{"id":61259,"date":"2015-07-20T12:00:41","date_gmt":"2015-07-20T11:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=61259"},"modified":"2015-07-20T09:50:07","modified_gmt":"2015-07-20T08:50:07","slug":"retired-general-drones-create-more-terrorists-than-they-kill-iraq-war-helped-create-isis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2015\/07\/retired-general-drones-create-more-terrorists-than-they-kill-iraq-war-helped-create-isis\/","title":{"rendered":"Retired General: Drones Create More Terrorists Than They Kill, Iraq War Helped Create ISIS"},"content":{"rendered":"

July 16 2015 – <\/em>Retired Army Gen. Mike Flynn, a top intelligence official in the post-9\/11 wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, says in a forthcoming 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.<\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/a>

Photo by Lauren Victoria Burke\/AP<\/p><\/div>\n

Flynn, who in 2014 was forced 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> and Iran<\/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

In the upcoming interview, Flynn says that the invasion of Iraq was a strategic mistake that directly contributed to the rise of the extremist group the Islamic State.\u00a0\u201cWe definitely put fuel on a fire,\u201d he told Hasan. \u201cAbsolutely \u2026 there\u2019s no doubt, I mean \u2026 history will not be kind to the decisions that were made certainly in 2003.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over his 33 years in the Army,\u00a0Flynn developed a reputation as an iconoclast. In 2010, he published a controversial report<\/a> on intelligence operations in Afghanistan, stating in part that the military could not answer \u201cfundamental questions\u201d about the country and its people despite nearly a decade of engagement there.\u00a0Earlier this year, Flynn commended<\/a>\u00a0the Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture, saying that torture had eroded American values and that in time, the U.S.\u00a0\u201cwill look back on it, and it won\u2019t be a pretty picture.\u201d<\/p>\n

He\u00a0echoed these statements in his Al Jazeera appearance. Before his\u00a0tenure at JSOC,\u00a0operatives of the force had already become notorious for operating secretive prison facilities in Iraq where the torture of detainees had become routine. In his interview, Flynn denied any personal role in these abuses, while calling\u00a0for accountability for U.S. soldiers who had been responsible. \u201cYou know I hope that as more and more information comes out that people are held accountable,\u201d Flynn says. \u201cHistory is not going to look kind on those actions \u2026 and we will be held, we should be held accountable for many, many years to come.\u201d<\/p>\n

_____________________________<\/p>\n

Contact the author: <\/em>murtaza.hussain@\u200btheintercept.com<\/a> – <\/u><\/em>@mazmhussain<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 firstlook.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\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","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-militarism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61259"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61259\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}