The Afghanistan Papers - TTG

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 They include more than 2,000 pages of previously unpublished notes of interviews with people who played a direct role in the war, from generals and diplomats to aid workers and Afghan officials.”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

“In the interviews, more than 400 insiders offered unrestrained criticism of what went wrong in Afghanistan and how the United States became mired in nearly two decades of warfare. With a bluntness rarely expressed in public, the interviews lay bare pent-up complaints, frustrations and confessions, along with second-guessing and backbiting.” (WaPo)

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Thus begins “The Afghanistan Papers: A secret history of the war,” a six part investigation put together by a team led by Craig Whitlock. Access to the first two parts and all the interview documents is available at the Washington Post without a paywall or article limitation. It took the Post three years and two lawsuits to get their hands on the interviews and records of the Congressional created Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR). I found the scope of the deception and incompetence to be eye opening. Not unbelievable, just eye opening in its scope. Unfortunately, there was not a lot of coverage of this story outside of the WaPo series. It was lost in the waves of impeachment coverage.

I found the interview of Michael Flynn to be typical of the candid exasperation of those interviewed. By 2006 Flynn realized the war was useless. He said only a handful of US military and policy people could speak Dari or Pashto after years of war and that rosy assessments from operational commanders and policy people based on numbers and stats were produced at all levels. 

He’s right, except not everyone thought the war was useless by 2006. I was the Chief of our Afghan Task Force for a six month period that year. The detachment chiefs in country were still pretty optimistic, lured by the siren song of counterrorism. Of course we were expanding our presence back then. Maybe we did turn one of the never ending series of corners. But in a year or two, we would begin pulling back towards Bagram. After several years at war, we were still totally reliant on interpreters in both Afghanistan and Iraq. That’s shameful. There was a time when failure to operate in the host country and/or target country language would mean a quick trip back to become a lowly CONUS case officer. Assessments based on numbers and stats… welcome to PowerPoint nation. The Six Sigma mindset was rampant among our “management.” That gimmicky mindset is applicable to manufacturing widgets, not creating intelligence and foreign policy or fighting a war. No wonder we never had a clue in Afghanistan.

WHY WE PERSIST

The origin of the war was vengeance, pure and simple. Without the quick capture or killing of bin Laden, our vengeance was never fully satisfied. The eventual killing of bin Laden after waiting so many years didn’t satisfy our vengeance. It was too late. Our vengeance shriveled into boredom and indifference.

Since the generals and politicians couldn’t officially acknowledge that we went into Afghanistan seeking revenge, they offered a succession of reasons for being there from “fighting them there so we don’t have to fight them here” to fighting a full blown counterinsurgency and building a new Afghanistan and finally to bringing opportunity to young Afghan women. All these things we did in a half assed manner. We were never asked to pay the full price and make the WWII-like sacrifice to meet any of these goals so our boredom and indifference flourished.

THE FUTURE

Candidate Trump indicated very early on that he intended to withdraw from Afghanistan. Unfortunately, he soon succumbed to his advisors and generals advice of increasing troop strength in 2017 as part of a surge strategy. This makes him no better or worse than his two predecessors who succumbed to the same kind of advice.

However Trump has recently restarted negotiations with the Taliban and has renewed his pledged to remove several thousand troops. "We're going down to 8,600 [from the 12,000 and 13,000 US troops now there] and then we make a determination from there as to what happens," Trump told Fox last August. "We're bringing it down." Of course the drawdown will be seen by the neocons as a unilateral concession to the Taliban. That shouldn’t phase Trump. I think he plans to reannounce this withdrawal next month. DoD officials have said that the smaller US military presence will be largely focused on counterterrorism operations against groups like al Qaeda and IS, and that the military's ability to train and advise local Afghan forces will be reduced considerably. Sounds like they’re still looking for a reason to stay.

Trump can break the cycle. He holds no ideological conviction for staying in Afghanistan. If he could get over his BDS (Bezos derangement syndrome), he could seize this Washington Post series, or at least the SIGAR lessons learned reports, and trumpet them through his twitter feed and helicopter talks. I believe he alone can generate a public cry for getting the hell out of Afghanistan and carry through with that action no matter how much his generals scream about it. But without a loud public outcry, especially from his base, Trump has no incentive to break the cycle. So all you deplorables better start hootin’ and hollerin’. Hopefully enough SJWs will join you to pump up the volume.

TTG

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/investigations/afghanistan-papers/afghanistan-war-confidential-documents/

Comments

[The Twisted Genius]

Vig, I was the CONUS based chief of all DIA HUMINT collection activities in Afghanistan. I had a team of desk officers and reports officers to conduct interagency coordination. As with all our in country positions, it was a temporary rotational assignment.

[oldman22]

I would like to see some documentation for your statement.
It is contrary to what I heard from survivors (including my father who was Navy officer on site)and from written accounts.
Furthermore, I am/was a sailor/navigator with some experience in the South Pacific, on my own sailboat, and I have never heard of any such phenomenon as you describe. Tides and gravity are pretty well understood. So I don't believe the story about Moses and the parting of the seas, and I cannot believe your story without some documentation.
Nothing personal, no intention to insult anyone, simple disagreement.

[oldman22]

Wikipedia says:
A New Zealand liaison officer, Major Frank Holland, had 15 years experience of Tarawa and warned that there would be at most 3 feet depth due to the tides. Shoup warned his troops that there would be a 50-50 chance that they would need to wade ashore, but unfortunately the attack was not delayed until more favorable spring tides.[17][18]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Tarawa

[oldman22]

The USA assault on Tarawa began at 6 AM on 20 November 1943.

Previous full moon was Nov 13, and new moon was Nov 27.
So Nov 20 fell exactly on the "half moon" day, which is when neap tides occur. Neap tides occur because the force of gravity from the Moon and the Sun negate each other as they are at 90 degrees.
High tides are lowest and low tides are highest during a neap tide.
During neap tide on November 20, the tide at Tarawa
would be low at 1.5 feet at 4:33 am, high 4.7 feet at 12:31 PM, then low at 2.2 ft at 4:53 PM, and high at 5 feet at 11:21 PM.
During spring tide at full moon in November, the tide at Tarawa would be low at 5.9 feet at 5:09 AM, high at 12.04 feet at 10:40 AM, then low again at 6.6 Feet at 5:23 PM, and high again at 12.04 feet at 11:41 PM.

So I hope you can see how Higgins boats with a draft of 4 feet got stuck on the reef all day in the USA assault of Tarawa.

https://www.calendar-12.com/moon_calendar/1943/november

https://www.tide-forecast.com/locations/Tarawa-Gilbert-Islands/tides/latest

[oldman22]

You say:
"There were no nautical charts of Tarawa "
Here is a 1920 Admiralty chart of Tarawa, was for sale on Amazon. Includes a detail of the lagoon entrance.

https://www.amazon.com/Lagoon-Islands-Kiribati-Admiralty-nautical/dp/B079XWHQB3

[Eric Newhill]

oldman22,
Yes. A neap tide. The assault force didn't begin the final approach the beach - and the reef - until 0900. They had embarked landing craft and amphibious tractors earlier - 0600 - but didn't head into the beach until later because the beach was being hit by naval guns and CAS. The neap tide was unusual in that lasted longer and impacted water levels more than normal. Also, as a Plan B the amtracks were supposed to bring the troops over the reef if the boats got stuck. The amtracs got shot up and wouldn't float any more and others ran out of gas from all of the pre-landing circling and multiple trips. The lagoon had to be the landing site because all other possibilities were mined. A lot of lessons were learned from the disaster.

[vig]

Yes, "CONUS based", was the bit about which I wondered. Thanks, TTG.

__________

2006 was the year of Condoleeza Rice's "Birth Pangs of the New Middle East" . Remember? Three, four years after her mushroom clouds? Mind you I wouldn't have remembered either. But yesterday, forget with what search routine, I stumbled across a blog linking to a book she published with Philip Zelikow in 2019 without discussing its contents:

"To Build a Better World: Choices to End the Cold War and Create a Global Commonwealth"

Triggered all type of bad memories concerning war drums, or the to me most irritating reasons given. They align with the reasons you listed. But the most irritating for me surfaced in let's say some type of supportive argument? 1938 again?

__________

Revenge sounds good. But the problem is that the Taliban didn't attack NY and Washington. No matter how distasteful they may have been for us "Western Observers".

Joint Publication 1, Doctrine for the Armed Forces of the United States, July 12, 2017:

via: https://www.files.ethz.ch/isn/28877/06_06_Sep_2.pdf

Addressing Symptoms Not Root Causes?

Might the destruction of Hizbullah defang Iran and so lessen sectarian violence in Iraq and provide a “new Middle East” context for the stabilization of Iraq? Will thecorner at last be turned? It appears that in US eyes a “sustainable ceasefire” occurs when Hizbullah are militarily incapable of attacking Israel, their leadership decapitated, and their political wing disbanded or co-opted into mainstreamLebanese politics. Ultimately, logic suggests that for this to occur either theLebanese government and military are able to take control of its territory in the south and can sever ties between Hizbullah, Damascus and Tehran, or regime change in Syria and Iran severs those ties, irrespective of the Lebanese ability to control its own territory.
__________

Note to myself. I never read James Mann's book on the Rise of the Vulcans. Maybe I should?