Pentagon
Carla Babb
VOA News
December 10, 2019
PENTAGON – The Pentagon has denied intentionally misleading the public about the 18-year war in Afghanistan, after The Washington Post published a trove of government documents revealing that officials made overly optimistic pronouncements they knew to be false and hid evidence that the conflict had become un-winnable.
“There has been no intent by DoD to mislead Congress or the public,” Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Thomas Campbell wrote to VOA on Monday.
“The information contained in the interviews was provided to SIGAR (Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction) for the express purpose of inclusion in SIGAR’s public reports,” he added.
The Post said the documents contain more than 400 interviews with senior military and government insiders who offered unrestrained criticism of what went wrong in Afghanistan and how the United States became mired in nearly two decades of war.
According to the Post, U.S. officials, most of whom spoke on the assumption that their remarks would not be made public, acknowledged that the strategies for fighting the war were flawed and that the U.S. wasted hundreds of billions of dollars trying to make Afghanistan into a stable, democratic nation.
“If the American people knew the magnitude of this dysfunction,” Douglas Lute, a three-star Army general who served as the White House’s Afghan war czar during the Bush and Obama administrations, said in 2015, according to the documents. “We didn’t have the foggiest notion of what we were undertaking.”
The Post said the interviews also highlight botched U.S. attempts to reduce corruption, build a competent Afghan army and reduce the country’s opium trade.
U.S. presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump all vowed to avoid becoming mired in “nation-building” in Afghanistan. However, the report shows how even from the early days of the war, senior officials in charge of directing U.S. policy in the country expressed confusion about Washington’s basic objectives and strategy for achieving them.
The Post said the interviews “contradict a long chorus of public statements” that assured the U.S. was “making progress in Afghanistan.”
Outgoing Command Sgt. Maj. John Troxell, who serves as the senior enlisted adviser to the top U.S. military officer, told reporters on Monday that he “firmly thought the strategy we had in place was working.”
“I feel that we’ve never been lied to, and we are continuing to move forward (in Afghanistan),” Troxell added.
The Afghan war is estimated to have killed more than 150,000 people, including civilians, insurgents, local and foreign troops, since the U.S. and its allies invaded 18 years ago to oust the Taliban from power for sheltering al-Qaida leaders accused of plotting the Sept. 11 terrorist strikes on the U.S.
The conflict has claimed the lives of more than 2,400 U.S. service members and cost Washington nearly $1 trillion.
The Post waged a legal battle for three years to force the government to disclose the information because of its importance to the public.
The U.S. and the Afghan Taliban restarted peace negotiations on Saturday, three months after Trump abruptly stopped the yearlong process aimed at finding a political settlement with the insurgent group and ending the war in Afghanistan.
Afghan-born U.S. special reconciliation representative, Zalmay Khalilzad, led his team at a meeting Saturday in Doha, Qatar, where insurgent negotiators are based.
The draft agreement the U.S.-Taliban negotiations had produced before Trump called off the process on Sept. 7 would have set the stage for a phased withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan.
The Taliban, in return, had given counterterrorism guarantees and promised to engage in intra-Afghan peace negotiations to permanently end decades of hostilities in the country.
*Yes; they are
all
fed by
it- ONE
BY
ONE.
.
*DEAR
BROTHERS AND SISTERS
====================
====================•’
I have had been working. extremely
hard,
for,
the last folks,
across
the
US, Afghanistan and the
surrounding
about mist aspects
of
the
devilish designs.
•
Meant to say :
>>>>>>>>>>
-about most
aspects and facets
of
the
devilish designs.
Parts
of
the
paragraph
accidentally
was skipped !
•
Meant to say:
==========
I have had been working extremely hard
to
inform and enlighten regular fine folks
across
the US; Afghanistan
about the
plights
of
the vulnerable ones who
have
lost their
God-given
“cultural innocence”
and
“normal human sensitivities”
to
foreign-imposed
savageries.
•
•
Sorry; for
the cut off- please;
read on !
•
It is
widely-known
that
the
invaders
and
Pakistani intelligence agencies,
already had close,
direct and indirect, links with
some
of
their
regionally-based,
Taliban contacts, before
they even took over
Kabul City,
in
mid 1990’s.
The
attackers, (2001A.D.)
were clearly poised
for
a
long haul- from the beginning
they were seeking
an
ancient-style
decisive victory
through an
overwhelming
rampage across the whole
of
Afghanistan.
.
That
ancient style blitz; was dubbed
as
“unconventional” form
of
warfares”- it
was strictly custom
designed
for
a
total
subjugation
of
the
mostly
“agrarian-based”
communities
of
Afghanistan.
•
We,
(under any level capacities)
must inform and enlighten
all
the
great folks
across
the
continents.
to
unite and speak out against
the
savages and their savageries.
===
==
==
IT IS TRULY
A
HONORABLE MISSION !
•
THEY
IARE
ALL
“SOCIAL PSYCH-PATHS”;
FEEDING OFF
THEIR
LIFE-TIME
OPPORTUNITIES- WHO CARES ABOUT THE TRUTH; ESPECIALLY, IF
IT HAPPENS
TO
CHALLENGE
THEIR
LOFTY PARASITIC
LIFE-STYLE.
•
(word processing error)
Meant>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
“SOCIAL PSYCHOPATHS”
*****
PEACE AND RESPECT
*=======
FOR ALL !
*=======
•
THE
ONLY TACITLY-APPROVED
SLOGAN THAT YOU COULD CLEARLY
READ AND POSSIBLY MAKE
A
SENSE OUT
OF
WAS
TO
KEEP AND MAINTAIN
AFGHANISTAN
AS
A
HIGLY-WEAKENED; SUPPRESSED AND IMPOVERISHED
SETTLITE COUNTRY- JUST LIKE
MANY OTHERS
ON
EARTH.
Correction
========
—-satellite state.
There
was no
objectively-clear goals
on
how to resolve
complex
social and economic issues
of
Afghanistan.
•
NEITHER ANY
TRACES
OF
RESPECT
FOT THE PEOPLE
OF
AFGHANISTAN.
•
Now; you
are
miserably confused
and
keep wondering !
!
•
And;
pacing, as well- back and forth.
•
*Yes; all,
~~~~on
chaotic
muddy waters
of
Hillmand.
•
*A
CLASSIC FORM
OF
“QUAGMIRE”
•
The universal appeal
of
those fine early Islamic literary scholars who were sincerely striving and servicing
the real
honorable causes
of
the humanity as one- where
irrational fanaticism
and
harmful bigotry
never had
a
place in it.
At its core:
*************
It
meant that, after all,
the
final true judgement
was
impossible
for
imperfect humans
“ADAM” !
•
*It
sounds so
*very
simple; but; yet, so
*deeply profound.
=====•==••••••===
====••==••
=====
That is
the
*essence
of
Islam and all other faiths- you
could never
match
that up; period !!!!!
•
Numerous great literary figures; such as; Sanai, Rumi, Jami and other medieval Islamic scholars who composed and dedicated their finest works
for
the right path
that they thought some day would deliver
all
humanity,
as a whole,
to
the
point where it really meant and belongs:
“PEACE AND RESPECT”
for
all.
.
SOMEHOW;
IN
THEIR OWN WAY, THEY
ACTUALLY AND FAITHFULLY MEANT
IT
FOR ALL- CHECK
IT
OUT !!!!! !
•
You could never ignore and underestimate
the
direct and indirect
impacts
of
those teachings
on
all
religious thoughts
and
general morality, throughout
the
ages and all across
the
world.
*look it all
up and
learn
something
*civilized
and
*humane !!!!!
•
*YOU ARE
NOT
CULTURED
PROPERLY !!!!!
=====
===
=
I mean
it
from
the heart.
•
I
REPEAT IT
AGAIN:
==============
*STOP YOUR SAVAGERIES !!!!!
==============
•
Instead of arrogantly sponsoring, encouraging
and
creating superficial
religious and cultural
rifts and hatred; we
must all,
strive
and orient
ourselves for
cultivating a civilized
wider environment
of
respectful harmony
that
would
sincerely
ensure mutual
*trust and *safety
for
all- *that
is
the
*only remaining
simple ”guiding route” !
•
*OTHERWISE;
*YOU WON’T
MAKE
IT !!!!!
•