Is Institutional Deception Being Practiced on a Grand Scale in Afghanistan?
A Review of ‘Dereliction of Duty II: Senior Military Leaders’ Loss of Integrity Wounds Afghan War Effort’ by Lt. Col. Daniel L. Davis
NATO Watch Comment www.natowatch.org
By Nigel Chamberlain
“Senior ranking US military leaders have so distorted the truth when communicating with the US Congress and American people in regards to conditions on the ground in Afghanistan that the truth has become unrecognizable”.
The opening paragraph of this report is a powerful indictment of the conduct and presentation of the higher echelons of the US military in their persecution of the Afghan War. It also introduces the reader to the depth of analysis which follows to substantiate the author’s damning accusations.
We are informed that the report is made up of ‘unclassified’ material and that an even more detailed and devastating report, made up from ‘classified’ material, has been sent to Members of Congress as a plea for them to act in the interests of servicemen and the American public.
Colonel Davis finds it incredible that Congress has accepted the assurances and justifications of military leaders rather than the analysis presented by the Government of Accountability Office (GOA) and suggests that’ “had the President known the truth of what really happened in 2007 Iraq [The Surge] it is virtually certain he would not have made the decision he did in November 2009” [Afghan offensive].
In his explanation of how the American public has been deceived on a grand scale, Davis articulately links his analysis to the loss of credibility and confidence worldwide and to its impact on the army. “I’ve lost count of the number of truly promising and intelligent leaders who have gotten out of the service at the mid-level because they could not stomach the mendacity at the top,” he states in his call for a return to ‘honor and integrity’.
The national security objectives in Afghanistan will not be accomplished, he states, without learning the true lessons and changing the strategy appropriately. He believes - and quotes Anthony Cordesman from the Center for Strategic and International Studies to support him - that ‘spinning’ the news from Afghanistan began in earnest in June 2010, the same month that General Petraeus took command of ISAF. Cordesman drew several conclusions, the last one being, “No ISAF nation provides meaningful transparency and reporting to its legislature and people.”
Finally, Davis himself concludes:
Based on what I have personally observed in the decades of the 1990s and 2000s, there are serious questions that need to be addressed on whether our nation’s senior military leaders have been completely honest with the American people when it comes to laying out the rationale for going to war and over the past several years, in helping us to decide whether we ought to support a continuation of the war. (P77)
Further reading:
Army Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Davis, Dereliction of Duty II: Senior Military Leaders’ Loss of Integrity Wounds Afghan War Effort, 27 January 2012
In Afghan War, Officer Becomes a Whistle-Blower, New York Times, 5 February
The Afghanistan Report the Pentagon Doesn't Want You to Read, Michael Hastings, Rolling Stone, 10 February
Army Whistleblower Lt. Col. Daniel Davis Says Pentagon Deceiving Public on Afghan War, Democracy Now, 15 February
Spinning Afghanistan, America's longest war, Amy Gordon, The Guardian, 16 February
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