Senior ranking US military leaders have so distorted the truth when communicating with the US Congress and American people in regards to conditions on the ground in Afghanistan that the truth has become unrecognizable. This deception has damaged America’s credibility among both our allies and enemies, severely limiting our ability to reach a political solution to the war in Afghanistan. It has likely cost American taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars Congress might not otherwise have appropriated had it known the truth, and our senior leaders’ behavior has almost certainly extended the duration of this war. The single greatest penalty our Nation has suffered, however, has been that we have lost the blood, limbs and lives of tens of thousands of American Service Members with little to no gain to our country as a consequence of this deception.

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Lt. Col. Daniel Davis writes in “Dereliction of Duty II: Senior Military Leaders’ Loss of Integrity Wounds Afghan War Effort,” a damning 84-page report on how our military leaders have lied to Congress and the American people about what is really happening in Afghanistan.

The report, though unclassified and written for public consumption, was suppressed by the Pentagon. Rolling Stone obtained a copy of the full report and has decided to publish it in full.

An important thing to remember about Lt. Col. Davis: this is a man whose sense of integrity and honor was so offended by what he discovered that he felt he had no choice but to speak up. “I believe that with knowledge comes responsibility; I knew too much to remain silent,” he writes.

And there is this:

Further, those men in the forward battle areas have no choice. They will execute their mission no matter what, and spare no sacrifice in trying to accomplish their tactical tasks, irrespective how long the odds may be; the men and women who perform such remarkable service in the name of our country ought not have their valiant and occasionally heroic sacrifices be made without cause.

In the back of my mind, I had hoped that the deaths of my brothers and sisters in the armed forces, especially my Marines, would be in some sense be for something. Now, that something turned out to be a lie as well. All those lives lost since 2001 has been for naught.

Tags: politics Afghanistan news antiwar