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How many more men must die in support of a mission that is not succeeding and behind an array of more than seven years of optimistic statements by US senior leaders in Afghanistan? Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Davis

Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Davis, 48, wrote two reports, one unclassified and the other classified. He briefed four members of Congress. He also sent his reports to the Defense Department’s inspector general.  Colonel Davis deliberately broke ranks with the official portrayal of the war after spending a year in the country. He wrote an article titled “Truth, Lies and Afghanistan: How Military Leaders Have Let Us Down.” (http://armedforcesjournal.com/2012/02/8904030)

• “What I saw bore no resemblance to rosy official statements by US military leaders about conditions on the ground,” he wrote in an article published in Armed Forces Journal, a private newspaper not affiliated with the Pentagon.
• “Instead, I witnessed the absence of success on virtually every level,” he wrote under the headline, “Truth, Lies And Afghanistan: How military leaders have let us down”.

Lieutenant Colonel Davis has also reportedly shared his pessimistic view with some members of Congress and written a classified version of his article for the Defence Department, a highly unusual move that he expects will anger his commanders and short-circuit his professional career.

• “I’m going to get nuked.” “No one expects our leaders to always have a successful plan…But we do expect — and the men who do the living, fighting and dying deserve — to have our leaders tell us the truth about what’s going on.”
• A January 2011 report by the Afghan NGO Security Office noted that public statements made by U.S. and ISAF leaders at the end of 2010 were “sharply divergent from IMF, [international military forces, NGO-speak for ISAF] ‘strategic communication’ messages suggesting improvements. We encourage [nongovernment organization personnel] to recognize that no matter how authoritative the source of any such claim, messages of the nature are solely intended to influence American and European public opinion ahead of the withdrawal, and are not intended to offer an accurate portrayal of the situation for those who live and work here.”The following month, Anthony Cordesman, on behalf of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, wrote that ISAF and the U.S. leadership failed to report accurately on the reality of the situation in Afghanistan.

Davis also quotes other reports:

The following month, Anthony Cordesman, on behalf of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, wrote that ISAF and the U.S. leadership failed to report accurately on the reality of the situation in Afghanistan.

“Since June 2010, the unclassified reporting the U.S. does provide has steadily shrunk in content, effectively ‘spinning’ the road to victory by eliminating content that illustrates the full scale of the challenges ahead,” Cordesman wrote. “They also, however, were driven by political decisions to ignore or understate Taliban and insurgent gains from 2002 to 2009, to ignore the problems caused by weak and corrupt Afghan governance, to understate the risks posed by sanctuaries in Pakistan, and to ‘spin’ the value of tactical ISAF victories while ignoring the steady growth of Taliban influence and control.”

He then adds:

When it comes to deciding what matters are worth plunging our nation into war and which are not, our senior leaders owe it to the nation and to the uniformed members to be candid — graphically, if necessary — in telling them what’s at stake and how expensive potential success is likely to be. U.S. citizens and their elected representatives can decide if the risk to blood and treasure is worth it.

Likewise when having to decide whether to continue a war, alter its aims or to close off a campaign that cannot be won at an acceptable price, our senior leaders have an obligation to tell Congress and American people the unvarnished truth and let the people decide what course of action to choose. That is the very essence of civilian control of the military. The American people deserve better than what they’ve gotten from their senior uniformed leaders over the last number of years. Simply telling the truth would be a good start. AFJ

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