The Washington Post on 28 December 2013 headlined "Afghanistan Gains Will Be Lost Quickly After Drawdown, U.S. Intelligence Estimate Warns," and reported that, "The grim outlook is fueling a policy debate inside the Obama administration."
The three reporters there (Londono, DeYoung, and Miller) did not cite anyone for blame in this, other than CIA Director David Petraeus, for his having demanded his agency "to consult more closely with commanders on the ground," so as not to produce intelligence estimates that would be discouragingly pessimistic. "The directive was seen by some [at CIA] as an affront" to their independence.
This former general did not want the generals in Afghanistan to face morale problems among their troops. It's an understandable concern for a general, but not at all appropriate for a CIA Director. Petraeus, it seems, simply didn't understand that depressed morale among the troops, if it exists, is something that should be simply reported in an NIE (National Intelligence Estimate), but should not be a concern that would guide the writing of it -- what it reports.
Petraeus was an extremely poor pick to head the CIA, but he was the man that President Obama himself chose to do this job.
Of course, the CIA is no longer under Petraeus's control, and the new National Intelligence Estimate on Afghanistan is not being challenged as to its independence: to the contrary, it is said to be "grim."
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However, the problem with Obama's Afghanistan policy actually started early in this President's Administration.
Obama had run for the White House promising to escalate the war against Afghanistan's Taliban and Al Qaeda, and this is a promise that he kept, even though President Bush had already lost that war, by withdrawing troops from Afghanistan in order to fight in Iraq, and then by abandoning the Afghan people to their corrupt aristocracy or "warlords."
Obama was thus now embarking on a policy to take upon himself the blame for Bush's failure, to try to salvage that failure; but, instead, he made it even worse.
The U.S. was now backing a corrupt government, which was able to win re-"election" only by massive ballot-box stuffing. For example, on 2 September 2009, Dexter Filkins in The New York Times headlined "Tribal Leaders Say Karzai's Team Forged 23,900 Votes," and reported that in one district, Shorobak: "The ballot boxes were taken to Shorobak's district headquarters, where, Mr. Bariz [the district's governor] and other tribal leaders said, local police officers stuffed them with thousands of ballots. At the end of the day, 23,900 ballots were shipped to Kabul, Mr. Bariz said, with every one marked for President Karzai. "Not a single person in Shorobak District cast a ballot -- not a single person,' Mr. Bariz said," because Karzai's brother "detained the governor of Shorobak [Mr. Bariz], and shut down all of the district's 45 polling sites on election eve."
Of course, George W. Bush wouldn't have had any concern about theft of an election, except that it shouldn't have been done as crudely as this -- so obviously. But Obama? Obama simply continued on, with his escalation in Afghanistan, as if America's troops' constituting an alien invading "Christian" army in an impoverished Muslim country didn't matter -- not even if the only way to keep the puppet leader in power was at the butt of guns and tanks, such as here.
Even if Obama possessed tact in dealing with Americans, all that he seemed to offer the citizens of a place like Afghanistan was boundless faith in raw power. That's how he acted, at any rate. The Taliban were a curse, but so were the occupiers -- and the occupiers were aliens. In a tribal culture, this means a lot.
On 26 January 2010, Eric Schmitt headlined in The New York Times, "U.S. Envoy's Cables Show Worries on Afghan Plans," and he reported that, "The United States ambassador in Kabul [Karl Eikenberry] warned his superiors here [in Washington] in November that President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan "is not an adequate strategic partner' and "continues to shun responsibility for any sovereign burden,' according to a classified cable that offers a much bleaker accounting of the risks of sending additional American troops to Afghanistan than was previously known. ... "Sending additional forces will delay the day when Afghans will take over, and make it difficult, if not impossible, to bring our people home on a reasonable timetable,' he wrote Nov. 6. "An increased U.S. and foreign role in security and governance will increase Afghan dependence, at least in the short term.'" Eikenberry warned that Karzai "and much of his circle do not want the U.S. to leave and are only too happy to see us invest further."
President Obama ignored his envoy's warnings and advice.
Obama continued to pursue his war in Afghanistan, despite its having degenerated, from this moment forward, into a military occupation propping up a corrupt Afghan aristocracy. Of course, the United States is itself increasingly becoming also a corrupt aristocracy or kleptocracy, instead of the democracy that it originally (and long) had been; and perhaps Obama would never himself have become President if he were seen by America's conservative aristocrats as being a real threat to them; so, Obama was already compromised, at least at home. He was treating the Afghan people as if they would accept domination by a regime imposed by a "Christian" nation thousands of miles away.
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