Small Wars Journal

The Unspeakable War: The Conflict in Afghanistan is Going Badly

Sun, 05/12/2019 - 11:11pm

The Unspeakable War: The Conflict in Afghanistan is Going BadlyNew York Times Editorial

It’s easy to reach for metaphors to describe the war in Afghanistan — quagmire, money pit, a boulder that must be rolled up the Hindu Kush for eternity.

John Sopko, the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, told The Times this month that a recent decision by the Trump administration to stop releasing important metrics about the war — the size of the Taliban, for instance, or how many provinces they control — is akin to “turning off the scoreboard at a football game and saying scoring a touchdown or field goal isn’t important.”

Put another way, the American people are being kept more in the dark about the dismal state of the United States’ longest-running war, now in its 18th year…

Read on.