Same Shit, Different War; or Toljaso

The "Afghanistan Papers" have been released and, shockers of shockers, the Federal government, across three Administrations, has basically been lying to the American people about the war.

Several of those interviewed described explicit and sustained efforts by the U.S. government to deliberately mislead the public. They said it was common at military headquarters in Kabul — and at the White House — to distort statistics to make it appear the United States was winning the war when that was not the case.
...
John Sopko, the head of the federal agency that conducted the interviews, acknowledged to The Post that the documents show “the American people have constantly been lied to.”

NO FUCKING SHIT!

Anybody with half a functioning brain saw this coming seventeen years ago, when this latest iteration of a South Asian war began. It was patently obvious that the government in Afghanistan from the day that the Taliban was kicked out was corrupt, through and through. We have been sending over pallets of cash, both to the kleptocrats in Afghanistan and to our frenemies in Pakistan. We shoveled a shitload of aid to Pakistan, a country that provided aid, succor and shelter to our enemies.

For what? There may be talks between high-level Taliban and our government, but the middle-level Talibanistas, the ones on the ground, are not terribly interested in negotiating. The fighting goes on.

Just like the last war we fought in South Asia, our government and our military have consistently and continually lied about the progress of the war and the prospect of establishing a stable, self-sustaining government. As I wrote, nine years ago:

Let me be clear on this: My operating premise is that every word spoken by Ft. Fumble, Centcom and the ISAF regarding the Afghan War is a lie, including the words "and" and "the", unless proven otherwise. In that regard, at least, there is not much of a difference between MAVC and IASF.

Toljaso.