Thread by @GrayConnolly

@BBCInOurTime “We were devoid of a fundamental understanding of Afghanistan — we didn’t know what we were doing,” Douglas Lute, a three-star Army general who served as the White House’s Afghan war czar during the Bush and Obama administrations

washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/…

It is simply staggering that none of the foolish and vagabonds who pushed the Afghan Surge & “counter insurgency” nonsense for over a decade had careers or reputations damaged. As is the case with 2019, military failure is now failure upward and onward. Sordid affairs, indeed.

Listening to the audio of this 2015 interview with Lt Gen Michael Flynn on the Afghan War and its misconduct...it is (deservedly) unsparing. Also, the Intelligence picture/problem for so chaotic a war.

washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/…

"Diplomats and military commanders acknowledged they struggled to answer simple questions: Who is the enemy? Whom can we count on as allies? How will we know when we have won?"

washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/…

Will just add that after the 1915 Gallipoli disaster, the Asquith Govt held an unsparing inquiry into Gallipoli in 1916 during wartime...the Afghan War is now over 18 years-not just an absolute debacle but clearly always understood to be one by those in charge at the time.

I wrote this in August 2017: "Imperium's Graveyard: Iraq, Afghanistan and the Strange Death of the Western Way of War". Everything I have read in the Afghan War papers confirms my argument that Western military command has had a moral collapse. See here:

strategycounsel.blogspot.com/2017/08/the-gr…