Retired Lieutenant General William Odom was the director of the National Security Agency between 1985 and 1988. Currently a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and a professor at Yale University, Odom has been an outspoken critic of the Bush administration’s foreign policy. You’ve described Iraq as the greatest strategic mistake that the United States has ever made. Could you… return to article
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Reader Comments (19)Page 1 of 1 pagesGeneral Odom makes a convincing case case against the Iraq War, touching briefly on the root cause, i.e., the security of Israel. Retiring U.S. Senator Earnest Hollings made the same point several years ago but it got only a few days’ play in the national press. It is the elephant in the living room that the mainstream media ignores whenever possible. Only those with credentials like Gen. Odom and Sen. Hollings can penetrate this shield, and I hope Gen. Odom will continue this efforts do so. The international integrity of the United States is at stake.
Posted by logan on Mar 8, 2006 at 1:07 PM I admire Mr. Odom and other retired high-level military officials such as Anthony Zinni who have the strength to criticize what is clearly a disastrous and morally bankrupt policy.
I specifically remeber seeing Odom on CNN prior to the invasion of Iraq with Wolf Blitzer. Blitzer was very skeptical of Odom’s statements about Iraq and seemed preturbed at what he was hearing. I was quite angry after witnessing this clear journalistic bias. I lost complete respect for Blitzer after that.
Posted by Liberal on Mar 9, 2006 at 12:11 PM Just read Odom’s article comparing Iraq and Vietnam (he sees many analogies). It is only a matter of time before he is swiftboated by the laptop bombardiers whose only uniform has been the one they wore in the high school marching band.
Posted by opeluboy on Mar 9, 2006 at 8:41 PM I appreciate Odom’s comments. I do not convincing, but given this President’s trigger mentality and the office held by his vice President
under the former President Push, I cannot believe that he (they) did not know about the truth on the ground in Iraq. I cannot believe they did not use our space technology (including our capacity to stay stationary in space over a target) to map out every single square inch of that country --as we had done with the Soviet Union. All of that ‘stuff’ about intelligence was just razmatazz to keep us suckers (including the Congress) at bay while they went about their business.
Posted by JohnG on Mar 9, 2006 at 9:03 PM It seems were still stuck in the past. We talk about the lies and mistakes that got us into the war, but are seriously lakcing in any escape stragity. Were stuck in the past and need to look forward.
What we need is a plan to take out the Republicians.
Posted by Vanella on Mar 10, 2006 at 11:53 AM AIPAC AIPAC AIPAC AIPAC AIPAC AIPAC AIPAC
Did you read what this man Odom had to say?
“it’s pretty hard to imagine us going into Iraq without the strong lobbying efforts from AIPAC [American Israeli Public Affairs Committee] and the neocons, who think they know what’s good for Israel more than Israel knows. The invisible elephant in the room on this issue is the Israeli factor.”
AIPAC’s lobbying efforts should be front page news every day. AIPAC should be a household word. Their policies should be known to every American child. And especially to every Christian who votes right-wing conservative.
AIPAC is in bed with right wing conservatives, backed by right wing Christians who want, for some bizarre reason, to have Christians in control of Jerusalem. Watch Pastor John Hagee every Sunday morning to get an idea of who’s backrooming it with whom for control of Jerusalem.
The crazy right-wing Christians who, like the Jim Jones sect, like the David Koresh sect, like the Haley’s Comet sect, believe they alone will be saved from the apocalypse, are hot to bring about that very apocalypse. And those people are George Bush’s base.
This war and any war with Iran are what Hagee and his type want most. The Zionists don’t want a war. So why are they in bed with Hagee?
http://www.jhm.org/
Posted by Mitcherino on Mar 13, 2006 at 3:29 PM I mean, yes, AIPAC did want us to go into Iraq. But it was to remove WMD’s and Hussein so that Israel would feel safe. So Hussein’s gone now, any weaponry is hidden or moved, and woops, now Iran’s got a crazy man as its leader. AIPAC must have known the crazies would get in power if we went into Iraq. Why did they insist upon it? Was it just a bad choice? Bad luck? Incompetence in the intelligence/leadership of AIPAC?
Posted by Mitcherino on Mar 13, 2006 at 3:35 PM Hey, Mitcherino, I had a wha??!! moment when Odom began to speak as if we were hurting Israel, rather than doing it’s bidding. Whatever the case, if having nuclear weapons and delivery systems (including submarines) that can hit any place in the mid-east or Asia doesn’t console them, then what will?
God knows, it must be confusing to be the chosen people, illegal occupiers, the elephant in the living room, and the all-time-greatest-victims in the history of humanity at the same time, but it might relieve some of the pressure and disappointment that Israel has been expressing about U.S. actions lately, if ---as you suggested---news about AIPAC were to be front and center every day of the week in the MSM.
Vanella, three years hardly constitutes the past, especially when the reasons for going to war have yet to be adequately explained. Launching an illegal, preventive strike against a nation that posed no threat to us whatsoever is the kind of thing that should not be relegated to <i>been there, done that glib-ville</b>. The statute of limitations for mass murder, crimes against peace, crimes against humanity, and war crimes do not expire.
The escape strategy is much easier and less costly than the attack strategy. We pack, we load things on to vehicles, we load people on to vehicles---using already prepared checklists for verification and headcounts--- and then we leave.
JohnG, thanks for bringing up the satellite technology that could have read Hussein’s novels as he wrote them. We did rely heavily on satellite technology during the “war”. The Russians noticed, and are quite confident that our military can be very easily crippled.
Posted by wileywitch on Mar 13, 2006 at 8:01 PM Oh God, not the ol’ Zionist conspiracy nut theory again?!
The next thing we hear is nightmare stories of the gnomes of Zurich and people pandering to Iran’s current president because he has the courage to declare the Holocaust wasn’t real.....
Posted by Jay Cline on Mar 17, 2006 at 1:45 PM Jay Cline,
Are you really saying that Israel isn’t at the heart of it all?
Posted by Mitcherino on Mar 17, 2006 at 2:45 PM Mitcherino, I think he’s saying that anyone who questions anything about “The Holocaust” is to be completely dismissed as a nut case, and that anyone who criticizes Israel is crazy, if not anti-semitic. (As if the Palestinians weren’t Semitic).
It is supposed to be obvious that Palestinians are all terrorists and Islamo-fascists, because they fight against Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian territories. It is supposed to be understood that when Palestinian children throw rocks at soldiers, that the soldiers are obliged to shoot the children in the head so that they don’t grow up to be suicide bombers.
Those that rail against the “Holocaust Deniers” declare that doing scholarly research into “The Holocaust” that questions details of “common knowledge” for which there is no, or little, or conflicting evidence deny that the Jews were ever oppressed by Hitler at all, and declare the “deniers” to be anti-semitic, insane, irrational.
It is supposed to be understood, you see, that “The Holocaust” is so unlike any other genocide in the history of mankind, and research into “The Holocaust” is so unlike historical research of any other historical event in the history of mankind that it is simply mad to question anything about it.
And that, is supposed to be the high-handed, sober view of “The Holocaust” and Israel.
You see, the Palestinians are evil for trying to prevent the Israelis from driving them out of the country that was, until 1947, called Palestine.
Though I agree that the Iranian leader is over the top, he did have a point---it was Europeans who oppressed and murdered the Jews. Why didn’t Europe give the Jews a country of their own in Europe or welcome them into existing European communities, or let them go back to what was “home” before the war?
Oh, and Isreal having full nuclear capability, though undeclared and unmonitored as they sit on the Security Council? That’s because they are so special. The Muslims, Palestinians, and Arabs, or anybody who has a problem with that just doesn’t get it and is probably an anti-semitic bigot who denies the holocaust.
Posted by wileywitch on Mar 17, 2006 at 10:11 PM Wileywitch is obviously correct in his ironic comments.
For a detailed discussion of the US-Israel relation and its negative fallout for the U.S., read online, THE ISRAEL LOBBY, by John Mearsheimer (Univ. of Chicago) and Stephen Walt (Kennedy School, Harvard) in the current issue of the London Review of Books (www.lrb.co.uk).
It will be interesting to see if any of the mainline U.S. media have the integrity and courage to publish THE ISRAEL LOBBY.
Posted by logan on Mar 18, 2006 at 11:32 AM Logan why I find it compelling escapes me, but I want to assert that I am a she. I’d love it if we had a gender neutral pronoun for people, because sex doesn’t matter in these posts, but I am not a he---so, I feel like I have to correct that, or I would be lying.
Liked that article by the way. Very level-headed tone, though it has probably been described as “shrieking” and “ranting” and “maniacal”, etc.
Posted by wileywitch on Mar 18, 2006 at 9:35 PM Wileywitch: A thousand pardons, my lady! Please try to find it in your heart to forgive me.
No, I have seen nothing describing THE ISRAEL LOBBY article as you speculate. One only has to read it and the credentials of its authors to recognize it as a carefully researched and objective piece of work.
Posted by logan on Mar 19, 2006 at 10:09 AM logan, nothing to forgive---it’s not like being a man is a bad thing. I just wanted to give the information.
I have been reading a bit about Holocaust revisionism, and It is not easy to question the “story”. It feels like having the rug pulled out from me, and to many people have managed to accomplish that<>.
Since I was in the sixth grade, I’ve been taught that Israel grew roses in the desert. It sometimes appears that Isreal grows roses out of its butt. Isreal has been taught with such essentialism and exceptionalism that we were never even taught to ask <i>Why can’t we be more like Isreal?
As far as AIPAC goes, it really ticks me off that they’re spying on us and selling our secrets to China and that they sold our secrets to the Soviet Union during the Cold War. I think government secrets are hooey, but it still makes me mad that our supposed “ally” would betray us in these stupid games.
Between Israel and Chalabi, our wayward cabinet is decimating Iraq. Pipeline to Haifa. Yeah, right.
Posted by wileywitch on Mar 19, 2006 at 12:57 PM typo correction: NOT TO MANY PEOPLE have been able to pull the rug out from under me
Posted by wileywitch on Mar 19, 2006 at 12:58 PM WW,
Please, Do not put words in my mouth.
They are ugly enough when you use them.
As far as questioning the reality of the Holocaust, good grief. One conspiracy nut theory is begeting another.
Posted by Jay Cline on Mar 20, 2006 at 12:43 PM Page 1 of 1 pages -
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