“We didn’t know what we were getting into”: secret documents published about the failure of the United States in Afghanistan

Two weeks later, The Washington Post published documents that it called the "secret history of the war in Afghanistan," but they never became the main topic of discussion in the United States and the world. The “Afghan archive” was compiled on the basis of testimony given by officials and the military to a special commission for the reconstruction of Afghanistan. The US Army invaded the country in 2001, shortly after the September 11 attacks, but has still not been able to cope with the Taliban Islamic movement. "Medusa"Tells the story of the dossier and its contents.

How did the documents get to The Washington Post?

It all started when in 2015 a WP correspondent, Craig Whitlock, covering the Pentagon, drew attention to the fact that retired General Mike Flynn (who later became Donald Trump's national security adviser and now accused of giving false testimonies about ties with Russia) testified to the Special General Inspectorate for Reconstruction of Afghanistan (SIGAR). The journalist requested information about Flynn’s testimony in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act, but was refused. This only increased his interest, and he found out that there were hundreds of such conversations. After that, the newspaper sued the agency for three years and obtained permission to access the dossier.

Meanwhile, SIGAR itself prepared its own project, Lessons Learned, by publishing seven volumes of conversations with more than 600 people who were somehow involved in resolving the Afghan conflict. However, according to WP, the information in this series was grouped in alphabetical order, the conclusions were drawn in a cautious and dry bureaucratic language, so it would be extremely difficult for the reader to make an overall picture. Most importantly, the reports hid the names of more than 90% of respondents.

In addition to these documents, papers published by WP include previously unprinted working notes by former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who held the post when the US invaded Afghanistan in 2001. The newspaper gained access to them thanks to the same Freedom of Information Act.

What does the “Afghan Archive” talk about?

According to WP, some American officials wanted to make the country democratic, others to change the Afghan culture itself and give women rights, and others to change the regional balance of power between Pakistan, India, Iran and Russia. Finally, James Dobbins, Special Representative for Afghanistan under George W. Bush and Barack Obama, said the US did not invade to “make poor countries rich or authoritarian democracies.” The only goal, he said, is "to turn the warring countries into peace, and in the case of Afghanistan, the United States has clearly failed." However, this is just one of many points of view.

According to journalists, it follows from the documents that the US government never tried to answer many fundamental questions. With whom is it fighting - with al-Qaida or the Taliban? Formally, the war was fought in response to the September 11, 2001 attacks that Al-Qaida allegedly committed, spreading its network throughout the region. But then what does the Taliban have to do with always having exclusively national goals? Is Pakistan a friend or an enemy? He is a traditional ally in the region - but he is also a sponsor of the Taliban. What about field commanders who have been funded by the CIA since the Soviet Union? They supported the Americans, but with their own population they behaved in such a way that they increasingly sympathized with the Taliban.

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Neither Bush Jr. nor Obama, as WP writes, could clearly articulate the strategic goals of the war.

“We did not know what we were getting into,” summarized Richard Boucher, who for many years was the Under Secretary of State for South and Central Asia.

According to officials interviewed by SIGAR, the official project for the immediate construction of democracy was obviously incompatible with life in a country that has consistently gone through a tribal system, monarchy, communism and Islamic rule.

“Our policy was to create a strong central government, which was idiocy, because there has never been a strong central government in the history of Afghanistan,” said an unnamed State Department spokesman. “This takes 100 years, we didn’t have them.”

An expert who worked for the government, Jordan Selman, said that they had to deal with people who were sure that the king was still in power and did not know about the Russians or the Americans.

“They didn’t have money, they had in-kind exchange of goods, and we tried to impose XNUMXst century practices on a society that lives in a different era,” Selman concludes. The situation was only aggravated by the fact that many Afghan officials, if they knew any management methods, were only socialist, from the time of the Soviet invasion, and the market economy was deeply alien to them.

In the midst of battles with the Taliban, between 2009 and 2012, the United States actively invested in the construction of schools, bridges and canals, which can be explained solely by the dogmatism of thinking. In reality, almost all of this money was plundered rapidly. According to Colonel Christopher Kolenda, who was an adviser to several American generals, the government of Hamid Karzai, supported by the United States, was rapidly "organizing itself in kleptocracy." This cost the Americans $ 133 billion (more than the reconstruction of Western Europe after World War II), and as a result the local population pushed them even further. According to rough estimates, about 40% of military contracts with the Afghan side went to militants, bandits or officials. Some thought more.

One of the central components of US policy was to form a combat-ready army in Afghanistan, as well as local police. In practice, it turned out that on average, out of 10 recruits, only two were able to read. U.S. officers said they had to teach Afghans to distinguish urinals from drinking fountains and explain the basics of anatomy so that they could understand how a tourniquet can stop bleeding, although it is not applied to wounds.

Interviewees admitted that their efforts have completely failed. According to one of the American officers, a third of the recruits were addicted to opium or were themselves Taliban. Another officer called them "stupid thieves" who stole so much fuel from American bases that they constantly smelled of it. Some simply took the uniform, drove home, sold it in local markets, and then returned to service without any fear. And this is not the worst option: a Norwegian official, whose name is not named, said that, according to his estimates, about 30% of the police deserted with weapons issued to them to engage in robberies on the roads. According to Thomas Johnson, who advised the Afghan authorities in the fight against militants, for the Afghans the police were "the most hated institution."

On top of that, American leaders for a long time could not agree on how to prepare the Afghan forces. Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld insisted that they should be compact and not exceed 50 thousand people; his opponents constantly insisted on increasing this amount. As a result, in 2019, the number of Afghan armed forces on paper is 352 thousand people, in reality - no more than 254 thousand. During the years of hostilities, 60 thousand Afghan troops died - 17 times more than Americans, and 20 thousand more than the Taliban.

This is well known, but conversations with officials and the military help to better understand what happened. First, initially no one thought of this threat at all, focusing on the fight against Islamic extremism. Secondly, when closer to 2006 it became a reality, no plan was worked out. At first, the British military paid farmers to destroy their plantations - the next year, farmers planted them even more. Then the Americans began to destroy them themselves without any compensation - and only increased their self-hatred and support for the Taliban among the population.

The US authorities knew everything perfectly, but continued to make bravura statements. Richard Haas, who was in charge of coordinating US actions in Afghanistan, recalled that when the invasion was just being discussed, there was no optimism with Bush Jr.: “There was a feeling that you could seriously intervene and get nothing from it.”

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Subsequently, public statements by representatives of the American administration contrasted sharply with facts that they were well aware of. The Pentagon publicly welcomed 15 new Afghan police officers as “highly skilled professionals,” and through internal channels, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld invited subordinates to read a report entitled “The Horror in the Afghan Police” with a note that it was written “as neatly and calmly as possible perhaps".

For many years, American generals have been reporting on their success in repelling the attacks of the Taliban, not particularly focusing on the question of why they all attack and attack. Between 2009 and 2011, the Obama administration constantly demanded to find figures proving that the new president’s strategy is having an effect. It was difficult, an unnamed official from the National Security Council admits, and then manipulations of facts were used. For example, a suicide bomber bombing was presented as evidence of the weakness of the Taliban, which is no longer capable of open armed clashes. There are more attacks - this is because the Taliban are increasingly desperate. The reality, however, is that in 2011 there were about 25 thousand fighters, and in 2016 - 60 thousand. And the US is looking for negotiation opportunities with them.

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