Those Who Ran the Afghanistan War Lied. They Must Be Held to Account.
Those Who Ran the Afghanistan War Lied. They Must Be Held to Account.
Activists often pledge to ‘speak truth to power.’ The sad reality is that power often knows the truth.
They lied. They lied repeatedly, year after year, about America’s longest war—the Afghanistan fiasco now in its 19th year. They—presidents, department heads, generals, civilians and uniformed military up and down the line—misled the American people, reporting “progress” in a misguided war that they knew was not being won. “At war with the truth” is the stark and inescapable conclusion of the Afghanistan Papers, dubbed this generation’s Pentagon Papers, a trove of documents brought to light by the extraordinary efforts of the Post. The reality, as retired Army Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute, the former White House czar for Afghanistan during the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations, admitted, “We didn’t have the foggiest notion of what we were undertaking.”
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Link: Those Who Ran the Afghanistan War Lied. They Must Be Held to Account.
Replies to: Those Who Ran the Afghanistan War Lied. They Must Be Held to Account.
No cartoon to go with your post this time?
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The W/Vice neocons must not have heard of the Khyber Pass. All they had to do was ask the Brits...
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What is your point? (Honest question. Not trying to argue.)
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From conception the 'war' was not winnable. In possibly his dumbest move, Obama bought in and made
things worse.
The original war against those who knocked down the towers was very winnable and was won.
The nation building war with corrupt warlords was lost from the start.
I don't think we had any choice but to go into Afghanistan. What would you have done instead?
Also, I think we did win the action in Afghanistan. Al qaeda was substantially defeated.
Granted, the Taliban is still a factor. But that goes to my point, that the war will go on for decades.
Al Qaeda was largely defeated shortly after the initial invasion. Turning a conflict into an
enduring 'war' has had no winners.
Yeah. Not a bad point. Whether we occupy or withdraw & rest after a victory is a judgement call.
And, after all, if they are fighting us there instead of here, the occupation is an unmitigated success. I can't sit here and say those soldiers aren't benefiting us right now.
There was no "Afghanistan War." Anyone who believes that does not understand our enemy.
There was only a battle in Afghanistan, and we won it. Or, call it a theater conflict. But is the War Against Terror over? Of course not. There is a reason this was called "The Long War" in the Pentagon before the marketers & politicians spoke up. If there was any lying, it was in telling the people that we could win in anything less than 100 years.
While the war continues, we can (1) stay and occupy certain areas, or (2) come home, rest and retrain...without deluding ourselves that we won't have to go back some day. That is a judgement call. We continue to pick and choose our battles. For example, we ceded Libya to the enemy for the time being, and we even gave up on Egypt for a while. Whether those were the right moves...only time will tell.
We cannot win the war by taking territory, or by defeating a standing army, and then declare victory and go home. The only way to defeat this enemy totally is to kill all of them, or convert all of them to a lesser violent religion, or a combination of the two. Until that happens, the war will continue indefinitely.
Granted, I'm not talking to Corky, since he doesn't read replies by anyone here. But, it would be nice to hear what he thinks people need to be held accountable for. The military fought the battle and won. If they are losing the occupation by failing to convert the hearts and minds of the conquored, then that is a political problem that D.C. needs to figure out.
Agree we are fighting an ideology not a war. It’s ideology so staying forever is not sound policy
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There isn’t a war the Pentagon doesn’t want. That’s why there is serious pushback getting out
of Syria and Afghanistan. Except it’s different now the neocons in the Republican Party and liberals in the Democrat party as well as the MSM all support these wars together now. One reason.
TRUMP wants out so it must be attacked as wrongheaded.
That is simply false, and ignorant.
The uniformed military is the most dovish actor in our foreign policy process. They oppose the use of force pretty much every time it is debated.
They also will want to stay until the war is won, once engaged. It is the role of the political leaders to make the call to tend wars when they no longer make sense, because the generals never will.
This is the fault of Bush, Obama and Trump. Mostly Obama, in my view.
So is that why retired generals appear on TV to criticize Trump from wanting to leave?
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Yes. Read the post. They want to win above all.
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After 18 years there is no winning team in Afghanistan. If they don’t know that they should go
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All this because Hillary lost,Lol.... family must be happy around you
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