Deep Politics Forum

NERMEEN SHAIKH: We turn now to what Rolling Stone magazine calls "The Afghanistan Report the Pentagon Doesn't Want You to Read." It's called "The "Dereliction of Duty II: Senior Military Leaders' Loss of Integrity Wounds Afghan War Effort," and it was written by Army Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Davis, who returned in October from his second year-long deployment in Afghanistan.

In the report's opening lines, Davis writes, quote, "Senior ranking U.S. military leaders have so distorted the truth when communicating with the U.S. Congress and American people in regards to conditions on the ground in Afghanistan that the truth has become unrecognizable."

Part of the report was published in The Armed Forces Journal in an article called "Truth, Lies and Afghanistan." In an interview on The Alyona Show, Davis explained what motivated him.

LT. COL. DANIEL DAVIS: The job that I had there wasrequired me to travel all over the country and to talk to soldiers at every level, from the highest commander to the lowest 19-year-old private. And what I saw out there, over time, especially wasbegan to be clear was so different than what the public assertions are, that I started to have, you know, some moral problems with it. But that turned into something more when I started seeing the results of men dying as a result of this, in missions that made no sense and were then later characterized as big successes, when in fact they were not. In later in the summer, a couple of guys, in particular, that I had met were killed in action a couple of weeks later. And thatthat drives it home pretty strong to you, toward the end of the summer.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: That was Army Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Davis. Rolling Stone magazine published his full 84-page analysis this weekend, which was not approved for release by the military. In it, Davis says local Afghan governments are unable to provide the basic needs of the people and that insurgents control virtually all parts of Afghanistan beyond eyeshot of a U.S. base.

The Army responded to his piece by saying Davis was entitled to his opinion, adding that Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has, quote, "very strong confidence in his commanders in Afghanistan, as they provide assessments of what's happening on the ground in the war."

AMY GOODMAN: To talk more about the implications of the report, we're going to Washington, D.C., to speak with Michael Hastings, contributing editor at Rolling Stone magazine who obtained a copy of the full report and published it Friday. Hastings's new book is The Operators: The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America's War in Afghanistan.

Michael, it's great to have you back on Democracy Now! Talk about how you got a hold of the report. And what do you think are the most significant observations of Davis?

MICHAEL HASTINGS: Well, thanks for having me back. Really appreciate it.

In terms of how I got a hold of the report, Scott Shane at the New York Times had done this original story, a really excellent job of laying out Lieutenant Colonel Davis's story in the New York Times last week, at the beginning of last week. And in the story, it mentioned that there were two reports. There was this 84-page unclassified report that Davis had submitted to the Pentagon and other places, as well as a classified report that he had also submitted, that no one has seen yet. And so, when I learned of this, I was interested to try to get a copy of it, and so I decidedI just, you know, poked around to see what would happen, and I ended up obtaining a copy of the report.

Now, why is this report significant? I think it's one of the most significant documents that we've seen from active-duty Army officer in terms of how they view the war in Afghanistan, even the war in Iraq. You can look at this as a significant document about the last 10 years of conflict in America. And it's not so much as what Colonel Davis is saying, though that's very important, too. It's the fact that you have a 17-year Army veteran, who's done four tourstwo in Afghanistan and two in Iraqwho has decided to risk his entire careerbecause he has two-and-a-half more years left before he gets a pensionbecause he feels that he has a moral obligation to do so. And that, to mewhat he says is very, very important, and I recommend anyone who's interested to take a look and really dive deep into this report. But as important is the fact that who's saying ithe just came back from Afghanistanis as important as what he's saying.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: One of the things he says, Michael Hastings, he talks about the fact that military leaders have consistently said that the surge, Obama's surge, reduced the number of attacks on U.S. soldiers and significantly weakened the insurgency. Can you talk a little bit about some of the things that he mentions, some of the figures in the report that he mentions, that belie that claim?

MICHAEL HASTINGS: Right. I mean, one of the interesting thingsone of the correlations we've seen in what happens in Afghanistan is that the more NATO and Western and American troops that get put in, the higher the violence rate is, right? And once we start taking troops out, the violence goes down. And you see this as a direct kind of correlation. So what does that tell you? On the one hand, it says that much of the fighting is not in fact related to this sort of global war on terrorthat's the framework we're still sort of looking inbut it's related to the fact that there is a foreign army in another country and the people there are resisting it. So that's one of the sort of basic takeaways.

The other sort of strange, you know, Orwellian paradox of all of this is that the senior military leadershipGeneral David Petraeus, General McChrystal, General John Allenwhat they always say is, "Look, if the violence is going up, that means it's working, because we're getting in and fighting in places that we haven't been before," right? And when the violence goes down, they say, "Oh, that means we're working, too." So, no matter what the outcome is, all we've heard is the same message of "We're winning. We're winning. We're winning." You know, a couple months ago, I called it the Charlie Sheen strategy. You know, it'sof winning. You just keep saying it, and you hope someone believes it. But that's what Colonel Davis lays out. And he takes, in fact, quotes from commanders over a significant amount of time, and he compares that to what's actually happening. And what he demonstrates, very ably, is that the message that we're winning, they've been saying this now for six years, eight years, 10 years, when in fact things have gotten progressively worse.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, the latest news we have, Michael Hastings, top of our newscast today: U.S.-led NATO force in Afghanistan apologizing for an air strike last week that killed eight young Afghan children. Local residents blamed NATO, but it took days for NATO to admit fault. Put this together with the latest kerfuffle over the Defense Secretary Leon Panetta saying when the U.S. would leave and then that being taken back by other administration officials.

MICHAEL HASTINGS: Well, OK, in terms of the withdrawal date, right? This is key. 2014and there's been, I think, I believe, a significant shift on this policy. So, the idea is that American forces are supposed to sort ofcombat forces are supposed to get out by 2014, and there would be about six to eight thousand Western troops left, right? Now, the Pentagon and NATO had been pushing very, very hard to extend us past 2014. And it seemed that the Obama's administration was going along with that. But what we've seen over the past nine, 10, 11 months is this kind of pulling back from that and saying, no, 2014 is when we're really going to wrap it up.

But yeah, I mean, again, you know, another NATO air strike that kills another bunch of civilians, and, you know, they apologize. I mean, it's this vicious cycle. We know exactlywhether it's the Marine video that we saw recently of, you know, marines urinating on the Taliban or the other video of marines posing in front of the Nazi SS symbol or this other air strike, look, you know, even if it's just one or two air strikes, those have a profound impact on the local public opinion, right? So, NATO and ISAF says, "Look, we don't do this all the time. Mistakes happen." But that'syou can say that, but then, in fact, if you actually have to deal with that in your own community, it's a much more difficult thing to stomach. And the longer we're there, you know, the more things like that are going to happen.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Michael Hastings, one of the things that Lieutenant Colonel Davis also is very critical of is the likelihood that the Afghan National Army or the Afghan National Police can take over security once the U.S. has withdrawn. Can you say a little about that?

MICHAEL HASTINGS: Sure. We're spending $11.6 billion a year to train the Afghan National Army and Afghan police, or ANSF, for Afghan National Security Forces. We've been doing this now for a number of years. And the idea is that we willas we draw down, the Afghans will stand up. They don't use that phrasethat's what they use in Iraqbut essentially that's the idea.

Now, what Colonel Davis is reporting and what we've seen from every other report is that, in fact, all this money we're spending ismuch of it's going to waste. There's pervasive drug problems, Taliban infiltrationyou know, you go down the listdiscipline problems, people not showing up. So, in fact, there's an amazing moment in Colonel Davis's report where he says that almost all the Afghan forces that he visited have different pacts themselves with the Taliban aboutso they don't actually want to fight each other. So, what does that tell you, right? And I witnessed that firsthand in Afghanistan, where I was with an Afghan unit, and they knew the Taliban would attack, because one of their friends in the Taliban would call and be like, "Hey guys, we're attacking tonight."

So, what does it say that we're spending $11.6 billion to build a proxy army in Afghanistan, essentially, that's going to be barely functional without our support? I mean, I think people can draw their own conclusions. On the other hand, you know, you can make the argument that, well, you need to do something, and, you know, you need to stand up some sort of security force. But the question is, you know, is it effective? Is it a good use of our resources? And how the heck is that going to prevent another September 11th?

NERMEEN SHAIKH: One of the things that Lieutenant Davis has called for, at the end of his report, is a congressional investigation into how the war is being conducted. What do you think the likelihood is that either the House or the Senate Armed Services Committee will conduct such an investigation?

MICHAEL HASTINGS: I would put the likelihood at about 1 percent, probably. I mean, to be honest, I mean, I think hearings are necessary. I think we have to come to terms with both where our Afghan strategy is going and where itand how we got there. I mean, we could do for a sort of other Pentagon Papers-type examination of our policy. Now, what could happenand I think this is more likelyis that over the next few months you see sort of an Afghan study group form with high levelsmembers of Congress sort of getting together and figuring out a better way to get out of Afghanistan, perhaps an accelerated withdrawal.

It's going to be very difficult for any progressives or Democrats or antiwar folks in Congress to get any traction to kind of have these hearings. And the reason is because the progressives and the Democrats have been toldthis is according to my sourceshave been told by the White House, "Look, you know, we get it. You know, we are leaving. But, you know, it's an election year. You know, keep quiet about this." And Colonel Davis hears that argument. And from my understanding, he says, you know, "OK, that's all well and good, but, you know, that means three more years of fighting and hundreds, if not thousands, of more deaths."

AMY GOODMAN: What do you think will happen to Colonel Davis? You said that he is 17-and-a-half years into his 20-year service. This is incredibly brave. He's coming to the end, and he has released this. And how does this compare to another whistleblower, Lieutenant Colonel Michael Holmes?

MICHAEL HASTINGS: Well, OK, this is the key point, and this is where the bravery and courage and absolute, you know, moralLieutenant Colonel Davis is on the right side of history, and the fact that he believes in this and is willing to risk all that.

So, but here's what usually happens, in my experience with dealing with writing critical things about the Pentagon and dealing with whistleblowers in this case. Usually, you know, the whistleblower comes out, says something, you know, that the Pentagon doesn't want to hear, and then you'll havethe Pentagon's response is twofold. First they'll give a kind of on-the-record comment, as Nermeen read at the beginning of the segment, saying, "Oh, it's just his opinion." And then you'll have the much more insidious smear campaign, where unnamed Pentagon officials will go to enabling journalists, and basically they make stuff up, right? They say, "Oh, we heard this about Davis, this and that." And it's a total lie. So they try to undermine his credibility. That's the first step.

The second step is some sort of official retaliation. And we don't know if that is actually happening or not. We've seen there's been a report that the Pentagon is officially investigating Colonel Davis for, you know, security violations, which is completely bogus. But that sort of report is out there that no one has been able to confirm whether it's true. And so, the next step is to see what sort of retaliation the Pentagon is going to take. They could take it six months from now, they could take it a year from now and do it when no one's sort of paying attention. So, that is the real risk that he faces, is that once the media spotlight moves on, the Pentagon could retaliate.

In his favor, I would say, clearly, politically, it's notthe Pentagon does notI mean, the White House doesn't want to have this argument, you know, and if the Pentagon was smart, they wouldn't want to have this argument, either. If they were savvy and actuallyif they were sort of as savvy as, you know, they often pretend they are, they would, you know, say, "Colonel, got it. You know, we see your point. We appreciate your commentary. Let's move on." But unfortunately, they have a track record of kind of really petty retaliation over these sorts of issues.

AMY GOODMAN: Michael Hastings, we want to thank you for being with us, contributing editor at Rolling Stone magazine. His book is called The Operators: The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America's War in Afghanistan. Thanks so much for being with us.

CIA veteran John Kiriakou has become the sixth whistleblower charged by the Obama administration under the Espionage Act. That's more than all past administrations combined. In 2007, Kiriakou gave an on-camera interview to ABC News in which he disclosed that accused al-Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah was "waterboarded" and that waterboarding was torture. Kiriakou was one of the first CIA officers to label waterboarding as torture. He is also accused of leaking classified information to reporters. This is part of his 2007 interview with ABC's Brian Ross.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Suicide bombers in Afghanistan struck two government offices on Tuesday, killing at least 15 people, as militants step up their attacks with the arrival of warmer weather. Meanwhile, Afghanistan's defense minister has announced plans for a major reduction of Afghan military and police forces after the NATO mission there is set to end in 2014. The plan is based in part on an expected decline in foreign funding for the security forces, from $7 billion a year to about $4 billion. NATO's foreign forces are already being reduced.
As the war in Afghanistan continues into its 11th year, a damning report from a military insider finds conditions on the ground bear no resemblance to statements made by senior U.S. military officials. Army Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Davis, who returned in October from his second year-long deployment in Afghanistan, conducted about 250 interviews with U.S. soldiers, as well as with Afghans across the country, traveling over 9,000 miles during his deployment.
Part of the report was published in the Armed Forces Journal in an article called "Truth, Lies and Afghanistan." In the opening lines, Davis writes, quote, "Senior ranking US military leaders have so distorted the truth when communicating with the US Congress and American people in regards to conditions on the ground in Afghanistan that the truth has become unrecognizable." Davis argues that local Afghan governments are unable to provide the basic needs of the people and that insurgents control virtually all parts of Afghanistan beyond eyeshot of a U.S. base.
AMY GOODMAN: Michael Hastings of Rolling Stone magazine first obtained Davis's full 86-page report and published it online in February. Democracy Now! spoke to Hastings about the report.
AMY GOODMAN: Michael Hastings of Rolling Stone magazine, who first published Lieutenant Colonel Davis's 86-page report.
Meanwhile, the Associated Press reported Tuesday at least 1,800 members of the U.S. military have died in Afghanistan since the U.S. invasion in October 2001.
To talk more about Afghanistan, Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Davis joins us now from Washington, D.C. He's an active-duty serving Army officer assigned to the Pentagon and a 17-year Army veteran. Davis has been deployed into combat zones four times in his career. He has been a frequent contributor to major publications in the U.S. and around the world. Later this month, Davis will be awarded the Ridenhour Prize for Truth-Telling. The award, sponsored by the Nation Institute and the Fertel Foundation, honors whistleblowers and truth-tellers in American life.
Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Davis , we welcome you to Democracy Now! Can you tell us what were the most startling findings in your report?
LT. COL. DANIEL DAVIS: Well, I think it's pretty clear that when you read, as I did in the months leading up to my deployment, which began in November of 2010, you know, that things are on the improve, things are getting better, the surge was having success, that the Afghan National Security Forces were improving, etc. Then when you arrive on the ground, then you're very hopeful to see evidence of those things. I was on record in the Armed Forces Journal and several other publications prior to this deployment, where I had acknowledged and warned that things were not going well. I had hoped that the leaders knew things that I didn't know and that when I got on the ground, I would discover things that I had not seen that would in fact confirm that things were going well. And I was very hopeful of that, becauseI'll be very blunt and tell youI have no personal interest in, quote, "being right," as I do to see the United States succeed and to certainly to bring a war to an end to where Americans aren't getting killed, Afghan people are not getting killed. So nothing would have made me happier than to get there and to find out that things were in fact getting better. Regrettably, however, that is not at all what I saw.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Lieutenant Colonel Davis, can you say a little about the scope of your report? You interviewed a large number of U.S. soldiers, 250, as well as Afghans. Can you say a little bit about the Afghans you spoke to and the Americans that you spoke to in Afghanistan?
LT. COL. DANIEL DAVIS: Yeah. You know, I will argue that I may have had the single best seat to really get an idea of what's going on in Afghanistan of anybody. And that may seem a little counterintuitive at first, because I'm a relatively mid-level-ranking soldier, and there's a lot higher, and there's a lot of other people that have greater access to certain locations, etc. But owing to the nature of my job and responsibilities there, which was to ensure that units had the kind of equipment that they needed to succeed, if they didn't have something, how tothat they needed to get it, etc., so my job was to travel around all over the country and talk to leaders at every level, from the division commander or what's called a regional command, in this case, two-star generals, all the way down to brigade commanders, battalion company platoon leaders, all the way down to the soldiers that are going out on patrol. I'm high enough in rank to where some of the senior officers wouldyou know, would talk to me and tell me what they really thought about things, because they had an incentive to tell me ground truth, because, you know, the idea was towhat can we do to help your troops out in the field? And obviously, the guys out in the field also had an incentive to tell me exactly what was going on, as well. And I'm not so high in rank that any of them would be intimidated by me, and they had motivation to tell me, you know, ground truth so that I could perhaps help them get some equipment or gear that they needed in order to do their job more effectively and to be able to stay alive, which, incidentally, was one of the bright points, I guess, in this deployment, because I was able to do things that, you know, would actually help keep troops alive. And that was very rewarding to me. Unfortunately, it was almost working at cross-purposes when I saw the things going on.
So, I didn't want to just go to offices and talk to people. I didn't want to just go to brigade commands and that kind of thing. But I wanted tofirst, to do that, but then also to go out where the things are happening, you know, to go outside the wire, to go on dismounted patrols, to go on mounted patrols, to attend some coalition patrols, to talk to thewhat's called the key leader engagements, where we visited with the Afghan leaders, with the Afghan people. And I was able to do parts of all those in virtually every important part of Afghanistan over the course of 12 months, from the north to the east to the southeast and into the south of the country. So I really had a good view to be able to say what's going on out there, I believe.
AMY GOODMAN: You issued two reports: a classified report and an unclassified report. Talk about the difference between them.
LT. COL. DANIEL DAVIS: Well, the difference between them is more in substanceor rather, more in criteria, I suppose, than in substance, meaning that the end result of both of them and the conclusion that they draw are basically the same. So, if you only have access to the unclassified document, you still get a real good idea of what's going on. The purpose of putting the classified version together was that the disparity between what is said and what was known at the time things were said is considerably starker than in the unclassified versions, as may be obvious. And so, you know, periodically, you've heard some senior leaders say, "Well, if you knew the classified information, then, you know, this would be much more clear, but I can't talk about that," you know, kind of hiding behind a curtain so that no one could ask any further questions. And I didn't want that defense to be able to be leveled, and so that's why I wanted to make certain that members of Congress had this report, so that they could see for themselves that in fact things are not the way they were portrayed, and what you see in public is actually less stark than what is known in private.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Lieutenant Colonel Davis, in your report you give several examples of concrete instances in which what you saw makes it clear that what U.S. military officials have been saying is untrue. So could you give us one or two examples of that?
LT. COL. DANIEL DAVIS: Yeah, sure. As a kind of a table setter, any time a counterinsurgencyif you're going to go into one and to try to win it, there are several things that have to happen, and all of them have to happen to one degree or another. Number one is that the host nation government has to be at least minimally capable, within cultural norms. The local security forces have to be minimally capable to be able to handle the security environment that exists, whatever that happens to be. The people of the country have to be supportive of the host nation military forces and government. And the enemy forces, the insurgent force, has to be at least knocked down enough to where they can eventually be handled by the local forces alone. All of those things have to happen to one degree or another. And as I'll argue, virtually none of them are the case in Afghanistan.
Now, we've certainly read numerous reports and been given press briefings and whatnot by numerous folks that have very high-ranking collars, that that in fact is happening, that things are on track, that we're, you know, trending in the right direction, that we're on the right azimuth, is one of the other famous comments and whatnot. So, if that's true, then you would expect to see evidence of that on the ground. As I'veyou may have mentioned earlier in this broadcast, I was first deployed to Afghanistan in 2005, so I had a baseline observation of what things were like in Afghanistan several years ago. And so, when I go into it now in late 2010 and early 2011, then I, first of all, see a dramatic difference between what I saw then and what I saw in the second half.
Thirdly, if what has been said is true, that things are trending better, then you would expect to see, through numerous observations in different parts of the country, looking at the Afghan security forces, that you would be able to see some improvement, that you would be able to see some competency, some going on. Now, nobody expects the Afghan security forces to ever be anything close to resembling what the U.S. armed forces is, so that's not the standard. As some have claimed, you know, it's an "Afghan good enough." And I wouldn't dispute that. But it has to be an "Afghan good enough." And I will argue that it's not an "Afghan good enough" right now.
So, first of all, we'll take up in the northern part of the country, the northeastern part, in Kunar province. I went up there on a couple of different occasions and, in both cases, went out on dismounted patrols and mountedand a combination of mounted and dismounted with the U.S. troops. In one particular case, we went to the farthest north checkpoint that the United States Army had at that time. And we had received a report that about two-and-a-half hours before our arrival there, the Afghan police detachment had been attacked by the Taliban. So we went and had a key leader engagement with the company commander of that detachment. And through an interpreter, he was explaining, you know, what had happened, etc. And this isas you may know, Kunar is a very mountainous, very sharp relief in the mountains in the way they're steep, etc. And he was explaining where the attack had come from. And so, through the interpreter, I ask him, I said, "Well, where did they come from exactly?" And he pointed tothere's a series of peaks that you could see going off into the distance. And he said, "Well, they were on that mountain right there." And I said, "Well, what's your standard procedure when youwhen this happens? I mean, do you form up a patrol, and do you go after them? Do you conduct periodic harassing patrols? I mean, what is your reaction?" And the interpreter started interpreting, and theas soon as he got to that question, the commander's head whipped around, looked at him, he looked back at me and, literally, laughed in my face and said, "Well, no, of course we don't go after them. That would be dangerous." And, you know, if you see some of the looks of some of the U.S. soldiers around, they're just kind of rolling their eyes. They're goingsubsequently, they say, "That's the normal procedure. These guys don't ever leave the checkpoint." Well, you can imagine how hard it is for the bad guys if the good guys don't ever leave the base. I mean, they have virtual free rein of the place. And one of the questions I ask him, I said, "Is this unusual" of the Americans, "Is this unusual, or is this how it is?" They go, "Oh, no, this isI mean, this isbasically, what you see is what you get. I mean, this is as good as it gets up here."
And that's another important point that I would like to point out, is that, you know, anyone can find a vignette of something to prove a point. "Well, I saw this. It was great. And so, ergo, everybody's great." Or, "This one was bad, and everything's horrible." What I did, over my course of this 12 months, is that I've been in many places, as I said, 9,000 miles total travel throughout there. And when I saw virtually the same kind of thing in every section of the country, it didn't matter whether it was, you know, all along the Pakistan border, down into the important south, in Kandahar province, in numerous places, and you saw virtually the same capability, the same performance, every time you went out there. And so, it's no longer just a vignette, but it's become a clear pattern. And then, when you see that does line up with other reports, then that's when you start to see, OK, this is indicative of what's really going on out here.
AMY GOODMAN: We're talking to Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Davis. The serving Army officer assigned to the Pentagon has come out with a report accusing top U.S. military officials of misleading the American public about the war in Afghanistan. He'll be awarded the Ridenhour Prize for Truth-Telling in Washington, D.C., this month. This is Democracy Now! We'll come back to our discussion with the Lieutenant Colonel in a moment.
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AMY GOODMAN: Our guest is Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Davis, active-duty Army officer assigned to the Pentagon, has come out with several reports, a classified and unclassified report, says what the military is telling the American public is not true about the longest war in U.S. history, the war in Afghanistan. He'll be awarded the Ridenhour Prize in Washington, D.C., this month.
Lieutenant Colonel Danny Davis, you echoed a line of John Kerry, not when he was senator, but when he returned from Vietnam, when you say, "How many more men must die in support of a mission that is not succeeding?" Can you please continue with that thought?
LT. COL. DANIEL DAVIS: Yeah. You know, it's, frankly, the most painful thing and was the driver that led me to make these reports, because, I mean, I go out there, and I see these guys, and they do make you as proud as what you see, you know, on television and walking through the airports and all these praises we heap on these guys, and they have earned every one of those, because you see these guysyou know, the privates, the sergeants, lieutenants, the captains, you know, the guys who go outside the wire and do this fighting every dayand they are doing as professional a job and as terrific as you can possibly do under the circumstances. But when you're given a mission that cannotcannotsucceed militarily, then what is the purpose of the mission? I mean, why are we even doing this, if the United States is not benefited?
Now, look, I'll be the first to admit, and let me bluntly tell you, anyone who puts on the uniform in the United States military understands explicitly that you may one day have to put your life down. You may have to sacrifice your life in order to ensure the security and the safety of the United States and its citizens. And the vast majority of everybody who does that does so not simply willingly, but actually with a certain amount of pride, that you're doing something that matters, that keeps your country safe, and you're pleased to do that. As an officer and a leader, I know that I may have to give orders someday to accomplish American objectives that will result in the men that I give those orders to dying. And that's a very heavy thing, but it's something that I would not hesitate to do, you know, in the execution of my job. But
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Lastsorry.
LT. COL. DANIEL DAVIS: we have to be incredibly careful about giving those soldiers and those leaders missions to ask them to put people's lives at risk, to risk their own lives, when the United States is not going to be benefited militarily or any other way. That's a problem.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Last month, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan predicted the United States needs to prepare for heavy fighting during the upcoming year. General John Allen made the comment under questioning from Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Lieutenant Colonel Davis, what do you make of General John Allen's comments?
LT. COL. DANIEL DAVIS: Well, I mean, I'm not privy to what he'syou know, the rationale that he's using for his comments there, nor the knowledge of what he's planning to do, so, I mean, I frankly can't really discuss what he said.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: But can you comment on it in a general way vis-à-vis the comments that you make in your report about the efficacy of the U.S. military operation in Afghanistan, the effectiveness of the numbers of troops in Afghanistan and what they have succeeded in doing against the insurgency?
LT. COL. DANIEL DAVIS: Sure, yeah. A couple of key questions that I would have liked to have heard the senator ask, or any of the other senators, for that matter, is, OK, in order to what? What do we need those troops for? If the President's stated objectives, as he put forward and repeated on June 22nd of 2011 when he made the decision public that he's going to withdraw 10,000 in 2011 and another 23,000 this year, with the intent of transitioning to Afghan lead, etc., and then out by 2014in terms of that, if that's what the President said we're going to do, then what is the objective of the military campaign this summer and to go through the, quote, "fighting season" of 2013? What is it that you're intending to accomplish that you don't have accomplished right now? In other words, you know, I want to defeat the bad guys in location X, Y and Z and degrade them to some measurable amount in area W, or something to that effect.
But I haveI have been looking, very in detail, for those kinds of answers, you know, just in public statements, and all I keep hearing, especially among a lot of these pundits that seem to really be repeating a lot of these lines, you know, they say, "Oh, you know, we have to go through at least two more fighting seasons before we start drawing down." But I don't ever hear them say, in order to what? Why do we need to do that? And is it just some amorphous in order to diminish the Taliban? I mean, what sense does that make, in all honesty? If you're telling me that with 100,000 U.S. troops and about 50,000 NATO troops throughout the entire amount of time that we had the surge forces in there, if they were unable to materially degrade the Taliban, then what logic are you going to place that, as we're taking 33,000 out, as we're drawing down significant amounts of financial inputs, that suddenly the Afghan security forces, who have been unable to, with our help, to knock down the Taliban, are now suddenly going to be able to do it on their own? I don't see the logic in that, frankly.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Last year, President Obama announced a plan to gradually decrease troops in Afghanistan, implying in fact that the 2009 troop surge had put the U.S. in a position of strength.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Lieutenant Colonel Davis, why do you think that the 2009 troop surge was not a success in Afghanistan?
LT. COL. DANIEL DAVIS: Well, I made this argument in 2009, that I argued against having the surge then, because I said that there'sit's not even close to being enough. There was a paper, which is onstill available on the Small Wars Journal, I believe, website and a number of others out there; it was called "Go Big or Go Deep." And in that, I examined thewhat I called the "Go Big" plan, which is what General McChrystal was recommending at that time, which is what they ended up following. I said, if weif we execute this mission, here are the things we can expect, and here's the risks that we incur when we do this. And one of the risks that I talked about was the number of troops.
I heard General Jackretired General Jack Keane the other dayI believe it was on Fox Newsarguing that, you know, basically the President hamstrung the operation from the beginning, because he only gave General McChrystal 30,000 instead of the 40,000 we need, which, he says, caused us to not be able to go after the north and theI'm sorry, the south and the east at the same time, but we had to sequentially do it instead of concurrently executing the plan, and so now, then, you know, we have to pivot from the south over to the east at this point to try to basically knock out the insurgency instead of doing it together.
That was ridiculous, from the beginning, and it's even more so now. Forty thousand was never enough. Maybe 100,000 additional troops might have given you the ability to militarily pacify the insurgency. Now, of course, if you had that, then you incur all kinds of additional problems with theyou know, the foreigners and going into more places and causing basically the rise of Taliban in areas where they weren't before even to a larger extent, so thatI'm not advocating that was the answer; in fact, I was advocating the opposite: don't put those troops in there. But 40,000, if you want to militarily pacify, was never enough. And that was graphically demonstrated to me as I went through the country to see, you know, where the troops or the surge troops were and where they weren't. And so, you couldn't do it with 40,000. So, there, again, you ask the question: what was it they were trying to accomplish? Because in my professional and personal opinion, basically what we did was tactical activity. We went on patrols, we went on attack missions, etc., but never enough to actually turn the tide militarily. And we now see graphically that's exactly what didn't happen.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to ask you about the American soldier accused of killing 17 Afghan civilians and his claim of suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. According to his lawyer, the alleged shooter, U.S. Army Staff Sergeant Robert Bales, doesn't remember the massacre. This is his lawyer, John Henry Browne, speaking after meeting Bales in their first face-to-face meeting.
AMY GOODMAN: You were in, Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Davis, Panjwai province, where this took place.
LT. COL. DANIEL DAVIS: I was.
AMY GOODMAN: Your thoughts on this mass killing?
LT. COL. DANIEL DAVIS: Well, I mean, look, let me just flat out and unequivocally say that if this guy did exactly what he's accused of, then he deserves the harshest punishment he can, just because of the gross violation of just the most basic of human rights to all of those innocent Afghan people and as well as putting his fellow troopers in considerably more danger. So I have no sympathy for him. It doesn't matter what may have happened to him. He put more people in danger, and he took the lives of children. And, I mean, I'm just going to be blunt: I got no sympathy for that.
AMY GOODMAN: Why have you decided to come forward now, Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Davis, coming out with this report, asking why the U.S. isn't out of Afghanistan now? Why are you speaking out now?
LT. COL. DANIEL DAVIS: I'll tell you. I can answer that very clearly. And I mentioned this to a number of the folks that I worked with during the time in there, as I continued to see report after report of, you know, success and "we're winning" and "we're doingyou know, making remarkable progress," you know, these incredible superlatives used to describe our mission there, which were so far afield from what was going on, and yet men that I saw and met during my time there were subsequently killed in action, and others that I don't know but that I would read stories about, and I see that men are now dead, and I don't know why they're dead. I don't know what benefit my country derived from the loss of their life. And, of course, I'm thinking about those, you know, thousands who areright now, as we're having this conversation, there are thousands of Americans who are alive, full of body, full of hope, full of dreams, want to accomplish many things, have families, etc., who, known but to God, are marked for either death or wounding or having their limbs blown off or their genitals blown off in between now and this so-called end of fighting season 2013. And if you can't tell me that they're going to gain some benefit for my country, I just morally cannot keep quiet.
I mean, the Army is built on what's called the Army Seven Values, and it's so important that we constantly reinforce thoseyou know, honor, integrity, moral courage, you know, those kinds of things that need to animate everything that you do. And one of the things we're taught is that, you know, if you see something that's wrong, you've got to have the moral courage to do something about it. And in my view, this fell right into that category. So, you know, loyalty is one of those values, and I believe that Imy loyalty to the soldiers in the service who are still alive and who are still not wounded, but will notwill lose their lives or will lose their limbs or beyou know, suffer casualties and wounds in between now and then, I just owed it to them to do whatever I could to try to bring light to this, so that we can avoid that, if at all possible.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: How did your colleagues respond, though, once news of your report came out? And how did senior U.S. military officials respond?
LT. COL. DANIEL DAVIS: Well, I'll tell you. In terms of the communications that I received, whether notes on my website or emails sent directly to me, scores of themall but two of them were extremely supportiveI mean extremely supportivewhich, you know, really encouraged me. And most of those were senior enlisted guys, sergeants, first sergeants, or junior officers, you know, captains, lieutenants, a number of enlisted guys. And I was really, you know, heartened by that, you know, because they said, "Well, at least somebody finally stood up and said what we all see," kind of thing. I did know that the higher up in rank you went, then the lower the percentage of folks that, you know, said, "Good job."
And in terms of the senior leaders, look, I've got to give some credit where it's due. Early on, I was told that one of the general officers that was in charge of the area where I worked put outand my direct O6 colonelput out that there would be no adverse action taken, that this guy has got a job to do here at the Pentagon, and he's going to continue doing it, and he's not going to have any security, you know, issues revoked or anything like that. And they have donethey have kept their word on that, and they deserve some credit for that, because they could have taken a different course of action. They could have tried to shut me up. They could have done a lot of things. And I give credit for that. So, you know, fortunately, all is not bad.

Can you believe that I almost feel sorry for the American military?

In Afghanistan, the US military has tried training sessions, embedded cultural advisers, recommended reading lists, and even a video game designed to school American troops in local custom. But 11 years into the war, NATO troops and Afghan soldiers are still beset by a dangerous lack of cultural awareness, officials say, contributing to a string of attacks by Afghan police and soldiers against their military partners. Fifty-one coalition troops have been killed this year by their Afghan counterparts. While some insider attacks have been attributed to Taliban infiltrators, military officials say the majority stem from personal disputes and misunderstandings.

So the Afghan army is trying something new, most likely with American input: a guide to the strange ways of the American soldier. The goal is to convince Afghan troops that when their Western counterparts do something deeply insulting, it's likely a product of cultural ignorance and not worthy of revenge. The pamphlet they've produced includes the following advice:

"Please do not get offended if you see a NATO member blowing his/her nose in front of you."
"When Coalition members get excited, they may show their excitement by patting one another on the back or the behind. They may even do this to you if they are proud of the job you've done. Once again, they don't mean to offend you."
"When someone feels comfortable in your presence, they may even put their feet on their own desk while speaking with you. They are by no means trying to offend you. They simply don't know or have forgotten the Afghan custom." (Pointing the soles of one's shoes at someone is considered a grievous insult in Afghanistan.)
The guide also warns Afghan soldiers that Western troops might wink at them or inquire about their female relatives or expose their private parts while showering all inappropriate actions by Afghan standards.5

Hmmm. I wonder if the manual advises telling Afghan soldiers that urinating on dead Afghan bodies, cutting off fingers, and burning the Koran are all nothing more than good ol' Yankee customs, meaning no offense of course.

And does it point out that no Afghan should be insulted by being tortured in an American military prison since the same is done at home to American prisoners.

Most importantly, the Afghan people must be made to understand that bombing them, invading them, and occupying them for 11 years are all for their own good. It's called "freedom and democracy".

I almost feel sorry for the American military in Afghanistan. As I've written about the US soldiers in Iraq, they're "can-do" Americans, accustomed to getting their way, habituated to thinking of themselves as the best, expecting the world to share that sentiment, and they're frustrated as hell, unable to figure out "why they hate us", why we can't win them over, why we can't at least wipe them out. Don't they want freedom and democracy? ... They're can-do Americans, using good ol' American know-how and Madison Avenue savvy, sales campaigns, public relations, advertising, selling the US brand, just like they do it back home; employing media experts, psychologists, even anthropologists ... and nothing helps. And how can it if the product you're selling is toxic, inherently, from birth, if you're ruining your customers' lives, with no regard for any kind of law or morality, health or environment. They're can-do Americans, used to playing by the rules theirs; and they're frustrated as hell.