Insiders reveal the shameful truth about Afghanistan: the war wasn't 'doomed', just bungled
on: January 02, 2022
Britain’s armchair generals may have mixed feelings on reading The Ledger, David Kilcullen and Greg Mills’s new book on the West’s botched mission in Afghanistan. On the one hand, it’s probably the best insider account yet on why the mission failed, written by two of the coalition’s most experienced advisers. On the other, the authors are no fans of the “tweed-wearing, pipe-smoking” commentariat who opined witheringly as Kabul fell to the Taliban last August.
Few of the pundits who spouted lofty clichés about Afghanistan being the “graveyard of empires” had ever spent much time there, they say. For if they had, they would never describe the coalition mission as being doomed from the outset. Instead, the authors argue, the truth is far worse: the task in Afghanistan “was absolutely achievable… but we screwed up the effort from start to finish”.
This is a bold claim, but the authors have the credentials to make it. Kilcullen, a former Australian infantryman, is regarded as one of the world’s leading counter-insurgency experts, having advised US General David Petraeus in Iraq. Mills, a South African academic, is a governance expert who has served four terms advising the coalition mission in Kabul.
https://www.theportal-center.com/2022/01/insiders-reveal-the-shameful-truth-about-afghanistan-the-war-wasnt-doomed-just-bungled/
