Another Lost War: Defeated in Afghanistan
http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/brian-cloughley/46700/another-lost-war-defeated-in-afghanistanAnother Lost War: Defeated in Afghanistan
by Brian Cloughley | November 22, 2012 - 10:35am
A week after the spokesman for foreign forces in Afghanistan made his ridiculous pronouncement about peace and stability four rockets were fired into Kabul city, home to one of the world’s most corrupt governments. Mercifully, only one person was killed, and there wasn’t much damage, but the militants had made the point that they can continue attacks whenever and wherever they want. The amazing hi-tech gadgets of all the foreign forces can do a bit to reduce the number and effectiveness of attacks all over the country, but the fact that a few thousand raggy baggy Taliban (or call the insurgents what you will) can even begin to take on such a massive war machine is astonishing. So far this month they have killed twelve US and British soldiers, who — all of them — have died for nothing. And the politicians and generals continue to feed us upbeat garbage about their lost war.
Almost everyone has forgotten the Davis Report of January this year in which one of the few honorable professional military commentators on the Afghanistan shambles made it clear that “Senior ranking US military leaders have so distorted the truth when communicating with the US Congress and American people in regards to conditions on the ground in Afghanistan that the truth has become unrecognizable. This deception has damaged America’s credibility among both our allies and enemies, severely limiting our ability to reach a political solution to the war in Afghanistan.”
The writer of this well-researched exposure of inefficiency was Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Davis, who is decidedly not of the West Point upper crust like Petraeus and his embedded Broadwell. Predictably, his analysis was smothered in a hazy maze of media-savvy pronouncements by military mouthpieces. And journalists whom you would think might support the cause and carry on his fight to influence government and public opinion seemed to wither away after the first (unavoidable) necessity to report his revelations. The Pentagon and the army were clever in avoiding direct criticism of Davis because this would have resulted in public exposure of inefficiency and misrepresentation on the part of many senior military officers. The Pentagon has learned a lot about manipulating the media, but it’s a pity it hasn’t devoted comparable energy to examining the terrible leadership blunders in Iraq and Afghanistan. And for the current situation there are few people more to blame than the bright shining liar Petraeus.
In March last year Petraeus testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee that the Taliban’s momentum “has been arrested in much of the country and reversed in a number of important areas”. He claimed that progress was “significant,” though “fragile,” but “on the right azimuth to accomplish the objective” of having Afghan troops take over from western forces by the end of 2014.
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vietnam ever be remembered by our PTB? A people fighting for it's own land is never defeated. Subjugated? Yes, by all means. But defeated? No. We need to start spending these 'war' trillions on infrastructure, hospitals, equipment for "inner city", "urban", "poor appalachian and other depressed areas" schools, feeding the poor, providing medical care. All code words for getting shafted by two wars that cost trillions. Come on, wake up. I served in a war lost by politicians. The Viet Cong took on the massive military might of Amerikkka who along with their Thai and Korean surrogates still came home with our tail between our legs. Karzi is a joke no better than those installed puppets in viet nam were. He will fall as soon as/if our forces are drawn down. Double speak by Petraeus about "taliban momentum" and amerikkkan "progress". Westmoreland sounded the same note of optimism.
Trillions wasted. Yes, I am crying over spilled milk.
