flynn is credited with\u00a0helping to transform JSOC into an intelligence-driven special forces operation, tailored to fight the insurgency in that country. Flynn was in Iraq during the peak of the conflict\u00a0there,\u00a0as intelligence chief to Stanley McChrystal, former general and head of JSOC. When questioned about\u00a0how many Iraqis JSOC operatives had killed inside the country during his tenure, Flynn would later\u00a0say<\/a>, \u201cThousands, I don\u2019t even know how many.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Retired General: Drones Create More Terrorists Than They Kill, Iraq War Helped Create ISIS Retired Army Gen. Mike Flynn, a top intelligence official in the post-9\/11 wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, says in a\u00a0forthcoming interview\u00a0on\u00a0Al Jazeera English that the drone war is creating more terrorists than it is killing. He also asserts that the U.S. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[2487,22,7333,1007,442,446,447,7335,522,7334,584,5567,834],"class_list":["post-10127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics","tag-afghanistan","tag-al-jazeera","tag-drone-war","tag-drones","tag-iraq","tag-isis","tag-islamic-state","tag-jsoc","tag-middle-east","tag-mike-flynn","tag-obama","tag-the-intercept","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10127"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10127\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10128,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10127\/revisions\/10128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}