Here are some of his observations - NYT - In Afghan War, Officer Becomes a Whistle-Blower

Dereliction of Duty II: Senior Military Leaders' Loss of Integrity Wounds Afghan War Effort

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. This deception has damaged America's credibility among both our allies and enemies, severely limiting our ability to reach a political solution to the war in Afghanistan. It has likely cost American taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars Congress might not otherwise have appropriated had it known the truth, and our senior leaders' behavior has almost certainly extended the duration of this war. The single greatest penalty our Nation has suffered, however, has been that we have lost the blood, limbs and lives of tens of thousands of American Service Members with little to no gain to our country as a consequence of this deception.

Armed Forces Journal - Truth, lies and Afghanistan: How military leaders have let us down

I spent last year in Afghanistan, visiting and talking with U.S. troops and their Afghan partners. My duties with the Army's Rapid Equipping Force took me into every significant area where our soldiers engage the enemy. Over the course of 12 months, I covered more than 9,000 miles and talked, traveled and patrolled with troops in Kandahar, Kunar, Ghazni, Khost, Paktika, Kunduz, Balkh, Nangarhar and other provinces.

What I saw bore no resemblance to rosy official statements by U.S. military leaders about conditions on the ground.

Entering this deployment, I was sincerely hoping to learn that the claims were true: that conditions in Afghanistan were improving, that the local government and military were progressing toward self-sufficiency. I did not need to witness dramatic improvements to be reassured, but merely hoped to see evidence of positive trends, to see companies or battalions produce even minimal but sustainable progress.

Instead, I witnessed the absence of success on virtually every level.

My arrival in country in late 2010 marked the start of my fourth combat deployment, and my second in Afghanistan. A Regular Army officer in the Armor Branch, I served in Operation Desert Storm, in Afghanistan in 2005-06 and in Iraq in 2008-09. In the middle of my career, I spent eight years in the U.S. Army Reserve and held a number of civilian jobs -- among them, legislative correspondent for defense and foreign affairs for Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas.

As a representative for the Rapid Equipping Force, I set out to talk to our troops about their needs and their circumstances. Along the way, I conducted mounted and dismounted combat patrols, spending time with conventional and Special Forces troops. I interviewed or had conversations with more than 250 soldiers in the field, from the lowest-ranking 19-year-old private to division commanders and staff members at every echelon. I spoke at length with Afghan security officials, Afghan civilians and a few village elders.

I saw the incredible difficulties any military force would have to pacify even a single area of any of those provinces; I heard many stories of how insurgents controlled virtually every piece of land beyond eyeshot of a U.S. or International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) base.

I saw little to no evidence the local governments were able to provide for the basic needs of the people. Some of the Afghan civilians I talked with said the people didn't want to be connected to a predatory or incapable local government.

From time to time, I observed Afghan Security forces collude with the insurgency.

Iraq was unnecessary and Afghanistan a failure. The money wasted on them helped bankrupt this nation. More heads need to roll over it all, what a decade of abject foreign policy failure and human rights violations 2001-11 was.

the top brass that lied us into this quagmire should be dismissed.

Dismissed and punished severely.

The cost of lives on both sides; the dismantled families on both sides; the devastating effects on the US economy and the assault on the already broken economy in Afghanistan are beyond what most Americans understand. We have intentionally been spoon fed that Afghanistan is being done in the interest of national security.

The future of our country has been almost destroyed and stained with a reputation that will take a century to repair.

I'm afraid this news and the pending investigation (if any) will not result in much beyond a yawn and accusation of unpatriotic whining. Please tell me I'm wrong!

...."inconvenient truth"

No Brush you are not wrong, and doesn't really seem to matter who sits in the whitehouse does it ? Old boss, new boss = same boss when it comes to the military/industrial machine we the taxpayers have to keep feeding our tax dollars to.

Maybe the investigation could include CFLs to spark a little more interest. Seems to work in this forum.

That's enough for me. Somebody needs to find out what's going on. As I recall it took an irate father and investigative reporting to get the truth out about appalling conditions at (I believe) Walter Reed military hospital. As long as nobody went "outside channels" nobody was held accountable. Thanks for posting, Nancy.

Figure 1 shows how rapidly the war escalated after 2007, and how much weather and crop cycles affect the fighting. It also shows how much improvised explosive devices have played a critical role in the war, along with other methods of attacks that limit the expose of insurgents.

What Figure 1 does not show is how slow the US and its allies were to react in building up their forces, and in funding and providing trainers and advisors for the Afghan forces. It also cannot map the extent to which the US and its allies left virtually power vacuums in terms of troop and aid presence in the east and south -- allowing the Taliban and other insurgents to regroup and build-up their influence until the US and its allies finally began to seriously react in 2009 -- decisions that could not begin to be fully implemented until 2010.

As the following Figures show, the present state of the war is now very serious, but this should not be ascribed to the difficulties in nation building and COIN, or cultural issues. It took a half a decade of gross underreaction and underresourcing, and a US focus on Iraq that led the US to ignore key developments and trends in Afghanistan to create the current situation.

:)

I really don't understand how huge issues like this, that truly have created your huge debt , get a pass. In fact I suspect most conservatives will think this guy as next thing to a traitor.

I really don't understand how huge issues like this that truly have created your huge debt get a pass and in fact I suspect most conservatives will think this guy as next thing to a traitor.

We will never learn, IMO. We had the opportunity to see what happened to the Soviets - it isn't that this should be a big surprise.

In 2009 I talked with a Lt. Col. in the Marines who had just returned from Afghanistan. A very nice man. But, a Marine at the core. I asked him, several times, what we were doing differently than the Soviets so that we could expect a better outcome. He couldn'g answer me. He was so indoctrinated with the military mindset that he couldn't see that we were in the same position as the Soviets were three decades earlier. Plus, our presence in Afghanistan and the Middle East is doing the same thing to our country as it did to the Soviets - bankrupting us.

But some, a part of the 1%, are doing just fine, thank you very much. I guess that's why we are in Afghanistan. Who cares how the rest of the U.S. is faring.

:o/