Thread: The U.S. "Cannot Win Militarily" In Afghanistan, Says Top Commander In Shocking Inte

A Wolf in a Sheeple's World

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- When U.S. forces and their Afghan allies rode into Kabul in November 2001 they were greeted as liberators. But after 17 years of war, the Taliban have retaken half the country, security is worse than it’s ever been, and many Afghans place the blame squarely on the Americans.
The United States has lost more than 2,400 soldiers in its longest war, and has spent more than $900 billion on everything from military operations to the construction of roads, bridges and power plants. Three U.S. presidents have pledged to bring peace to Afghanistan, either by adding or withdrawing troops, by engaging the Taliban or shunning them. Last year, the U.S. dropped the “mother of all bombs” on a cave complex.
None of it has worked. After years of frustration, Afghanistan is rife with conspiracy theories, including the idea that Americans didn’t stumble into a forever war, but planned one all along.
Mohammed Ismail Qasimyar, a member of Afghanistan’s High Peace Council, wonders how U.S. and NATO forces — which at their peak numbered 150,000 and fought alongside hundreds of thousands of Afghan troops, were unable to vanquish tens of thousands of Taliban.
“Either they did not want to or they could not do it,” he said. He now suspects the U.S. and its ally Pakistan deliberately sowed chaos in Afghanistan to justify the lingering presence of foreign forces — now numbering around 15,000 — in order to use the country as a listening post to monitor Iran, Russia and China.
“They have made a hell, not a paradise for us,” he said.
https://apnews.com/953d155608464b9c8f21c439d6cae82c


After 17 years, many Afghans blame US for unending war

By KATHY GANNON November 13, 2018


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In this Oct. 31, 2018 photo, a group of Afghan National Army soldiers watch others participate in a live fire exercise at the Afghan Military Academy, in Kabul, Afghanistan. When U.S. forces and their Afghan allies rode into Kabul in November 2001 they were greeted as liberators. But after 17 years of war, the Taliban have retaken half the country, security is worse than it’s ever been, and many Afghans place the blame squarely on the Americans. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul)


KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — When U.S. forces and their Afghan allies rode into Kabul in November 2001 they were greeted as liberators. But after 17 years of war, the Taliban have retaken half the country, security is worse than it’s ever been, and many Afghans place the blame squarely on the Americans.
The United States has lost more than 2,400 soldiers in its longest war, and has spent more than $900 billion on everything from military operations to the construction of roads, bridges and power plants. Three U.S. presidents have pledged to bring peace to Afghanistan, either by adding or withdrawing troops, by engaging the Taliban or shunning them. Last year, the U.S. dropped the “mother of all bombs” on a cave complex.
A father of two and former policeman, Jawad Mohammadi, lost both his legs in 2015, when he stepped on a land-mine. (AP Photo/Massoud Hossaini)
None of it has worked. After years of frustration, Afghanistan is rife with conspiracy theories, including the idea that Americans didn’t stumble into a forever war, but planned one all along.
Mohammed Ismail Qasimyar, a member of Afghanistan’s High Peace Council, wonders how U.S. and NATO forces — which at their peak numbered 150,000 and fought alongside hundreds of thousands of Afghan troops, were unable to vanquish tens of thousands of Taliban.
“Either they did not want to or they could not do it,” he said. He now suspects the U.S. and its ally Pakistan deliberately sowed chaos in Afghanistan to justify the lingering presence of foreign forces — now numbering around 15,000 — in order to use the country as a listening post to monitor Iran, Russia and China.
“They have made a hell, not a paradise for us,” he said.
Afghanistan is rife with such conspiracy theories. After last month’s assassination of Kandahar’s powerful police chief, Gen. Abdul Raziq, social media exploded with pictures and posts suggesting he was the victim of a U.S. conspiracy. Recent insider attacks, in which Afghan forces have killed their erstwhile U.S. and NATO allies, have attracted online praise.
Afghan army stages a mock arrest during a training exercise at the Military Academy in Kabul. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul)
“In 2001 the Afghan people supported the arrival of the United States and the international community wholeheartedly,” said Hamid Karzai, who was installed as Afghanistan’s first president and twice won re-election, serving until 2014.
“For a number of years things worked perfectly well,” he said in a recent interview. “Then we saw the United States either changed course or simply neglected the views of the Afghan people and the conditions of the Afghans.”
He blames the lingering war on the U.S. failure to eliminate militant sanctuaries in neighboring Pakistan, the bombing of Afghan villages and homes, and the detention of Afghans in raids.
Others blame the notoriously corrupt government, which Karzai headed for more than a decade, and which is widely seen as yet another bitter fruit of the American invasion.
Afghanistan's former President Hamid Karzai believes America in its 17-year war either changed course or simply neglected the opinions and the conditions that Afghan people face. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul)
“All the money that has come to this country has gone to the people in power. The poor people didn’t get anything,” said Hajji Akram, a day laborer in Kabul’s Old City who struggles to feed his family on around $4 a day. “The foreigners are not making things better. They should go.”
It’s not just Afghans. The United States’ own inspector general for Afghanistan’s reconstruction offered a blistering critique in a speech in Ohio earlier this month.
John Sopko pointed out that the U.S. has spent $132 billion on Afghanistan’s reconstruction — more than was spent on Western Europe after World War II. Another $750 billion has been spent on U.S. military operations, and Washington has pledged $4 billion a year for Afghanistan’s security forces.
Shopkeeper Hamidullah Nasrat displays his imported fabrics to a customer at the main bazaar on the banks of the Kabul River in the Afghan capital. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul)
The result?
“Even after 17 years of U.S. and coalition effort and financial largesse, Afghanistan remains one of the poorest, least educated, and most corrupt countries in the world,” Sopko said. “It is also one of the most violent.”
Hamidullah Nasrat sells imported fabrics in the capital’s main bazaar on the banks of the Kabul River, a fetid trickle running through a garbage-filled trench. He remembers welcoming the overthrow of the Taliban, who had shut down his photography studio because it was deemed un-Islamic.
“After the Taliban we were expecting something good, but instead, day by day, it is getting worse,” he said. “How is it that a superpower like the United States cannot stop the Taliban? It is a question every Afghan is asking.”
The U.S. and NATO formally concluded their combat mission in 2014. Since then, the Taliban have carried out near-daily attacks on rural checkpoints and staged coordinated assaults on major cities. Authorities stopped publishing casualty figures earlier this year, deeming them classified. An Islamic State affiliate has meanwhile carried out massive bombings against the country’s Shiite minority.
Afghan soldiers inspect their target accuracy at a firing range belonging to the Military Academy in Kabul. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul)
Afghans who have recently served on the front lines complain of faulty equipment, inadequate supplies and reinforcements that show up late and ill-equipped, if at all.
Tameem Darvesh served in the Afghan army for nearly five years in the southern Helmand province. This year he went on holiday and never returned, trading his $180 monthly salary for work as a day laborer making much less. He said morale is at an all-time low, with many soldiers expressing sympathy for the Taliban.
Jawad Mohammadi served for more than seven years in the security forces until 2015, when he stepped on a land-mine he was tasked to clear and lost both his legs. He was just 25 years old.
He recalls how the foreign instructors told him to always check his mine detector by waving it over a piece of metal before heading out into the field. But whenever a device failed to respond, his Afghan commander would tell him to use it anyway.
“I was told that’s all we have. That’s what we were given, you just have to use it,” he said.
The next time he went out with a faulty device, his foot found a bomb the detector had missed.
“I felt myself being thrown through the air. I looked and I saw my legs were near me and there was so much blood. I yelled: ‘Please help me.’”
___
Associated Press writer Amir Shah in Kabul, Afghanistan, contributed to this report.

https://apnews.com/953d155608464b9c8...p6hkRLjiSDM4dI

One in five Army generals could not deploy for medical reasons in 2016, data show

Tom Vanden Brook, USA TODAY Published 6:56 a.m. ET Nov. 19, 2018 | Updated 4:03 p.m. ET Nov. 19, 2018



(Photo: Charles Dharapak, AP)

WASHINGTON – One in five Army generals could not deploy in 2016 for medical reasons, according to data obtained by USA TODAY, a troubling finding regarding the military's readiness to fight that Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has vowed to fix.
Overdue medical and dental exams were the primary reasons for what the Army refers to as medical readiness in 2016. The medical readiness rate for generals has improved to nearly 85 percent, according to Brig. Gen. Omar Jones, the Army's top spokesman. Almost all generals, 97.4 percent, can now deploy after taking care of minor issues such as having updated blood tests and dental exams.
"The Army's top priority is readiness and soldiers are expected to be world-wide deployable to ensure our Army is ready to fight today and in the future," Jones said. "The data from 2016 does not reflect recent improvements in medical readiness for the Army as a whole and for the general officer corps specifically."
The data were contained in a June 2017 report on the state of the Army's general officer corps that was obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. The study was commissioned after a series of high-profile scandals involving generals and admirals came to light. In 2014, then-Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel created an office to investigate ethical problems among senior leaders. An investigation by USA TODAY last year found that military investigators had documented at least 500 cases of serious misconduct among its generals, admirals and senior civilians, almost half of those instances involving personal or ethical lapses.
One of the most recent cases involved Air Force Brig. Gen. Paul Tibbets, who was fired for making sexually suggestive comments to women and failing to report suicide attempts among airmen in his command.
Most of the Army's 2017 report released to USA TODAY was redacted. However, sections that included data on deployability for generals and programs to improve their mental and physical health were included. It noted "Points of Stress" for generals that include combat, deployment, family separation, loss and uncertainty. Another category termed, "Complicators," listed aging, caring for parents, disease risk and teenagers.
Data for 2016 showed that 83.5 percent of Army soldiers were deemed medically ready to deploy, the lowest rate among the services. The Marine Corps led with 90.2 percent followed by the Navy at 90.1 percent and the Air Force at 88.8 percent. The rate for active-duty, ready-to-deploy generals, not including the Reserve or National Guard, was 79.6 percent. For active-duty soldiers overall, the figure was 84 percent, and the Army's goal is 85 percent.
The top factors for failing to meet the standard was being overdue for an annual physical or dental exam, a relatively easy fix. The report included a recommendation to "Enforce Wellness" that enables generals to receive the evaluations and treatment they needed and "ensure that they do so."
To that end, the Army has sent 62 generals to its executive health program at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas, Jones said. Over a three-day period, generals receive health-care services and assessments. By the end of 2019, 234 more generals will have been through the program.
Jones noted that gains had been made and are reflected in the medical readiness for generals, which is now 84.7 percent.
Mattis took office in January 2017, and this year served notice that he was making readiness to fight a top priority for the Pentagon.
If troops can't deploy, Mattis said, others must take their place. The burden of combat and time away from family falls unevenly, he said. Exceptions are made for those wounded in combat or injured in accidents.
"But this is a deployable military," Mattis told reporters in February. "It's a lethal military that aligns with our allies and partners. If you can't go overseas in your combat load – carry a combat load, then obviously someone else has got to go. I want this spread fairly and equitably across the force."
The report also recommends that generals look after their own "wellness." It encourages them to take at least one 10-day vacation away from their posts and to get enough sleep.
There's advice from Gen. John Nicholson, at the time the top commander of troops in Afghanistan. Nicholson uses the "2/3/7" rule. He asks each of his leaders to spend two hours a day alone, eat three meals and sleep for at least seven hours a night.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...16/2029702002/