Lieutenant Colonel Daniel L. Davis writes that his deployments to Afghanistan revealed to him a reality that “bore no resemblance to rosy official statements by U.S. military leaders about conditions on the ground.”
I witnessed the absence of success on virtually every level.
…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.
Update: Matthew Hoh responds here.
The military will fry this man! How dare he dispute the official propaganda even though the truth is already out there if anyone had commonsense to read other than main stream media.
What this guy saw is probably little different than what drives so many other of his fellow fodder units to suicide.
What's as bad as untruth is suppression of information: last year, a fellow co-worker said that he was being sent to Afghanistan as a replacement to fill gaps in an Air Force supply unit, which had been decimated by the Taliban – literally dozens of dead and wounded. No mention of this incident was ever released by the media.
Any detail on how they were attacked? On ground, in air, with what, etc.? Might be a lead for someone reading here? Lowballing US wounded seems consistent with the Colonel's portrayal.
Somebody at West Point forgot to teach Colonel Davis that the US won the Vietnam War and that an emperor always wears the finest clothes.