The generals lied and the fantasy died H.R. McMaster and other apologists for the failed policy
in Afghanistan would like us to focus on anything but their complicity in it today.
( Important to remember, Biden was against the surge as VP. He was correct then and correct today. )
AUGUST 16, 2021
Written by
Anatol Lieven
An opening move in the U.S. military high command’s campaign to deflect blame for the 20-year-long American debacle in Afghanistan has come with a Sunday article by General H.R. McMaster and Bradley Bowman in the Wall Street Journal, “In Afghanistan, the Tragic Toll of Washington Delusion.”
The delusions have indeed been real, and now cruelly exposed. As amply documented by the reports of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) John F. Sopko, and the The Afghanistan Papers by Washington Post journalist Craig Whitlock, the deceptions are largely the work of McMaster himself and his military colleagues.
The first question to ask though is why General McMaster thinks he has the right to say anything at all on the subject of Afghanistan? In the 1980s, the Afghan Mujahedin fighting against the Afghan communist government and its Soviet backers were equipped by the West with sophisticated equipment including Stinger missiles that cleared the Soviet air force from the skies. The Taliban have had no heavy weapons at all, a budget a tiny fraction enjoyed by the Afghan state, let alone the United States, and numbers that have also been much smaller than those (on paper at least) of the Afghan security forces. Yet the Taliban have won, by sheer resilience, better strategy, and superior public appeal.
American generals have led America to unnecessary defeat in Afghanistan; and defeated generals should have the elementary decency to keep their mouths shut. This is all the more so because many of the military mistakes in Afghanistan have directly echoed those of the Vietnam War, from which American generals failed to learn.
This was especially true of their approach to their local allies. Washington funded the Afghan army to the tune of tens of billions of dollars, trained it, and provided it with armor, heavy artillery, and airpower — yet while the Communist state survived for three years after the Soviet withdrawal, America’s Afghan state collapsed in a fortnight.
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2021/08/16/the-generals-lied-and-the-fantasy-died/
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