While on a trip to Afghanistan, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and top US military officials have been issuing misleading statements on the progress of the war, “paint[ing] a rosy picture of the Afghan situation,” reports the Washington Post.
Marine Maj. Gen. Lawrence D. Nicholson, the head of operations for the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan, claimed Afghan troops have begun to operate independently.
“We’re now un-partnering from” Afghan forces, Nicholson said Wednesday. “We’re at that stage of the fight.”
But this really isn’t the case. All along, officials have quietly admitted that Afghan security forces are weak and untrained, and would probably fall apart (along with the state) without the NATO occupation.
“Without a US military presence, the Afghan government would be in deep trouble,” Seth Jones, an analyst at RAND Corp., told USA Today. “A U.S. presence is probably necessary to survive.”
“Nicholson said that although US commanders have made ‘disingenuous’ claims in the past about the extent to which Afghans were acting as equal partners in joint missions, officials now see the Afghan army as ready to operate largely on its own,” the Post reported.
A Pentagon report to Congress on Monday “found that violence in Afghanistan is higher than it was before the surge of American forces into the country two years ago,” according to The New York Times.
Painting falsely encouraging pictures of the Afghan war is a favorite past time of top administration officials and military’s top brass.
The blockbuster reporting of Michael Hastings in Rolling Stone last year revealed that “the US Army illegally ordered a team of soldiers specializing in ‘psychological operations’ to manipulate visiting American senators into providing more troops and funding for the war.”
Lieutenant Colonel Daniel L. Davis, who bravely came out publicly last year to denounce the US military leadership as a bunch of propagandists, said that “Our current military leadership is so distorting the information it releases that the deterioration of the situation and the failing nature of our efforts is shielded from the American public (and Congress), and replaced instead with explicit statements that all is going according to plan.”
Davis added his deployments to Afghanistan revealed to him a reality that “bore no resemblance to rosy official statements by U.S. military leaders about conditions on the ground.”
The U.S. has banned truth and reality and has moved into fairy tale land where it feels quite comfortable.
It is currently telling the world that its economy is back on track, that unemployment figures are falling, that poverty and homelessness is almost beaten, that Iraq was a success, that Afghanistan will be an even bigger success than Vietnam was, that Americans are exceptional, that the U.S. was born to fool, that God hangs the Stars and Stripes outside the gates of heaven, that American males are born heroes without exception, etc.
Help. The world is being flooded with bullsh*t!
Any change short of reinforcement and addiyional deployment will be detrimental. The forces deployed so far have been unable to accomplish two simple missions – eliminate a small Taliban insurgency and establish governance and the rule of law in the major centres. Adding more troops might do it, removing them means retrogression.
That is the choice, the rest is lit class.
Of course, this begs the question of 'why are they there?'
We are spending American blood, American lives and American tax-payer money we can't afford. And for what exactly. What is the benefit to the American tax-payer from continuing this unwinnable farce.
And the fools think the answer is more troops? Really? For what purpose. And what actual proof can they offer that this might work. Two surges, and tripling the number of troops has only made things worse. The evidence indicates that more troops, and spending more money we can't afford, won't help us reach the goals that no one can define in the first place.
At this point, the question is, are we willing to cut Americans off food support, are we willing to cut unemployment benefits, are we willing to cut retirement, are we willing to cut medical care, are we willing to raise taxes to keep fighting a useless war on the other side of the world.
2 things… this generation of military leaders have been brought up to believe that they cannot fail – because of their superior training and because, well, they're the best America has to offer…pure hubris.
And this generation of politician has been co-opted by the crazies who are afraid to denigrate the military (thus they're all defacto heroes) and to degrade and castigate those who might speak truth regarding the military's shortcomings. They're also been corrupted by the corporatists who believe that the billions of dollars they profit by selling the military the tools to wage war – materiel and manpower (contractors) – justifies the purchase of politicians in order to keep the treadmill running. The MIC make sure the pols don't hear the truth about the failings of the military and when the pols do get wind they're bombarded with messages from the MIC reminding them they are powned and the gravy train could end at the next election.
Together, a perfect storm has been concocted for a perpetual war – regardless of the cost to the American psyche, treasury, and eventually the American brand. The ONLY way this cycle can possibly be broken and the realities set right is for the US to suffer a failure so massive the truth could no longer be ignored. Now, I'm not advocating anything of the sort…just stating that absent the reality check of getting beat, the game continues unabated.
There's light at the end of the tunnel. We've been hearing that since what, 1966?
Firing Stanley McChrystal, just to save his face, was a serious mistake on part of Obama. McChrystal was the only true general the West had in their war.
He understood the war and knew it was unwinnable (insurgent-math), so he took the course of action that wouldn't end the war looking like an outright defeat. Fortunately for the Islamist, McChrystal got canned.
wait until they sober up
The Taliban bat last in this game. Unless of course America stays forever, is that the plan?