Afghanistan: Giant failure with a smiley face?

Published on February 25, 2012 by James Shott · 1 Comment

Writing in Foreign Policy, Douglas Wissing presents a picture of the Afghan entanglement that is sharply at odds with the official line out of Washington, coming not only from the politicians, but from military leaders as well.

His account begins: “If observers had any doubts about the failure of the U.S. counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan, the past several days should have put them to rest. Since Feb. 21, anti-U.S. protests have erupted in virtually every major Afghan city over the revelation that American personnel had burned Qurans at Bagram Airfield, the largest U.S. installation in the country. The demonstrations have at times turned violent, claiming the lives of at least seven Afghans. This wave of protest is just the latest example of how the United States has botched its attempt to win “hearts and minds” in Afghanistan, and another indicator that its war effort is heading toward failure.”

And then, this: “Lt. Col. Daniel L. Davis has traveled over 9,000 miles across Afghanistan to learn a simple lesson: public statements made from podiums in Washington and Kabul bear little resemblance to the reality of the Afghan war. The 17-year U.S. Army veteran spent most of his time in the insurgency-enflamed provinces in the east and south, and was shaken to discover the U.S. military leadership’s glowing descriptions of progress against the Taliban insurgency did not jibe with the accounts of American soldiers on the front lines of the war.”

Read the rest of Wissing’s account at Foreign Policy

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Tags: Afghanistan, America ▼, Politics, US Military

Readers Comments (1)

Roland says:

March 27, 2012 at 8:14 am

Niall,What vehicle broke down the gates of the tiapcol building in Saigon at the end of the war? Come on.. first letter T .I know quite reasonably exactly what the term blitzkrieg means for a squid, and it happened in the 72 Offensive and the final offensive. At the tactical level Lightning War is a tactic, or more properly a set of techniques, for the coordination of infantry, armor and supporting arms in the offensive, and at the operational level of war, a set of tactics for the use of armor heavy formations as the lead element in the offensive, to rapidly overcome infantry in the defensive. Sort of (I am not a qualified practitioner).Poland was the first use, and the technique was refined by the Krauts, then adopted and refined by the Red Army and the US Army, British Army and toward the end of the war by the free french divisions fighting under US high command, each slightly differently for multiple reasons. The North Koreans used it in 1950.The last two invasions south by the PLAVN were run out of the Red Army textbook with Red Army equipment.With obvious adaptations for the TOE and etc etc etc of the opponent the ARVN. As called for in Mao’s little red book. I know that’s not the cronkite the public has been sold for forty years, but go do your homework see for yourself.Interestingly, the subsequent Red Vietnamese Viet Minh if you will overthrow of the Kymer Rouge, because the Cambodian genocide had turned even their evil stomachs, was closer to a classic airmobile offensive, using captured US equipment, with tactical adjustments made on the basis of insights gained from fighting airmobile units and the Kymer Rouge’s vulnerabilities. Since there was no political opposition to this invasion of Cambodia, it was prosecuted with typical bloodyminded thoroughness to a successful (defeat of the Viet Minh) conclusion. Hardhearted and ruthless beats bloodthirsty and cruel every time. Giap was better at war than Westmoreland (the basic problem, for us.) and much better than Pol Pot.Now I’ll shut up and let the Leavenworth grads lurking eddicate (yes my good man, I am misspelling deliberately) both of us, because they really know who shot John in the big one.But to return to my basic point, the US congress won the war decisively, for the enemy.

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