Retired DIA Lt. Gen. : we knew ISIS was coming and screwed it up

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Lieutenant General Michael Flynn during his interview with Mehdi Hasan on Al Jazeera.
Former US military intelligence chief: We knew something like ISIS was coming — and screwed it up
By Barbara Tasch   Aug. 10, 2015, 6:41 PM
http://uk.businessinsider.com/former-us-military-intelligence-chief-we-knew-something-like-isis-was-coming-2015-8?r=US&IR=T

  "The former head of one of the US government's leading intelligence
   divisions says that the US believed that religious extremists could
   carve out a sizable safe-haven in Syria as early as 2012 — but that the
   US did little to stop this from happening.
   
   In an interview with Mehdi Hasan for Al Jazeera, retired Lieutenant
   General Michael Flynn, who lead the Defense Intelligence Agency from
   2012 to 2014, called out the administration on its alleged inaction
   during the first year of the Syrian civil war.
   
   Hasan quotes what he describes as a "secret" DIA analysis from August
   2012 warning that the chaos in Syria could allow for the creation of a
   Salafist enclave in the country's desert east. Hasan asked Flynn
   whether this meant the US actually predicted the rise of the ISIS
   caliphate and did nothing to stop it.
   
   Flynn agrees, arguing that it shows the US should have had a smarter
   policy of cooperation with Syria's secular rebels.
   
   "I think where we missed the point, where we totally blew it was in the
   very beginning, I mean we're talking four years now into this effort in
   Syria ... the Free Syrian Army, that movement, I mean where are they
   today? Al Nusra, where are they today? How much have they changed?"
   Flynn asked. "When you don't get in and help somebody they're going to
   find other means to achieve their goals."
   
   Flynn suggests that the US's failure to assist the rebels earlier in
   the conflict created an opening for extremist groups. Mehdi pushed
   back, quoting the 2012 DIA assessment as saying that "The Salafists,
   the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda in Iraq are the major forces
   driving the insurgency in Syria" before accusing the US of
   "coordinating arms transfer to those same groups."
   

   
   Flynn says he paid "very close attention" to reports like the DIA
   assessment and implies that he actually opposed forms of assistance
   that could benefit extremist groups. But Flynn disputed Mehdi's
   characterization of the administration turning a "blind eye" to the
   DIA's analysis and explained that US policymaking on Syria has always
   been convoluted.
   
   "You have to really ask the President, what is it that he actually is
   doing with the policy that is in place, because it is very very
   confusing." Flynn said.
   
   The jihadist group began as Al Qaeda in Iraq, which fought the US
   military and the Iraqi state during last decade's US campaign in the
   country. ISIS was expelled from Al Qaeda in February 2014 because of
   the group's overly-brutal sectarian violence and refusal to listen to
   the group's Afghanistan and Pakistan-based global leadership.
   

  ISIS "shock" troops
   
   Although Al Qaeda in Iraq was hobbled when the US military pulled out
   of Iraq in 2011, the collapse of Syria provided AQI with a safe-haven.
   
   The rule of a sectarian Shi'ite government in Baghdad, and the Baghdad
   government's failure to integrate anti-Al Qaeda Sunni militants into
   the security forces, provided further impetus for the group's growth.
   
   During the Al Jazeera interview, Flynn also conceded that the US's
   military policies in the Middle East were at least partly to blame for
   the crisis in Syria and that the US had made a number of strategic
   errors that made the conflict more likely.
   
   He also conceded that US prisons in Iraq were responsible for the
   radicalization of thousands of young Iraqis, many of whom are now
   fighting with ISIS.
   
   NOW WATCH: The US Navy just tested a giant electromagnetic catapult
   
   "

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Mehdi Hasan goes Head to Head with Michael T Flynn
by Freedom Forever , Published on Aug 4, 2015
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SG3j8OYKgn4
  "Who is to blame for the rise of ISIL?

   Mehdi Hasan goes Head to Head with Michael T. Flynn, former head of the
   US Defense Intelligence Agency, on how to deal with ISIL and Iran.

   In this Head to Head special from Washington DC, Mehdi Hasan challenges
   retired Lieutenant General Michael T. Flynn, on the rise of ISIL, the
   War on Terror, torture, and how to deal with Iran.

   Flynn was the former head of the US Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA)
   and a commander of J-SOC, the ghost military unit whose squads hunted
   Al Qaeda in Iraq and Afghanistan all the way to Osama Bin Laden's
   compound in Pakistan. With no panel or audience, we ask him whether the
   US is to blame for creating ISIL and whether the War on Terror has
   become a crusade. We also discuss torture in US bases and why he is
   opposed to a deal with Iran."

The ISIS mea culpa starts at t=8m49s

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Survive2Thrive – September 03, 2015
Thursday: Hawk
http://www.survive2thrive.net/podpress_trac/web/10573/0/090315.mp3