In a trove of confidential documents insiders speak candidly about what went wrong in the Afghanistan War. It took 3 years and 2 federal lawsuits for @washingtonpost to obtain the documents. You can read all 2,000+ pages in our interactive database. https://t.co/3HJEmduDJ9
— Danielle Rindler (@danrindl) December 9, 2019
Explosive – a Pentagon Papers moment: “senior US officials failed to tell the truth about the war in Afghanistan throughout the 18-year campaign, making rosy pronouncements they knew to be false..hiding unmistakable evidence the war had become unwinnable” https://t.co/8ZUOLYudKD
— Jim Sciutto (@jimsciutto) December 9, 2019
US official who conducted secret survey of US war in Afghanistan: “The American people have constantly been lied to.”
— David Folkenflik (@davidfolkenflik) December 9, 2019
The pentagon papers of our times. From WaPo’s @CraigMWhitlock https://t.co/OAN8cOWlg8
I’m reading through this now.
I doubt there is anything in here that will come as a surprise. Did anyone still believe we weren’t being lied to about Afghanistan?
“For 18 years, America has been at war in Afghanistan. As part of a government project to understand what went wrong, a federal agency interviewed more than 400 people who had a direct role in the conflict. In those interviews, generals, ambassadors, diplomats and other insiders offered firsthand accounts of the mistakes that have prolonged the war.
The full, unsparing remarks and the identities of many of those who made them have never been made public — until now. After a three-year legal battle, The Washington Post won release of more than 2,000 pages of “Lessons Learned” interviews conducted by the Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction. Those interviews reveal there was no consensus on the war’s objectives, let alone how to end the conflict. …
With most speaking on the assumption that their remarks would not become public, U.S. officials acknowledged that their warfighting strategies were fatally flawed and that Washington wasted enormous sums of money trying to remake Afghanistan into a modern nation. …
“What did we get for this $1 trillion effort? Was it worth $1 trillion?” Jeffrey Eggers, a retired Navy SEAL and White House staffer for Bush and Obama, told government interviewers. He added, “After the killing of Osama bin Laden, I said that Osama was probably laughing in his watery grave considering how much we have spent on Afghanistan.”
As commanders in chief, Bush, Obama and Trump all promised the public the same thing. They would avoid falling into the trap of “nation-building” in Afghanistan.
On that score, the presidents failed miserably. The United States has allocated more than $133 billion to build up Afghanistan — more than it spent, adjusted for inflation, to revive the whole of Western Europe with the Marshall Plan after World War II.
The Lessons Learned interviews show the grandiose nation-building project was marred from the start.
U.S. officials tried to create — from scratch — a democratic government in Kabul modeled after their own in Washington. It was a foreign concept to the Afghans, who were accustomed to tribalism, monarchism, communism and Islamic law….”
“The path to The Afghanistan Papers started with Michael Flynn.
In the summer of 2016, as the retired Army general became renowned for his fervent support of GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump, The Washington Post received a tip that Flynn had given a lengthy unpublished interview railing about the war in Afghanistan.
Flynn had granted the interview to staffers from the Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) as part of its Lessons Learned project. The general had served in the war zone as chief of military intelligence and carried a reputation for speaking his mind. What did he have to say about the longest armed conflict in American history? It seemed like something the public ought to know. …”
This is only the tip of the iceberg.
Afghanistan didn’t have the demographics to become a liberal democracy. The same was true of Iraq. This is what we have said for nearly 20 years now.
Prediction: After the U.S. Government abandons Afghanistan it will take at least 1 million Afghans with them back to the U.S. just like Vietnam after 1975. The Afghans will declare that they helped the U.S. occupation forces and therefore “deserve” to be resettled in the U.S. The scumbags in Congress will declare them “Freedom Fighters” and let these stone age Moslem terrorists in, all of them on the dole, too.
I can’t wait to see Trump’s treats on this! This will only empower nationalistic populism and that is a goo thing! Did they not learn their lesson in Iraq when they tried to make it into a liberal democracy? Apparently not! Good God, man! Do our leaders not have any idea of higher politics and the “Concept of the Political?”So much for the idea that history ends once all the world embraces liberal democracy! Those in the know realize that liberal democracy is neither truly liberal or truly democratic but merely a facade behind which wealthy oligarchs rule.That is why we have a government whereby those in the Senate, House and Presidency are millionaires whereas the presidency is unobtainable to white working and middle class people. Who can possibly afford the money for advertising or has that much leisure time to travel the country enticing voters? Only the super-elite wealthy! Thus Liberal Democracy is merely the decade behind which Plutocracy reigns!
If Jeffrey Eggers mentions, as he does, the faked killing and “watery grave” of Osama bin Laden, I’ll stop right there. Furthermore, Eggers, as a former SEAL, would know that loading the members of Team 6 onto a lumbering Chinook for insertion into a hot LZ in the mountains was as much a set up as loading them in a yellow school bus to go on a search and destroy mission in a hostile urban setting. In fact this breach of protocol is so blatant it’s the basis of Team 6’s families’ law suit. Eggers’s bin Laden fairytale remarks in and of themselves should be a red flag and stopper, like repeating the fairytale narrative about nineteen Arabs who couldn’t control a Cessna 150 magically flying jetliners into buildings that were magically outside the laws of physics on 9/11.
A hasty invasion of a country like Afghanistan is going to be in for serious criticism, so what’s to be learned from this? The appropriate analogue for predicting military outcomes is weather forecasting’s staggering record of failure despite billions in satellites and engineering wonders. What the story does reveal is the naïveté of generals like Flynn who bought into the fake analysis of neocons whose only interest is Israel and the US be damned.
I’m listening on and off, to the Impeachment Circus, and the gist of this is a new set of delusions are being worked-up. The Afghan War has been presented as the “Good War”. It isn’t and never has been. That never prevented it. If the state needs a war, it will invent the cause. Nothing new here. The Empire needs war. War is the wealth of the state.
The “war” in Afghanistan never ever ever ever EFVER had a thing to do with (((mugh turrahism))). It was about those poppy field. The Taliban burned the poppy field, thus putting a sever temporary dent in Israel’s heroin trade. The second they did that – they assured themselves of a (((Freedum Invasion))) .
I never believed anything ZOG or its propaganda arm known as the mainstream media said about Iraq, Afghanistan or Bin Laden.
The Washington Compost article is based on a series of interviews with senior military personnel. We are supposed to believe that these “warfighters” put their lives on the line to “protect our freedom” but wouldn’t let the public know what a cluster**** Afghanistan has been for 18 years because it would end their careers. THIS is what rises to the top in the military. THIS is who we are supposed to thank for their service and allow preboarding on commercial airliners. The military also kept silent on what FDR was doing to get us into WW2, the Tonkin Gulf incident, USS Liberty etc.
And yes, we will be bringing in at least tens of thousands of Afghans here like we do after every one of these fiascos.
Could this be true? That the government of Our Democracy has LIED to us? Unbelievable! What an outrage!
Who is there to put sanctions on those war criminals and warmongers and liars?
Indeed, I was shocked, shocked I tell you! Hearken back to the Shakespearean oratory of that dolt, GWB II: ” . . . Our nation must come together to unite”; his concern for the Afghan yutes: ” . . . You teach a child to read, and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test”; or his threats to terrorists: ” . . . We cannot let terrorists hold this nation hostile or hold our allies hostile”. Inspiring words that move one to tears I tell ‘ya (tears of laughter, that is).
With fucksticks like the Bushes/BHO/DJT it’s no wonder this country is still at war in Afghanistan with no end in sight. If there were conscription the U.S. Government would have several more wars going until the inevitable backlash as the bodies piled up.
Because the Government relies on volunteers and has kept the body count low compared to the Vietnam war, the war in Afghanistan has been mostly invisible. There is more concern about $1 trillion USD that has been wasted than the waste of lives although Raytheon, Lockheed, Boeing et al. consider the money well spent.
I’m waiting for the day when all those poor SOBs who were sent to these holes to fight and die for an absolute lie, get mad and issue a little payback to those who sent them. Those are the people who should be hopping mad, but oddly enough these will be the last people to do anything.
Very good point. Today’s American vets act like old women, especially when compared to earlier generations of Civil War and WWI vets.
The MIC lied to us and kept a senseless war going to make massive profits and pass the costs on to the peasants? And that this was done with the cooperation of the Fed? You know, the privately-owned and run group that printed the money and gave it to their cronies in the MIC, charging the peasantry for the money they conjured on a computer and basically gave to themselves and their fellow elites? Why, I’m shocked, SHOCKED, I say!!
Afghanistan has been called “The Graveyard of Empires.” Unfortunately, it wasn’t the place that the (((American Empire))) died. From all indications, that military fiasco will be Zog’s war with Iran that could draw both Russia and China into the fray on the Iranian’s side at least in military hardware and advisers.
Onwards Christian Soldiers fight and die for “our greatest ally.”
Judging from the revelations, Afghanistan has nothing to do with Jews and everything to do with good old Anglo MIC Ruling Class Ra-Ra imperialist prancing. Just like in the 1800s with the Brits.
https://www.thoughtco.com/britains-disastrous-retreat-from-kabul-1773762
With these bumblers in command, the coming war in China’s gonna be a cakewalk!
(For the Chinese.)
After their victory over the West we shall be subjected to 300 years of Chinese rule, Miss Jannie. At least they’ll deal with the coloreds, something we have been unable or unwilling to do.
The Afghanistan Papers? Who discovered them, Daniel Ellsberg?
The War in Afghanistan and Iraq or the so called War on Terror was one of the biggest foreign policy disasters every in the History of the World. The War on Terror was classic of the American Empire in it’s quest for Nation Building and making other countries a Liberal Democracy. It was an absolute failure and how many people died for nothing in those stupid Wars. Oh but who benefited from it? The Jews, Oil Companies, the Military Industrial Complex, International Drug Dealers, and the list goes on and on. It did absolutely nothing for the US. Nothing! Now the Middle East is more Islamic than ever and ISIS is proof of that. This country should change it’s entire foreign policy. The Jews, the Oil Companies, the International Drug Dealers, and the Military Industrial Complex can take a hike! We shouldn’t be fooled into thinking the War on Terror is over. It’s not because the Jews, Oil Companies, International Drug Dealers, and the Military Industrial Complex still control our foreign policy. Now this ignorant country is focused on a Trade War with China! All while making deals with the Communist Dictator of North Korea! Why make deals with 1 Communist over another? Communism is Communism! Why not change the entire direction of this country on foreign policy and trade. The Founding Fathers and our Confederate ancestors supported Free Trade when it was good for everybody especially the South. Keep it going and make it better. The Founders strongly opposed foreign conflicts and foreign alliances……we call that the UN now. The solution is Nationalism. Take care of our own country and most important our People!!! Spend all that money at home on public spending, tax cuts for the middle class / working poor, universal basic income, a better health care system, and the list goes on and on. Deo Vindice !
ZOG didn’t wage a War on Terror, it was/is a War OF Terror.
The US army could topple Zimbabwe and South Africa overnight and do something positive for the whites in southern Africa. They will then have the most loyal and competent partners they could ever imagine. Instead they have done common training exercises with the corrupt South African New Defense Force.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aQ595yB9ZE
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Africa_Command
But at least we now have got Lana Marks…
https://www.sajr.co.za/news-and-articles/2019/11/14/first-jewish-south-african-born-us-ambassador-designate-has-arrived