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

[WestVirginiaRebel]

MSN

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 They include more than 2,000 pages of previously unpublished notes of interviews with people who played a direct role in the war, from generals and diplomats to aid workers and Afghan officials.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.

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The cost of endless war?

[Valin]

Analysis: How the US arrived at this critical crossroads in Afghanistan

Bill Roggio

December 9, 2019

Decades of deceit and mistakes have led us to the brink of a major foreign policy failure. The Trump administration is reportedly on the cusp of cutting a shameful deal with the Taliban that will provide the US military cover to withdrawal from Afghanistan. In order to help sell that deal, the US will disregard and obfuscate the Taliban’s generations-long, steadfast alliance with al Qaeda.

“U.S. officials constantly said they were making progress,” The Washington Post reported today. “They were not, and they knew it.”

The Post report will not be shocking to longtime readers of FDD’s Long War Journal. Over the past decade, we have documented the lies and deceptions from presidents, senior officials and high-ranking military officers.

The Post’s analysis is based on more than 2,000 interviews compiled by the Special Investigator General for Afghanistan Reconstruction. Ironically, some of those interviewed who are critical of US efforts in Afghanistan are the very same officials whose failed policies and ideas somehow remain promoted to this day.

In our estimation, the greatest problem the US has faced in nearly two decades of war in Afghanistan is the inability to define the enemy. The Post touched on that problem when it asked the question: “Was al-Qaeda the enemy, or the Taliban?”

The US government failed to settle on an answer to that question.

(Snip)

[Valin]

 

The Comments are as always soooo * enlightening.

* Enlightening being emotion based ignorant and testosterone laced.