Nato report – an indictment of western policy in Afghanistan?
Two reports made public in the space of a few weeks add up to a damning and corroborative indictment of western policy in Afghanistan – to say nothing of Pakistan’s policy here.
The latest is a Nato-leaked report from some 27,000 interrogations of Afghan Taliban, foreign fighters and civilians; The other, a recent US National Intelligence Estimate from the CIA and 15 other US intelligence agencies.
The findings of both will surprise not one single Afghan. But they should give serious pause for thought because, given that senior military figures in the US and UK will have seen them, they offer a perspective that’s at variance to the one that commanders state publicly.
We’re told that the Taliban do not enjoy great support from the people of Afghanistan. Both this leak and the 100 page NIE assessment a few weeks ago suggest that this simply isn’t true.
We’re told that the troop ‘surge’ of last year has worked. This is a favourite Pentagon and MoD theme of this war. These reports suggest the Taliban is simply refusing to fight in many areas. Why should they – given that Nato is leaving?
Further, that in some areas they want Nato to leave. They effectively adopt a ceasefire so they can move in again,exert influence upon people willing to receive it, leaving them with only Afghan forces to deal with once Nato have gone.
We’re told that the Afghan Army and Afghan National Police are able to take up the strain (allowing the Americans to leave Afghanistan with some dignity). The mass of intelligence in both reports shows how Afghan forces are often selling weapons to the Taliban, declining to get in the way of them re-establishing their influence and sometimes openly siding with them tactically and strategically.
We’re told that the Afghan people do not want the Taliban or, as western eyes see it, their repressive justice system.
Once again these reports bear out what Afghans have told Channel 4 News countless times on and off camera: what the Afghan people desire above all is peace and stability and the Taliban delivered it.
People here rail not just against the endless war – but the endemic corruption of the kleptocratic government, full of warlords and killers and officials doing very well at lining their own pockets.
Whilst the west gets hot under the collar about stonings, public shootings and women being banned from education under the Taliban, not a few Afghans say they don’t give a damn about such things – or actively support them – if it means they can get through a working week in safety and not get ripped off by the state.
In short, what we have at last are two reports painting a reality neither the Pentagon, nor the MoD, nor the White House nor Downing Street wants to come out. They come from their intelligence agencies, their people, their officials, their data, their interrogations. And the findings chime precisely with a decade of personal reporting experience of this war.
As for Pakistan and ISI? An Afghan would just look at you with a puzzled expression. Didn’t everyone know Pakistan’s Intelligence Service has huge influence and control over the Afghan Taliban? Why do you ever think this is news?
Of course it is true. The only thing that has changed is that now we have it from two immensely detailed reports that no western government ever wanted their people to know about, still less their soldiers who have to go out and fight the war, even now.
You can follow Alex Thomson on Twitter @alextomo