US war in Afghanistan was ‘a failure from its very inception’: Analyst

The 20-year war in Afghanistan was “a failure from its very inception,” and the only people who profited from the war were American mercenaries, referred to as defense contractors, who made trillions of dollars on the war, American author and political analyst Daniel Kovalik has said.

Kovalik, an academic at the University of Pittsburgh, made the remarks in an interview with Press TV while commenting on the recent statements of Mark Milley, the chairman of the on Joint Chiefs of Staff, on America’s longest war.  

In his first congressional testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee members on Tuesday, Miley called the war in Afghanistan a “strategic failure”.  He added, “There’s no way else to describe that.”

Then on Wednesday, Miley doubled down on his assessment. He said, "It is clear. It is obvious to all of us, that the war in Afghanistan did not end on the terms we wanted, with the Taliban in power in Kabul. The war was a strategic failure.”

He told the Senate committee that the US war “wasn't lost in the last 20 days or even 20 months,” but it was “lost” through decisions spanning 20 years.

“There's a cumulative effect to a series of strategic decisions that go way back,” said the 63-year-old general, the top military advisor to President Joe Biden, who ordered an end to the two-decade US troop presence in Afghanistan.

Pentagon's top brass grilled over Afghanistan retreat

The Pentagon

“In many ways, the 20-year war in Afghanistan was a failure from its very inception.  The problem, as was confirmed by the ‘Afghanistan Papers,’ was that the US had no idea why it was thereafter it quickly overthrew the Taliban,” Kovalik told Press TV.   

“US officials kept telling the American people that we were close to victory when privately they did not know what victory even looked like.  And so, all the US managed to do was to destroy Afghanistan and convert it into a narco-state. The only people who really made out on the war were the defense contractors who made trillions on America’s war and who never cared if the US ever ‘won’ the war,” he stated.  

“The key for them was to keep the war going at all costs, and they succeeded quite well in this. And so, in the end, the American people lost trillions of dollars that could have been used on human needs and infrastructure, thousands of American soldiers lost their lives and hundreds of thousands of Afghans lost theirs.  But the defense industry won. Quite sickening!” he concluded.

Bush’s mercenaries profited from US war in Afghanistan: Report

American mercenaries, referred to as defense contractors, made massive profits from the 20-year US war in Afghanistan, according to a report.

The US invaded Afghanistan in October 2001 following the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. American forces occupied the country for about two decades on the pretext of fighting against the Taliban. But as the US forces left Afghanistan, the Taliban stormed into Kabul, weakened by continued foreign occupation.

Following the 9/11 attacks, the United States invaded and occupied Afghanistan, despite the fact that no Afghan was involved in the attacks. Hundreds of thousands of Afghans died in the US war on the country.

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