Discover and read the best of Twitter Threads about #AfghanistanPapers
Most recents (10)
The #UkraineRussiaWar has entered its second week. I find the YouTube genre of map-based animations of war progress helpful to keep track of developments across Ukraine: 
There are a number of different channels doing the same: , , , . They differ primarily in their choice of music.
I like to think that their convergence is based on shared visualization conventions and reflects similar interpretations of reports from Ukraine (they seem slightly ahead of but do not contradict maps from media/academic outlets). They could also be plagiarizing each other.
Former National Security Council staffer: "State needs more foreign area officers and peoples who know the humanities, not political science. They need people that know languages, religions and are comfortable overseas. Right now most head overseas to stamp passports for a few
years then are sent back and stuck in Foggy Bottom this is not what we need. There is also a growth of insta-experts on Afghanistan. These people believe in cliched ideas (like Afghanistan is the graveyard of empires, or that Afghans are legendary xenophobic or hostile) that are
Doug Lute, Obama’s ambassador to NATO: Orange Man Bad
Also Doug Lute: “If the American people knew the magnitude of this dysfunction … 2,400 lives lost. Who will say this was in vain?”
#AfghanistanPapers amgreatness.com/2020/01/23/tru…
Also Doug Lute: “If the American people knew the magnitude of this dysfunction … 2,400 lives lost. Who will say this was in vain?”
#AfghanistanPapers amgreatness.com/2020/01/23/tru…
“Lute explained how Obama’s national security team were schooled in policy but not war planning. ‘There was a structural gap: there were two wars going on and we didn’t have anyone speaking strategically. There was a gap, or a void, in trying to connect ends, ways, and means.’”
“The same class of experts that claims Trump is the biggest threat to global security in 70 years has been the legitimate threat. They knew the war was going poorly, that young American patriots were dying needlessly, that U.S. tax dollars were being wasted, and said nothing.”
This is my 4th in a series of articles on the #AfghanistanPapers. It’s interesting—but not surprising—that the same clan of Beltway global “experts” is the same group working to get Trump kicked out of the White House. But their track record is lousy... amgreatness.com/2020/01/23/tru…
“After Trump released the transcript of his July 2019 phone call, more than 300 national security officials signed a letter that insisted the conversation was an impeachable offense.
One of the signers was Nicholas Burns, the former U.S. ambassador to NATO under George W Bush.”
One of the signers was Nicholas Burns, the former U.S. ambassador to NATO under George W Bush.”
Burns’ interview with inspector general for Afghanistan, however, raises plenty of questions about his own competence. Burns admits the NATO operation was dysfunctional—we had to do most of the heavy lifting and suffered the most casualties because our allies weren’t prepared.
A better title for Biden’s foreign policy agenda would be “How I Will Try To Clean Up All The Messes I’ve Helped Create Over The Past 20 Years.” It’s part open borders, part nation-building, and part Greta Thunberg. But no confession about his failures— foreignaffairs.com/articles/unite…
Biden makes no mention of his insidious role in perpetuating the disastrous Afghanistan war, including his failed plan to rebuild that primitive country. He continues to misrepresent his position on the 2010 surge. And doesn’t mention #AfghanistanPapers
amgreatness.com/2020/01/20/afg…
amgreatness.com/2020/01/20/afg…
Biden touts the need for NATO—per my piece here, interviews reveal how the NATO-led operation in Afghanistan was a debacle according to 2 former US ambassadors to NATO during the early and late stages of the war. Nick Burns and Doug Lute are Biden backers:
amgreatness.com/2020/01/23/tru…
amgreatness.com/2020/01/23/tru…
Joe Biden, no surprise, is rewriting history when it comes to his role in the Afghanistan War, especially the 2010 surge. My continued dive into the #Afghanistanpapers and culpability of its closest planners and managers: amgreatness.com/2020/01/20/afg…
No politician has been involved in the failed war longer than Biden. His fingerprints can be found on every aspect of the conflict. amgreatness.com/2020/01/20/afg…
No presidential team has led the war effort longer than Obama and Biden. Three-quarters of the 2,351 American fatalities in Afghanistan happened on Obama’s watch. But Biden is allowed to misrepresent his past position and escape the comeuppance he deserves.amgreatness.com/2020/01/20/afg…
If Trump called the war in Afghanistan a losing war, he was right. If he questioned the truthfulness and capability of the war’s managers, he was right. If he doubted whether he was getting accurate information, he was right: #afghanistanpapers amgreatness.com/2020/01/16/men…
“If things are going so well, are we still there? Why do we continue to spend so much money? As the saying goes, success has many parents, but failure is an orphan. Nowhere is this more true than in Afghanistan, where success is fleeting and failure is common.” John Sopko, SIGAR
The problem isn’t that Trump confronted the war’s architects and managers; the real problem is if Obama didn’t. More than 3/4 of the casualties in Afghanistan occurred on Obama/Biden watch. They escalated the war—and we know it was a failure. Why? Who’s accountable? Not Trump.
A very different start to this #DemDebate from earlier debates where they barely touched on foreign policy & military issues within the first 2 hours.
First volley is between 2 old men defending their past judgment. One barely more coherent than the other.
Klobuchar & Buttigieg at least speak about their qualifications to lead in the future. Warren speaks eloquently on her Armed Services exp. More of this, please. #DemDebate
1. The biggest #AfghanistanPapers revelation is how difficult they were to get into public view. It took the Bezos Post YEARS of REPEATED lawsuits to obtain information that had essentially already been public knowledge for many years, and they did it mainly to hurt Trump.
2. The people shouldn't have to depend on plutocrat-owned media and their lawyers to obtain basic information about wars they themselves paid for. They shouldn't have to hope that a corporate outlet with massive resources will have a partisan agenda that happens to expose truth.
3. Per WaPo's own story, the obtaining and publication of the #AfghanistanPapers both started and ended with a desire to tag the Trump administration. What things have WaPo and its layers NOT pursued because it didn't fit a partisan agenda? People shouldn't have to rely on that.
This is a lot to read & digest. But it's worth saying how valuable @SIGARHQ has been to evaluating US mission & outcomes in Afghanistan. So much important info has been hiding in plain sight in SIGAR's thorough reporting. wapo.st/38mHzxM
@SIGARHQ And exactly none of this comes as a surprise to anyone who has deployed or who has been paying attention. Thank you @washingtonpost for breaking through the apathy barrier with what veterans have been trying to point out for years and years.
@SIGARHQ @washingtonpost “So they all went in for whatever their rotation was, nine months or six months, and were given that mission, accepted that mission and executed that mission....Then they all said, when they left, they accomplished that mission. Every single commander."
