Discussing the new ISIS war in an interview with David Ignatius, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper drew parallels between the new war and the US war in Vietnam.
“We underestimated the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese and overestimated the will of the South Vietnamese. In this case, we underestimated ISIS and overestimated the fighting capability of the Iraqi army,” insisted Clapper.
“It boils down to predicting the will to fight, which is an imponderable,” he added, saying that US intelligence had offered “anticipatory intelligence’ about the ISIS surge in Iraq, but had underestimated how big it would be an how fast Iraq would be beaten back.
Clapper’s comments were unusually direct on the intelligence failures in the lead up to the ISIS war, and the comparison to the Vietnam War is likely to result in some uncomfortable questions for other administration officials.
The military industrial complex will get its war. No matter the cost
Vietnam war was a mistake, so as every other wars USG been involved since Vietnam war, not because of American people wanted wars, but because of officials been underestimating the "enemy" and what they are capable of. That is because USG never understood this simple fact, what Vietnames people in respect to their social political choice were doing was their business and USG had no business interfering creating war, so is the case with Afghanistan so is the fact with Iraq, so is the fact with Libya, so is the fact with Syria and etc. But it is understandable that USG is trying to protect its "interests", the oil companies investment in Iraq-Kurdish oil but not in Syria, which is the reason for USG being so involved in Iraq but not Syria.
Sure you did YOU F LIAR…
The blowback from invading Iraq[war crime]
Whatever "Intelligence" James Crapper might have can be taken with more than a pinch of salt.
Clapper Likens ISIS to Viet Cong
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I recall Mohammed Ali the famous prize fighter once said, "no VietCong ever called me Nigger!"
Let see…..the intelligence community underestimated the rise of ISIS, the intelligence community failed to predict or anticipate The Arab Spring, the intelligence community was totally wrong about WMD in Iraq, the intelligence community did not anticipate or predict the situation in Ukraine, the intelligence community did not see 9/11 coming (even though they were warned by eleven different countries)? The intelligence community failed to stop the Boston bombing even though Russia warned them that the patsy had traveled to Chechnya (or wherever it was)… Now ask yourself if this has the ring of truth to it?
Meanwhile EVERY American is under complete and total surveillance. When are the American people going to wake up and stop being played for suckers?
“It boils down to predicting the will to fight, which is an imponderable,”
I certainly does boil down to the moral aspect of war, which as Napoleon said is 3:1 over material balance. That is not however "imponderable." Anything that important is very ponderable, and skilled people know. In fact, we knew all about the weakness of what we had tried to create, and all about the intensity of motivation of the various rebel groupings with which we deal for three years and more.
We knew. We didn't like the answer, so we pretended. Then reality caught up with those who claim to make their own reality.
Apart from the question of why we'd trust a proven liar to tell the truth about the color of excrement, I'm guessing we can now expect him to request more funding to correct the problems that previously expended hundreds of billions failed to correct.
“It boils down to predicting the will to fight, which is an imponderable,” Hell. Why would the new Iraq government want this this territory? Tikrit, Fallujah, Mosul… heavily populated Sunni areas. Just kick all the Sunnis out of Baghdad and let them have the dessert. LOL. Plenty of oil in the South and they just have to defend their new borders. Screw the US empire. The US empire just wants them to fight against each other so they will be easy to play off one another. It is a suckers game. The real enemy of both Iraq and ISIS is the American empire.
The willingness to fight is a funny line. In emperor Clapper's case the ability to get stupid poor Americans to fight for peanuts while the "important" people get to play Napoleon.
Iraq was Bush's disaster. Now it is Obama's Vietnam.
As a non-Arab Arabic speaker, people always think I have it made. Not so. The FBI and local police could care less. Just like the Soviets communicated in Russian, Islamic extremists communicate in Arabic. So, I'm going to go out on a limb, Mr. Clapper: the day you get more Arabic speakers at our embassy in Baghdad is the day you get more intel on ISIS. Just my example (one of many I am sure), when the US Ambassador to Baghdad asked for more federal employees to volunteer for the embassy, I did just that. There were only six Arabic speakers out of 1,000 employees. They never bothered to answer my application. When Senator John Warner asked on my behalf, they responded the "had enough applicants already," although none spoke Arabic. This is why we are losing and will continue to lose.
How did we overestimate the fighting ability of the Iraqi army? We trained them for 10 effing years. And why does this clown still have a job?
Everything fact or fiction — Absolutely nothing in-between
Modern war for the most part is fought long distance by artillery, missiles and fighter-bombers and a safer place to be then an American freeway. Add to this the fact that the Iraq troops in that fight complained bitterly that their top brass just disappeared, surely for those who have an affection for the truth a realization comes that those in control of the Iraq Army wanted the Islamic State to have it’s own army.
Comes now our fighter-bomber jets to be devoting full time to blowing up war materials “Made in USA,” for trading war materials for Middle-East oil is our best money maker ever and to get the oil-rich dictators to trade up for new, first we need to bomb destroy the old.
“Meanwhile EVERY American is under complete and total surveillance. When are the American people going to wake up and stop being played for suckers?”
This is the crux of the matter. Probably $1.5 trillion in annual defense and “anti-terror” spending, and Clapper claims intel shortcomings. What a farce. They don’t even bother making up good lies to mask the true nature of the deception — the imposition of a totalitarian state with full spectrum surveillance and control, aimed squarely at the American people.
This is now nearly complete, and The People are sleepwalking through it. Heck, even enthusiastically participating in it with personal surveillance devices that also make phone calls.
The Deep State has taken over, folks.
Right on TerryA
Crapper: "We were so busy spying on US citizens to pay the proper attention to external threats. Sorry. Our bad. Nothing to see here. Give us some more money so we can make you feel safe, and go back to sleep."