Small Wars Journal

U.S. Troops Have Not 'Died in Vain’ in Afghanistan, Joint Chiefs Chairman Says

Fri, 12/20/2019 - 4:54pm

U.S. Troops Have Not 'Died in Vain’ in Afghanistan, Joint Chiefs Chairman Says by Shawn Snow - Military Times

The top U.S. military leader on Friday pushed back against recent reports and criticisms that American military and government leaders deceived the public about the state of the war in Afghanistan.

“I don’t think anyone has died in vain,” Army Gen. Mark Milley, the Joint Chiefs Chairman said Friday.

“I could not look myself in the mirror. I couldn’t answer myself at two to three in the morning when my eyes pop open and see the dead roll in front of my eyes," Milley said during a press briefing at the Pentagon.

On Dec. 9, the Washington Post published a bombshell story of comments made by U.S. officials as part of a project led by John Sopko known as “Lesson Learned” about the war in Afghanistan, which revealed that American officials often pushed publicly rosy assessments and misleading statistics to drum up political support for the conflict…

Read on.