Shades of Vietnam. The Washington Post is publishing a series of articles which detail what should be an earth-shattering story:
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.
How bad was it?
“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 that everything we were doing was right and we became a self-licking ice cream cone.â€
This most telling quotation in the piece is probably this:
“We don’t invade poor countries to make them rich,†James Dobbins, a former senior U.S. diplomat who served as a special envoy to Afghanistan under Bush and Obama, told government interviewers. “We don’t invade authoritarian countries to make them democratic. We invade violent countries to make them peaceful and we clearly failed in Afghanistan.â€
None of the key points, e.g. that we didn’t know enough about Afghanistan when we invaded, failed to tailor the post-invasion plan to Afghanistan’s circumstances, that we were able to occupy the country but not to pacify it, are a surprise to me, and that DoD, State, etc. officials have been lying for 18 years, is a surprise to me.
It’s not just that we have learned nothing. It’s that, as long as the same incentives remain in place, the same mistakes will be made.
Afghanistan was (is) my war. I poured years of my professional life into it. I knew by 2007 – at the latest – all the main points in this report. It’s hard to remember because it was 13 freaking years ago. It was obvious by then to anyone who paid attention and understood Afghanistan. That’s why I knew Obama’s surge was going to fail even before he was elected. I just didn’t realize the extent to which our military and political leadership over two decades not only deluded themselves but flat out lied.
I think of the people I know who were maimed and killed and it just makes me rage.
Suspect we would find the same thing if they also looked at Iraq, Libya and Syria. Will wait to see entire series before being too judgmental.
Steve
Maybe it’s because I remember the Vietnam era so vividly but I thought that was self-evident. If the incentives remain the same, so will the actions.
In a just world there would be some repercussions for all of this beyond ending careers since many of the careers involved are already over. It is not a just world.
I think an issue like this is one that just about every commenter, and Dave, agrees on.
So the question is what are those incentives, who benefits, and what is to be done. I’m full bore nauseated by the recent portrayal of DoState actors and State supportive intellectuals, pols and pundits as patriotic heroes just because it they are convenient for the current anti-Trump jihad. A significant fraction are nothing of the sort, but self interested ghouls with blood dripping from their hands.
They aren’t unusual issues. They occur in any bureaucracy and the Pentagon is most assuredly a bureaucracy. People are rewarded for good news and punished for bad news.
I doubt that anybody has ever been promoted for disagreeing with his superiors.
“They aren’t unusual issues. They occur in any bureaucracy and the Pentagon is most assuredly a bureaucracy. People are rewarded for good news and punished for bad news.”
Once again an argument for my position of more limited government.
“I doubt that anybody has ever been promoted for disagreeing with his superiors.”
Its a requirement of passage to partnership in our firm. But then, we aren’t a bureaucracy. I’ve learned here, full throated and unapologetic disagreement doesn’t endear one.
The only way to organize an institution beyond a certain (small) size is a bureaucracy. Where we err is not in having our military run by bureaucrats but in giving the “experts” too much benefit of the doubt.
There is a lot that goes into this. (I also remember Viet Nam and have a couple of names I go see when we visit the wall.) McMaster wrote a book about this, Dereliction of Duty. This has to start at the top. The POTUS only wants good news to give the public. The SecDef only wants give news to give POTUS. The 4 stars only want good news to give the SecDef. In an atmosphere where leadership makes it clear that it is OK to deliver the truth, even if it is bad news, this doesn’t happen. Surely a lot of us have worked in an organization where that was the norm.
There is also, I think, a broader cultural/ideological issue here. We have lionized our military to a ridiculous degree. They can do anything. They cannot fail unless they arent being given the proper support. This belief is so wrong as there are some things the military just isn’t meant to do. If you give them the mission they will try their best, and sometimes they will accomplish things they shouldn’t be able to do, but you are also likely to get exaggerated claims about success.
Steve
I agree with nearly everything in that comment.
Dave: “The only way to organize an institution beyond a certain (small) size is a bureaucracy. Where we err is not in having our military run by bureaucrats but in giving the “experts†too much benefit of the doubt.”
What was the position of the actual ‘experts’? IIRC, the actual ‘experts’ opposed the Iraq War, for example. The people presented on TV were just talking heads.
I’m thinking more of Afghanistan which, as it turns out, is the subject of this post. IIRC there were only a handful of experts counseling against the invasion of Afghanistan.