War, what is it good for?

Some of my 2 1/2 long-time followers know that I maintained the Today in Iraq and Afghanistan blog for many years. I ' ve set it aside for a while, out of a general feeling of despair. But now I do want to say something about theWaPos ' s publication of the report of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction. SIGAR reports frequently featured in Today in Iraq and Afghanistan.IG Sopko has been speaking truth to power for many years, mostly exposing the utter failure of development projects. But now he has done a comprehensive assessment of the goals and accomplishments of the United States ' longest war. The answer is none of the above.Several of those interviewed described explicit and sustained efforts by the U.S. government to deliberately mislead the public. They said it was common at military headquarters in Kabul — and at the White House — to distort statistics to make it appear the United States was winning the war when that was not the case.“Every data point was altered to present the best picture possible,” Bob Crowley, an Army colonel who served as a senior counterinsurgency adviser to U.S. military commanders in 2013 and 2014, told government interviewers.“Surveys, for instance, were totally unreliable but reinforced thateverything we were doing was right and we became a self-licking ice cream cone. ” John Sopko, the head of the federal agency that conducted the interviews, acknowledged to The Post that the documents show “the Americ...
Source: Stayin' Alive - Category: American Health Source Type: blogs