16+ years into the US invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, the war is going badly. That’s hardly news, the US has been losing the Afghan War for quite some time now, and every new release of data shows the situation getting worse and worse.
Beyond doubling down on the failing strategy, which isn’t working, the Trump Administration seems to have made a high priority of offering less and less public information on the war, nominally to keep the “enemy” from knowing US plans, but in practice also keeping American voters from knowing just how bad it is going.
On Tuesday, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction revealed he was struggling to get permission to even release unclassified data in his report to Congress. Data that was later released by the Pentagon, along with BBC estimates, however, show an ever-worsening situation.
Pentagon data claims at most 60% of the Afghan population is under government control, the lowest percent in the war, while the BBC study says the Taliban is contesting around 70% of the country.
President Trump’s administration is continuing Previous American administrations’ policy of spreading anti American facts, lying, hiding The Truth from American Citizens and blaming All American administrations’ Failures / Defeats on Pakistan & making India happy at the cost of American Soldiers’ along with Coalition Forces’ lives.
You’re 100% correct, Humayun Sheik; Pres. Trump’s administration’s definitely continuing previous US administrations’ policy of spreading anti-American facts, lying, hiding the Truth from US citizens and blaming all US administrations’ failures/defeats on Pakistan and making India happy at the cost of US soldiers’ along with coalition forces’ lives.
In addition, these US administrations, as well as the Pentagon, never bothered to learn from Afghan history. There’s a phrase that describes America’s Afghan policy; it goes like this: ” Insanity is performing the same actions over and over and over again and expecting different results”. This is what the current US administration’s doing, and it’s totally insane.
Is it possible that on hearing “the Taliban is contesting … 70% of the country” most Americans would really think the pre-occupation government of Afghanistan (and/or whatever association with ‘Al Qaeda’ US PR added to the word) is just that energetic and long-lived?
The most plausible definition I’ve heard for ‘Taliban’ was ~”Pashtun nationalist movement…main motive for fighting is resistance to occupation.”
So it’s relevant how we use the word, too. Among others, a reason for dishonesty about the war isn’t just how it’s going, it’s that who’s fighting the US includes perhaps much of the largest ethnicity in Afghanistan. And that could suggest we’re not the rescuers we’d like to imagine, just invaders.
“…just invaders.”
Which, of course, is all we’ve ever been.
In 2001 the strapped Taliban needed funding. Bin Laden became their paymaster in return for training territory. It was mostly an alliance of convenience only. Just as our military is, Bin Laden was a foreigner. Tolerated but not liked.
Awww Man, that Sucks!!!