CDZ Confidential documents reveal U.S. officials failed to tell truth about war in Afghanistan

[Zorro!]

Most of us have suspected for some time that we have been lied to...but this report is damning..and shows how Afghanistan became another Vietnam...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/grap...apers/afghanistan-war-confidential-documents/

A confidential trove of government documents obtained by The Washington Post reveals that senior U.S. officials failed to tell the truth about the war in Afghanistan throughout the 18-year campaign, making rosy pronouncements they knew to be false and hiding unmistakable evidence the war had become unwinnable.
The documents were generated by a federal project examining the root failures of the longest armed conflict in U.S. history. They include more than 2,000 pages of previously unpublished notes of interviews with people who played a direct role in the war, from generals and diplomats to aid workers and Afghan officials.
The U.S. government tried to shield the identities of the vast majority of those interviewed for the project and conceal nearly all of their remarks. The Post won release of the documents under the Freedom of Information Act after a three-year legal battle.


The Afghanistan Papers
At war with the truth

Interviews and memos
Explore the documents

Key insiders speak bluntly about the failures of the longest conflict in U.S. history

Post Reports
‘We didn’t know what the task was’

Hear candid interviews with former ambassador Ryan Crocker and retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn

The fight for the documents
About the investigation

It took three years and two federal lawsuits for The Post to pry loose 2,000 pages of interview records

Part 1
At war with the truth

U.S. officials constantly said they were making progress. They were not, and they knew it.

Part 2
Stranded without a strategy

Bush and Obama had polar-opposite plans to win the war. Both were destined to fail.

Part 3
Built to fail

Despite vows the U.S. wouldn’t get mired in “nation-building,” it has wasted billions doing just that

Part 4
Consumed by corruption

The U.S. flooded the country with money — then turned a blind eye to the graft it fueled

Part 5
Unguarded nation

Afghan security forces, despite years of training, were dogged by incompetence and corruption

Part 6
Overwhelmed by opium

The U.S. war on drugs in Afghanistan has imploded at nearly every turn

More stories
Interviewees respond

In the interviews, more than 400 insiders offered unrestrained criticism of what went wrong in Afghanistan and how the United States became mired in nearly two decades of warfare.
With a bluntness rarely expressed in public, the interviews lay bare pent-up complaints, frustrations and confessions, along with second-guessing and backbiting.

Click any underlined text in the story to see the statement in the original document

“We were devoid of a fundamental understanding of Afghanistan — we didn’t know what we were doing,” Douglas Lute, a three-star Army general who served as the White House’s Afghan war czar during the Bush and Obama administrations, told government interviewers in 2015. He added: “What are we trying to do here? We didn’t have the foggiest notion of what we were undertaking.”
“If the American people knew the magnitude of this dysfunction . . . 2,400 lives lost,” Lute added, blaming the deaths of U.S. military personnel on bureaucratic breakdowns among Congress, the Pentagon and the State Department. “Who will say this was in vain?”
Since 2001, more than 775,000 U.S. troops have deployed to Afghanistan, many repeatedly. Of those, 2,300 died there and 20,589 were wounded in action, according to Defense Department figures.

BUT TRUMP SHOULD BE IMPEACHED FOR NOT LISTENING TO THE EXPERTS…: New Pentagon Papers? IG probe conclusions show Afghan war futility — and lies.

But the Inter-Agency Consensus Trump is supposed to bow and burn incense too!

these "experts" have been fighting a war against a rag tag army for 18 years and have not won and you want Trump to listen to them?

Nope! I want Trump to do what he knows is right.

I'm not a Trump fan---but.....I think he's doing exactly what he 'knows' is right. I think that in the Left's attempts to demonize the President they lose sight of the idea that Trump may well be trying his hardest...to bring his vision into focus. He's wrong, IMO, and not smart enough, and not principled enough..to get it done right.

But he's not Satan..or Hitler...just a guy who got by on his ability to smooze and a talent for selling himself. This job is too much for him.

The irony of who Trump is...and who his base are..never fails to stun me.

The other choice was Drunken Hillary the Crook. Trump is doing an outstanding job and conditions today are MUCH MUCH better than all the "experts" claimed they would be.

 

[beautress]

These photos from the satellites were corroborated by on-the-ground visual images of terrorists training as well.

View attachment 293989

See how that works. ​

I do see how that works...
Now explain if we have those satellite pics why could we not bomb them? Seems to me we know where they were.

I brought you the pictures but only because I know how to find them. You would have to contact the military for specifics. I'm a fiber artist, and military news is frequently removed to make space for current events, changes of the guard, and whatever those in charge wish to keep current. This is only a guess, but satellite surveillance may associated with the Air Force now. Their news may or may not contain archives, but you can possibly contact the editor to access archives that are accessible. The Air Force news is located here: News
Another possible source is the State Department's archives. You might contact Mr. Pompeo's State Department here and click on "contact us" for information you would like to access: U.S. Department of State - United States Department of State

That way, you will get accurate information or a lead to where you can find out what you want to know about Afghanistan twenty years back.

If you want to know details on designing and making a quilt, I'm your gal.

 

[Olde Europe]

I'm not a Trump fan---but.....I think he's doing exactly what he 'knows' is right. I think that in the Left's attempts to demonize the President they lose sight of the idea that Trump may well be trying his hardest...to bring his vision into focus. He's wrong, IMO, and not smart enough, and not principled enough..to get it done right.

Really? "Trump may well be trying his hardest..."

Trump's phone call established, with all the clarity a Mob Boss could establish, a quid pro quo.

After being made aware that there's a whistle-blower complaint alleging a quid pro quo (surprise!), and lawyers inform him a quid pro quo is legally questionable, all of a sudden Trump starts telling folks, "I want no quid pro quo!" Just Ukrainians should start the investigations - all the while he's still withholding security aid.

If he's trying hard to do the right thing, and convinced he did the right thing, why block first-hand witnesses' testimony? They couldn't but exonerate an innocent man, couldn't they?

Trump is to the bones corrupt, and he is guiding his Ukraine policy in the same way he stiffed contractors. Hold back funds he owed to extract "discounts", with the only way out for contractors being costly litigation. Ukraine had no such option. They don't even have the choice of being player or ball.

I think, your giving Trump the benefit of the doubt would be justifiable in case it were a first. Since it is just the latest in a long list of corrupt acts, as detailed in the Mueller report, I find it naive, almost willfully so. Not to forget, Trump told you so. He has an Article II to where he can do what he wants. Not taking that seriously is on you.

 

[beautress]

Most of us have suspected for some time that we have been lied to...but this report is damning..and shows how Afghanistan became another Vietnam...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/grap...apers/afghanistan-war-confidential-documents/

A confidential trove of government documents obtained by The Washington Post reveals that senior U.S. officials failed to tell the truth about the war in Afghanistan throughout the 18-year campaign, making rosy pronouncements they knew to be false and hiding unmistakable evidence the war had become unwinnable.
The documents were generated by a federal project examining the root failures of the longest armed conflict in U.S. history. They include more than 2,000 pages of previously unpublished notes of interviews with people who played a direct role in the war, from generals and diplomats to aid workers and Afghan officials.
The U.S. government tried to shield the identities of the vast majority of those interviewed for the project and conceal nearly all of their remarks. The Post won release of the documents under the Freedom of Information Act after a three-year legal battle.


The Afghanistan Papers
At war with the truth

Interviews and memos
Explore the documents

Key insiders speak bluntly about the failures of the longest conflict in U.S. history

Post Reports
‘We didn’t know what the task was’

Hear candid interviews with former ambassador Ryan Crocker and retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn

The fight for the documents
About the investigation

It took three years and two federal lawsuits for The Post to pry loose 2,000 pages of interview records

Part 1
At war with the truth

U.S. officials constantly said they were making progress. They were not, and they knew it.

Part 2
Stranded without a strategy

Bush and Obama had polar-opposite plans to win the war. Both were destined to fail.

Part 3
Built to fail

Despite vows the U.S. wouldn’t get mired in “nation-building,” it has wasted billions doing just that

Part 4
Consumed by corruption

The U.S. flooded the country with money — then turned a blind eye to the graft it fueled

Part 5
Unguarded nation

Afghan security forces, despite years of training, were dogged by incompetence and corruption

Part 6
Overwhelmed by opium

The U.S. war on drugs in Afghanistan has imploded at nearly every turn

More stories
Interviewees respond

In the interviews, more than 400 insiders offered unrestrained criticism of what went wrong in Afghanistan and how the United States became mired in nearly two decades of warfare.
With a bluntness rarely expressed in public, the interviews lay bare pent-up complaints, frustrations and confessions, along with second-guessing and backbiting.

Click any underlined text in the story to see the statement in the original document

“We were devoid of a fundamental understanding of Afghanistan — we didn’t know what we were doing,” Douglas Lute, a three-star Army general who served as the White House’s Afghan war czar during the Bush and Obama administrations, told government interviewers in 2015. He added: “What are we trying to do here? We didn’t have the foggiest notion of what we were undertaking.”
“If the American people knew the magnitude of this dysfunction . . . 2,400 lives lost,” Lute added, blaming the deaths of U.S. military personnel on bureaucratic breakdowns among Congress, the Pentagon and the State Department. “Who will say this was in vain?”
Since 2001, more than 775,000 U.S. troops have deployed to Afghanistan, many repeatedly. Of those, 2,300 died there and 20,589 were wounded in action, according to Defense Department figures.

BUT TRUMP SHOULD BE IMPEACHED FOR NOT LISTENING TO THE EXPERTS…: New Pentagon Papers? IG probe conclusions show Afghan war futility — and lies.

But the Inter-Agency Consensus Trump is supposed to bow and burn incense too!

these "experts" have been fighting a war against a rag tag army for 18 years and have not won and you want Trump to listen to them?

Nope! I want Trump to do what he knows is right.

I'm not a Trump fan---but.....I think he's doing exactly what he 'knows' is right. I think that in the Left's attempts to demonize the President they lose sight of the idea that Trump may well be trying his hardest...to bring his vision into focus. He's wrong, IMO, and not smart enough, and not principled enough..to get it done right.

But he's not Satan..or Hitler...just a guy who got by on his ability to smooze and a talent for selling himself. This job is too much for him.

The irony of who Trump is...and who his base are..never fails to stun me.

The trouble with your thesis is that a lot of people have a lot of good-paying jobs now. Also, the Welfare department has 700,000+ fewer people on welfare who now hold down a job that pays them better than the Welfare office did.

Our black population are now learning job skills that bring them decent money, and they are learning to budget like other first-timer workers did when they graduated from school. I wish all of them well.

Long live Donald Trump!

 

[sparky]

McNamara and Westmoreland must be spinning in their graves....~S~

 

[gipper]

Most of us have suspected for some time that we have been lied to...but this report is damning..and shows how Afghanistan became another Vietnam...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/grap...apers/afghanistan-war-confidential-documents/

A confidential trove of government documents obtained by The Washington Post reveals that senior U.S. officials failed to tell the truth about the war in Afghanistan throughout the 18-year campaign, making rosy pronouncements they knew to be false and hiding unmistakable evidence the war had become unwinnable.
The documents were generated by a federal project examining the root failures of the longest armed conflict in U.S. history. They include more than 2,000 pages of previously unpublished notes of interviews with people who played a direct role in the war, from generals and diplomats to aid workers and Afghan officials.
The U.S. government tried to shield the identities of the vast majority of those interviewed for the project and conceal nearly all of their remarks. The Post won release of the documents under the Freedom of Information Act after a three-year legal battle.


The Afghanistan Papers
At war with the truth

Interviews and memos
Explore the documents

Key insiders speak bluntly about the failures of the longest conflict in U.S. history

Post Reports
‘We didn’t know what the task was’

Hear candid interviews with former ambassador Ryan Crocker and retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn

The fight for the documents
About the investigation

It took three years and two federal lawsuits for The Post to pry loose 2,000 pages of interview records

Part 1
At war with the truth

U.S. officials constantly said they were making progress. They were not, and they knew it.

Part 2
Stranded without a strategy

Bush and Obama had polar-opposite plans to win the war. Both were destined to fail.

Part 3
Built to fail

Despite vows the U.S. wouldn’t get mired in “nation-building,” it has wasted billions doing just that

Part 4
Consumed by corruption

The U.S. flooded the country with money — then turned a blind eye to the graft it fueled

Part 5
Unguarded nation

Afghan security forces, despite years of training, were dogged by incompetence and corruption

Part 6
Overwhelmed by opium

The U.S. war on drugs in Afghanistan has imploded at nearly every turn

More stories
Interviewees respond

In the interviews, more than 400 insiders offered unrestrained criticism of what went wrong in Afghanistan and how the United States became mired in nearly two decades of warfare.
With a bluntness rarely expressed in public, the interviews lay bare pent-up complaints, frustrations and confessions, along with second-guessing and backbiting.

Click any underlined text in the story to see the statement in the original document

“We were devoid of a fundamental understanding of Afghanistan — we didn’t know what we were doing,” Douglas Lute, a three-star Army general who served as the White House’s Afghan war czar during the Bush and Obama administrations, told government interviewers in 2015. He added: “What are we trying to do here? We didn’t have the foggiest notion of what we were undertaking.”
“If the American people knew the magnitude of this dysfunction . . . 2,400 lives lost,” Lute added, blaming the deaths of U.S. military personnel on bureaucratic breakdowns among Congress, the Pentagon and the State Department. “Who will say this was in vain?”
Since 2001, more than 775,000 U.S. troops have deployed to Afghanistan, many repeatedly. Of those, 2,300 died there and 20,589 were wounded in action, according to Defense Department figures.

Is there ever a war our criminal government hasn’t lied about?

Lying is standard operating procedure.

 

[EvilEyeFleegle]

Most of us have suspected for some time that we have been lied to...but this report is damning..and shows how Afghanistan became another Vietnam...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/grap...apers/afghanistan-war-confidential-documents/

A confidential trove of government documents obtained by The Washington Post reveals that senior U.S. officials failed to tell the truth about the war in Afghanistan throughout the 18-year campaign, making rosy pronouncements they knew to be false and hiding unmistakable evidence the war had become unwinnable.
The documents were generated by a federal project examining the root failures of the longest armed conflict in U.S. history. They include more than 2,000 pages of previously unpublished notes of interviews with people who played a direct role in the war, from generals and diplomats to aid workers and Afghan officials.
The U.S. government tried to shield the identities of the vast majority of those interviewed for the project and conceal nearly all of their remarks. The Post won release of the documents under the Freedom of Information Act after a three-year legal battle.


The Afghanistan Papers
At war with the truth

Interviews and memos
Explore the documents

Key insiders speak bluntly about the failures of the longest conflict in U.S. history

Post Reports
‘We didn’t know what the task was’

Hear candid interviews with former ambassador Ryan Crocker and retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn

The fight for the documents
About the investigation

It took three years and two federal lawsuits for The Post to pry loose 2,000 pages of interview records

Part 1
At war with the truth

U.S. officials constantly said they were making progress. They were not, and they knew it.

Part 2
Stranded without a strategy

Bush and Obama had polar-opposite plans to win the war. Both were destined to fail.

Part 3
Built to fail

Despite vows the U.S. wouldn’t get mired in “nation-building,” it has wasted billions doing just that

Part 4
Consumed by corruption

The U.S. flooded the country with money — then turned a blind eye to the graft it fueled

Part 5
Unguarded nation

Afghan security forces, despite years of training, were dogged by incompetence and corruption

Part 6
Overwhelmed by opium

The U.S. war on drugs in Afghanistan has imploded at nearly every turn

More stories
Interviewees respond

In the interviews, more than 400 insiders offered unrestrained criticism of what went wrong in Afghanistan and how the United States became mired in nearly two decades of warfare.
With a bluntness rarely expressed in public, the interviews lay bare pent-up complaints, frustrations and confessions, along with second-guessing and backbiting.

Click any underlined text in the story to see the statement in the original document

“We were devoid of a fundamental understanding of Afghanistan — we didn’t know what we were doing,” Douglas Lute, a three-star Army general who served as the White House’s Afghan war czar during the Bush and Obama administrations, told government interviewers in 2015. He added: “What are we trying to do here? We didn’t have the foggiest notion of what we were undertaking.”
“If the American people knew the magnitude of this dysfunction . . . 2,400 lives lost,” Lute added, blaming the deaths of U.S. military personnel on bureaucratic breakdowns among Congress, the Pentagon and the State Department. “Who will say this was in vain?”
Since 2001, more than 775,000 U.S. troops have deployed to Afghanistan, many repeatedly. Of those, 2,300 died there and 20,589 were wounded in action, according to Defense Department figures.

Is there ever a war our criminal government hasn’t lied about?

Lying is standard operating procedure.

Same as it ever was:
Aeschylus > Quotes > Quotable Quote

“In war, truth is the first casualty.”

― Aeschylus

 

[Zorro!]

Most of us have suspected for some time that we have been lied to...but this report is damning..and shows how Afghanistan became another Vietnam...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/grap...apers/afghanistan-war-confidential-documents/

A confidential trove of government documents obtained by The Washington Post reveals that senior U.S. officials failed to tell the truth about the war in Afghanistan throughout the 18-year campaign, making rosy pronouncements they knew to be false and hiding unmistakable evidence the war had become unwinnable.
The documents were generated by a federal project examining the root failures of the longest armed conflict in U.S. history. They include more than 2,000 pages of previously unpublished notes of interviews with people who played a direct role in the war, from generals and diplomats to aid workers and Afghan officials.
The U.S. government tried to shield the identities of the vast majority of those interviewed for the project and conceal nearly all of their remarks. The Post won release of the documents under the Freedom of Information Act after a three-year legal battle.


The Afghanistan Papers
At war with the truth

Interviews and memos
Explore the documents

Key insiders speak bluntly about the failures of the longest conflict in U.S. history

Post Reports
‘We didn’t know what the task was’

Hear candid interviews with former ambassador Ryan Crocker and retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn

The fight for the documents
About the investigation

It took three years and two federal lawsuits for The Post to pry loose 2,000 pages of interview records

Part 1
At war with the truth

U.S. officials constantly said they were making progress. They were not, and they knew it.

Part 2
Stranded without a strategy

Bush and Obama had polar-opposite plans to win the war. Both were destined to fail.

Part 3
Built to fail

Despite vows the U.S. wouldn’t get mired in “nation-building,” it has wasted billions doing just that

Part 4
Consumed by corruption

The U.S. flooded the country with money — then turned a blind eye to the graft it fueled

Part 5
Unguarded nation

Afghan security forces, despite years of training, were dogged by incompetence and corruption

Part 6
Overwhelmed by opium

The U.S. war on drugs in Afghanistan has imploded at nearly every turn

More stories
Interviewees respond

In the interviews, more than 400 insiders offered unrestrained criticism of what went wrong in Afghanistan and how the United States became mired in nearly two decades of warfare.
With a bluntness rarely expressed in public, the interviews lay bare pent-up complaints, frustrations and confessions, along with second-guessing and backbiting.

Click any underlined text in the story to see the statement in the original document

“We were devoid of a fundamental understanding of Afghanistan — we didn’t know what we were doing,” Douglas Lute, a three-star Army general who served as the White House’s Afghan war czar during the Bush and Obama administrations, told government interviewers in 2015. He added: “What are we trying to do here? We didn’t have the foggiest notion of what we were undertaking.”
“If the American people knew the magnitude of this dysfunction . . . 2,400 lives lost,” Lute added, blaming the deaths of U.S. military personnel on bureaucratic breakdowns among Congress, the Pentagon and the State Department. “Who will say this was in vain?”
Since 2001, more than 775,000 U.S. troops have deployed to Afghanistan, many repeatedly. Of those, 2,300 died there and 20,589 were wounded in action, according to Defense Department figures.

Is there ever a war our criminal government hasn’t lied about?

Lying is standard operating procedure.

And that's the problem. Gulf War I was probably the most straightforward war in my experience. But, then with the rush of success, the same folks that got that right then immediately launched a "do gooder" intervention in Somalia that resulted in the loss of Minneapolis.

 

[MAGAman]

Another war the US should not have been involved in and enter through false pretenses. just another war for the Generals and the military industrial complex. Tell me again how Afghanistan was involved in 9/11?

1. 9/11 isn't the only reason to go to war, but it showed what happens if you should and don't.

2. Afghanistan supported terrorism. It funded them and gave them sanctuary. Imagine if your neighbor was allowing rapists to be trained in ways to rape your family. Would you support taking them down,?

That said, many mistakes were made.

W initially went in too light, and stayed too long. He should have dropped troop levels and met aggressions with a long distance Shit-Hammer.

Obama made a political surrender giving no consequence for terrorism and allowed ISIS to form a Caliphate from nothing.

Trump is doing much better.

Don't you agree?

 

[Zorro!]

Another war the US should not have been involved in and enter through false pretenses. just another war for the Generals and the military industrial complex. Tell me again how Afghanistan was involved in 9/11?

1. 9/11 isn't the only reason to go to war, but it showed what happens if you should and don't.

2. Afghanistan supported terrorism. It funded them and gave them sanctuary. Imagine if your neighbor was allowing rapists to be trained in ways to rape your family. Would you support taking them down,?

That said, many mistakes were made.

W initially went in too light, and stayed too long. He should have dropped troop levels and met aggressions with a long distance Shit-Hammer.

Obama made a political surrender giving no consequence for terrorism and allowed ISIS to form a Caliphate from nothing.

Trump is doing much better.

Don't you agree?

LBJ would not pull out of Vietnam because he didn't want the loss of South Vietnam to be on his ledger, so Americans continue to be maimed and killed to protect LBJ's legacy.

Trump is in a similar position, and we have yet to see how he will ultimately respond. Currently he is pretty much going along with the inertia from our past two Presidents, Dumb and Dumber.

But, if he pulls out, the Taliban will reconstitute their terrorist state and Trump will be blamed for it. But if he continues, he has to keep notifying families of the losses of their Sons and Daughters. It's a big tough job and he asked for it, worked for it, is working to keep it, so these terribly tough decisions come with the package.

 

[task0778]

It is my opinion that the US should pull out of Afghanistan in a way that offers the best protection to our troops until they're all gone. We don't need any agreement with the Taliban, which they won't honor anyway. But we do need to ensure they are well aware that we will be watching, and should we discover any terrorist camps in that country there will be consequences. As in, those camps will be totally obliterated wherever and whenever we find them, and then we'll be coming after you. Not with troops this time, but with bombs, missiles, and drones. And we will send your sorry asses to Allah.

 

[Zorro!]

It is my opinion that the US should pull out of Afghanistan in a way that offers the best protection to our troops until they're all gone. We don't need any agreement with the Taliban, which they won't honor anyway. But we do need to ensure they are well aware that we will be watching, and should we discover any terrorist camps in that country there will be consequences. As in, those camps will be totally obliterated wherever and whenever we find them, and then we'll be coming after you. Not with troops this time, but with bombs, missiles, and drones. And we will send your sorry asses to Allah.

I like it, logistically it's difficult, though it would be much more manageable with a cooperative agreement with Russia.

 

[Desperado]

Another war the US should not have been involved in and enter through false pretenses. just another war for the Generals and the military industrial complex. Tell me again how Afghanistan was involved in 9/11?

1. 9/11 isn't the only reason to go to war, but it showed what happens if you should and don't.

2. Afghanistan supported terrorism. It funded them and gave them sanctuary. Imagine if your neighbor was allowing rapists to be trained in ways to rape your family. Would you support taking them down,?

That said, many mistakes were made.

W initially went in too light, and stayed too long. He should have dropped troop levels and met aggressions with a long distance Shit-Hammer.

Obama made a political surrender giving no consequence for terrorism and allowed ISIS to form a Caliphate from nothing.

Trump is doing much better.

Don't you agree?

LBJ would not pull out of Vietnam because he didn't want the loss of South Vietnam to be on his ledger, so Americans continue to be maimed and killed to protect LBJ's legacy.

Trump is in a similar position, and we have yet to see how he will ultimately respond. Currently he is pretty much going along with the inertia from our past two Presidents, Dumb and Dumber.

But, if he pulls out, the Taliban will reconstitute their terrorist state and Trump will be blamed for it. But if he continues, he has to keep notifying families of the losses of their Sons and Daughters. It's a big tough job and he asked for it, worked for it, is working to keep it, so these terribly tough decisions come with the package.

1. Obama was on their side
2. W just screwed the pooch
3. Trump campaigned on getting out and wanted to but was talked out of it by his advisers.

I would rather have to take the heat if the Taliban reconstituted rather than having more of out military killed or wounded for that worthless part of the globe.

 

[Zorro!]

Another war the US should not have been involved in and enter through false pretenses. just another war for the Generals and the military industrial complex. Tell me again how Afghanistan was involved in 9/11?

1. 9/11 isn't the only reason to go to war, but it showed what happens if you should and don't.

2. Afghanistan supported terrorism. It funded them and gave them sanctuary. Imagine if your neighbor was allowing rapists to be trained in ways to rape your family. Would you support taking them down,?

That said, many mistakes were made.

W initially went in too light, and stayed too long. He should have dropped troop levels and met aggressions with a long distance Shit-Hammer.

Obama made a political surrender giving no consequence for terrorism and allowed ISIS to form a Caliphate from nothing.

Trump is doing much better.

Don't you agree?

LBJ would not pull out of Vietnam because he didn't want the loss of South Vietnam to be on his ledger, so Americans continue to be maimed and killed to protect LBJ's legacy.

Trump is in a similar position, and we have yet to see how he will ultimately respond. Currently he is pretty much going along with the inertia from our past two Presidents, Dumb and Dumber.

But, if he pulls out, the Taliban will reconstitute their terrorist state and Trump will be blamed for it. But if he continues, he has to keep notifying families of the losses of their Sons and Daughters. It's a big tough job and he asked for it, worked for it, is working to keep it, so these terribly tough decisions come with the package.

1. Obama was on their side
2. W just screwed the pooch
3. Trump campaigned on getting out and wanted to but was talked out of it by his advisers.

I would rather have to take the heat if the Taliban reconstituted rather than having more of out military killed or wounded for that worthless part of the globe.

I think that sums it up.

 

[longknife]

I saw a piece about this on Tucker Carlson so this doesn’t surprise me.



The Washington Post has obtained confidential documents showing that top U.S. military officials have repeatedly lied to the American public about the war in Afghanistan, despite many having clear knowledge the effort is unwinnable.

Here are just 2 of the comments in the article:

The interviews show that U.S. military officials had no confidence in Afghan troops and police. One unnamed military official estimated that one-third of police recruits were "drug addicts or Taliban." Meanwhile, the United States wasted $133 billion in aid to Afghanistan and counter-narcotics efforts have been a total failure.

"Our biggest single project, sadly and inadvertently, of course, may have been the development of mass corruption," said Ryan Crocker, who served as ambassador to Afghanistan in 2002 and then again from 2011 to 2012. "Once it gets to the level I saw, when I was out there, it's somewhere between unbelievably hard and outright impossible to fix it."

The guy on Carlson reminded him how President Trump was all for pulling our troops out of Afghanistan. But, when he presented it to his staff, every single general and senior advisor told him things were going fine and pulling out would be a huge mistake.

The same military leaders who got us screwed in Iraq and Syria.

I sure hope the president is playing close attention to this.

Full story @ Secret documents show US officials lied for decades about victory in Afghanistan as troops continued to die

Everyone Knew We Were Losing in Afghanistan @ Everyone Knew We Were Losing in Afghanistan

And everyone in charge insisted we were winning.

 

[Zorro!]

I saw a piece about this on Tucker Carlson so this doesn’t surprise me.



The Washington Post has obtained confidential documents showing that top U.S. military officials have repeatedly lied to the American public about the war in Afghanistan, despite many having clear knowledge the effort is unwinnable.

Here are just 2 of the comments in the article:

The interviews show that U.S. military officials had no confidence in Afghan troops and police. One unnamed military official estimated that one-third of police recruits were "drug addicts or Taliban." Meanwhile, the United States wasted $133 billion in aid to Afghanistan and counter-narcotics efforts have been a total failure.

"Our biggest single project, sadly and inadvertently, of course, may have been the development of mass corruption," said Ryan Crocker, who served as ambassador to Afghanistan in 2002 and then again from 2011 to 2012. "Once it gets to the level I saw, when I was out there, it's somewhere between unbelievably hard and outright impossible to fix it."

The guy on Carlson reminded him how President Trump was all for pulling our troops out of Afghanistan. But, when he presented it to his staff, every single general and senior advisor told him things were going fine and pulling out would be a huge mistake.

The same military leaders who got us screwed in Iraq and Syria.

I sure hope the president is playing close attention to this.

Full story @ Secret documents show US officials lied for decades about victory in Afghanistan as troops continued to die

Everyone Knew We Were Losing in Afghanistan @ Everyone Knew We Were Losing in Afghanistan

And everyone in charge insisted we were winning.

We can't trust The Deep State. They have their own agenda and they think they are smarter than everyone else. They blew Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria yet we are all supposed to defer to their views.

 

[Circe]

It is my opinion that the US should pull out of Afghanistan in a way that offers the best protection to our troops until they're all gone. We don't need any agreement with the Taliban, which they won't honor anyway. But we do need to ensure they are well aware that we will be watching, and should we discover any terrorist camps in that country there will be consequences. As in, those camps will be totally obliterated wherever and whenever we find them, and then we'll be coming after you. Not with troops this time, but with bombs, missiles, and drones. And we will send your sorry asses to Allah.

What he said.

I suppose the military brass support for this endless losing war is yet another case of "It's a lousy war, but it's the only war we've got." I suppose it IS job security for the officers, but whoever saw a dead general? This is the fault of Bush, Jr. We had stayed out of wars for 30 years after Vietnam -- I thought we'd learned our lesson. Nope: Bush hadn't, and he became prez. Completely out of Afghanistan, not an American left, that's what I want.

 

[Crepitus]

Impossible. All government officials always tell us the absolute, 100% truth!

You have heard of dOnald tRump, haven't you?

 

[longknife]

If the president has one major fault it appears to be his belief in what the generals are telling him.

 

[Zorro!]

Most of us have suspected for some time that we have been lied to...but this report is damning..and shows how Afghanistan became another Vietnam...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/grap...apers/afghanistan-war-confidential-documents/

A confidential trove of government documents obtained by The Washington Post reveals that senior U.S. officials failed to tell the truth about the war in Afghanistan throughout the 18-year campaign, making rosy pronouncements they knew to be false and hiding unmistakable evidence the war had become unwinnable.
The documents were generated by a federal project examining the root failures of the longest armed conflict in U.S. history. They include more than 2,000 pages of previously unpublished notes of interviews with people who played a direct role in the war, from generals and diplomats to aid workers and Afghan officials.
The U.S. government tried to shield the identities of the vast majority of those interviewed for the project and conceal nearly all of their remarks. The Post won release of the documents under the Freedom of Information Act after a three-year legal battle.


The Afghanistan Papers
At war with the truth

Interviews and memos
Explore the documents

Key insiders speak bluntly about the failures of the longest conflict in U.S. history

Post Reports
‘We didn’t know what the task was’

Hear candid interviews with former ambassador Ryan Crocker and retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn

The fight for the documents
About the investigation

It took three years and two federal lawsuits for The Post to pry loose 2,000 pages of interview records

Part 1
At war with the truth

U.S. officials constantly said they were making progress. They were not, and they knew it.

Part 2
Stranded without a strategy

Bush and Obama had polar-opposite plans to win the war. Both were destined to fail.

Part 3
Built to fail

Despite vows the U.S. wouldn’t get mired in “nation-building,” it has wasted billions doing just that

Part 4
Consumed by corruption

The U.S. flooded the country with money — then turned a blind eye to the graft it fueled

Part 5
Unguarded nation

Afghan security forces, despite years of training, were dogged by incompetence and corruption

Part 6
Overwhelmed by opium

The U.S. war on drugs in Afghanistan has imploded at nearly every turn

More stories
Interviewees respond

In the interviews, more than 400 insiders offered unrestrained criticism of what went wrong in Afghanistan and how the United States became mired in nearly two decades of warfare.
With a bluntness rarely expressed in public, the interviews lay bare pent-up complaints, frustrations and confessions, along with second-guessing and backbiting.

Click any underlined text in the story to see the statement in the original document

“We were devoid of a fundamental understanding of Afghanistan — we didn’t know what we were doing,” Douglas Lute, a three-star Army general who served as the White House’s Afghan war czar during the Bush and Obama administrations, told government interviewers in 2015. He added: “What are we trying to do here? We didn’t have the foggiest notion of what we were undertaking.”
“If the American people knew the magnitude of this dysfunction . . . 2,400 lives lost,” Lute added, blaming the deaths of U.S. military personnel on bureaucratic breakdowns among Congress, the Pentagon and the State Department. “Who will say this was in vain?”
Since 2001, more than 775,000 U.S. troops have deployed to Afghanistan, many repeatedly. Of those, 2,300 died there and 20,589 were wounded in action, according to Defense Department figures.

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