International

According to United States Colonel Daniel Davis, the army command is lying about the results of the war in Afghanistan. In an article in the Armed Forces Journal entitled ‘Trust, Lies and Afghanistan’, whistleblower Colonel Davis openly questions how many people will still have to die in an operation that has been wholly unsuccessful. SP Member of Parliament and international affairs spokesman Harry van Bommel has applauded the colonel for his openness and intends to raise Davis’s views this week during an evaluation of the Dutch operation in the Afghan province of Uruzgan.

According to Van Bommel, Colonel Davis knows what he’s talking about. “He has done two tours in Afghanistan and has patrolled eight provinces. For his article he talked to 250 soldiers, from ordinary enlisted men and women to divisional commanders, and also with the Afghan authorities. He is fed up with the leadership painting a false picture of the reality in Afghanistan.”

Davis insists that the military-tactical situation in the country has deteriorated in recent times from bad’ to ‘hopeless’. The area controlled by NATO’s troops often reaches no further than what they can see from their bases. Beyond that, the insurgents are in command. As for the Afghan security services, the lieutenant- colonel has little reassuring to say. From time to time they go so far as to make agreements with the Taliban not to fire on each other.

Van Bommel wants to hear Defence Minister Hans Hillen’s reaction to Davis’s views. “The Netherlands is basing its judgement of the situation in Afghanistan to a large extent on what we are told by the Pentagon,” he points out. “In our country too it seems a false picture is being drawn of progress in the war. That can’t be without consequences for NATO’s strategy in Afghanistan.”

Armed Forces Journal: Truth, lies and Afghanistan