*ISLAMABAD – Washington Post *report headlined:

“The Afghanistan Papers — A secret history of the war. At War With theTruth,” saying:

“US officials constantly said they were making progress. They were not, andthey knew it.” More on this below.

In its 19th year, endless unwinnable US war in Afghanistan is all aboutwanting the country used as a land-based aircraft carrier against Russia,China and Iran, Press TV has reported.

Potentially worth trillions of dollars, it’s about plundering Afghanmineral riches, including its barite, chromite, coal, cobalt, copper, gold,iron ore, lead, enormous amounts of highly-valued lithium and other rareearth metals vital for high tech products, natural gas, oil, precious andsemi-precious stones, potash, salt, sulfur, talc and zinc.

It’s about Washington’s strategic plan to control Central Asia’s vast oiland gas resources.

It’s about control sought over Eurasia, what Zbigniew Brzezinski oncecalled the “center of world power extending from Germany and Poland in theEast through Russia and China to the Pacific and including the Middle Eastand Indian subcontinent.”

It’s about drugs trafficking. Afghanistan is the world’s largest opiumproducer, used to produce heroin and other illicit opioids.

These drugs produce hundreds of billions of dollars in annual revenues – aUS government-supported bonanza for corrupt regime officials, the CIA,organized crime and Western financial institutions, heavily involved inmoney laundering.

Planned long before 9/11, US war in Afghanistan was lost years ago. In2012, US Lt. Col. Daniel Davis spent weeks in the country.

His unclassified report, no longer available online, said the following:

“How many more men must die in support of a mission that is not succeeding.”

“Senior ranking US military leaders have so distorted the truth whencommunicating with the US Congress and American people in regards toconditions on the ground in Afghanistan that the truth has becomeunrecognizable.”

“This deception has damaged America’s credibility among both our allies andenemies, severely limiting our ability to reach a political solution to thewar in Afghanistan.”

His classified report was more damning, saying:

“If the public had access to these classified reports, they would see thedramatic gulf between what is often said in public by our senior leadersand what is actually true behind the scenes.”

“It would be illegal for me to discuss, use, or cite classified material inan open venue, and thus I will not do so.”

He collected firsthand information from US commanders, subordinates, andlow-ranking soldiers.

He spoke at length with Afghan security officials, civilians and villageelders. What he learned bore no resemblance to official rosy scenarioaccounts.

Insurgent forces control “virtually every piece of land beyond eyeshot of aUS or International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) base,” he said.

Everywhere he visited, “the tactical situation was bad to abysmal.”

Afghanistan’s government can’t “provide for the basic needs of the people.”At times, local security forces collude with insurgents.

He “witnessed the absence of success on virtually every level.” Yet endlesswar continues to this day, despite US/Taliban no-peace/peace talks.

The US doesn’t negotiate. It demands all nations and groups like theTaliban bend to its will, how hegemons operate — part of its imperial aimfor unchallenged global dominance.

Col. Davis and the Washington Post exposed the illusion of a militarysolution in Afghanistan.[image: 17 years into Afghanistan War, US admits ‘Taliban not losing’]link17 years into Afghanistan War, US admits ‘Taliban not losing’linkSeventeen years after invading Afghanistan, the US military admits that thedevastating war has failed to bring the Taliban to the negotiation table.link

Yet from Bush/Cheney to Obama to Trump, pretending otherwise shut outreality — willfully deceiving the public, permitting trillions of dollarsto be poured down a black hole of endless waste, fraud and abuse.

Extensive firsthand evidence collected by the Washington Post “bring(s)into sharp relief the core failings of the war that persist to this day,”it said.

It belies years of Big Lies by US officials that progress on the ground wasbeing made. Polar opposite is true.

*The Washington Post:* “A confidential trove of government documentsobtained by The Washington Post reveals that senior US officials failed totell the truth about the war in Afghanistan throughout the 18-yearcampaign, making rosy pronouncements they knew to be false and hidingunmistakable evidence the war (was) unwinnable.”

Material collected includes “more than 2,000 pages of previouslyunpublished notes of interviews with people who played a direct role in thewar, from generals and diplomats to aid workers and Afghan officials.”

*The Washington Post* got information it revealed from a Freedom ofInformation Act “three-year legal battle” it won.

It contains interviews with “more than 400 insiders (that) offeredunrestrained criticism of what went wrong in Afghanistan and how the UnitedStates became mired in nearly two decades of warfare.”

Lt. General Douglas Lute was quoted, saying: “We were devoid of afundamental understanding of Afghanistan. We didn’t know what we weredoing,” adding:

“What are we trying to do here? We didn’t have the foggiest notion of whatwe were undertaking.”

The American people know nothing about “the magnitude of this dysfunction.Who will say this war was in vain?

*The Washington Post*: “Since 2001, more than 775,000 US troops havedeployed to Afghanistan, many repeatedly. Of those, 2,300 died there and20,589 were wounded in action,” citing war department figures, likely wayunderstated.

Col. Bob Crowley was quoted, saying: “Every data point was altered topresent the best picture possible.”

How much longer will state-sponsored deception continue about the Afghanwar?

How many more lives will be lost — notably Afghan civilians in harm’s way?

How much longer will endless unwinnable war continue?

How much more will be spent on “the grand illusion of the American cause” —what the CIA long ago called US defeat in Southeast Asia?[image: US has no intention of leaving Afghanistan: Analyst]linkLendman, born in 1934 in Boston, started writing on major world andnational issues began in summer 2005. In early 2007, radio hostingfollowed. Lendman now hosts the Progressive Radio News Hour on theProgressive Radio Network three times weekly. Distinguished guests arefeatured. Listen live or archived. Major world and national issues arediscussed. Lendman is a 2008 Project Censored winner and 2011 MexicanJournalists Club international journalism award recipient.link

Lendman’s newest book as editor and contributor is titled *”Flashpoint inUkraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”*