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Congress: Listen to Lt. Col. Daniel Davis
The 17-year Army veteran risked his career by speaking out about the Afghanistan War
When Lt. Col. Daniel L. Davis returned from his second tour in Afghanistan, he knew that what he'd witnessed firsthand didn't match the rosy progress reports that top military officials were giving Congress.![](/sites/commondreams.org/files/resize/imce-images/lt_davis-350x224.jpg "Lt. Col. Daniel L. Davis said that in Afghanistan he "witnessed the absence of success on every level." (Photo via Project on Government Oversight)")
Lt. Col. Daniel L. Davis said that in Afghanistan he "witnessed the absence of success on every level." (Photo via Project on Government Oversight)
What Davis decided to do next could be called courageous or, perhaps, idealistic. The 17-year Army veteran put his career at risk by speaking out for what he felt was right — he publicly called out his superior officers on their assessments of the war.
Specifically, Davis alleged that top commanders had misled Congress and the public. He briefed four members of Congress on his version of events and sent reports he authored, one unclassified and the other classified, to the Department of Defense Inspector General.
Then, he took the extraordinary step of bringing his story to light: He did an interview with The New York Times and authored an op-ed for the Armed Forces Journal. His unclassified report was linked to by both Rolling Stone and the Times. With all of this national coverage of Davis' report, which alleged that senior military officials have lied to Congress about conditions on the ground, you would think that Congress would be jumping at the opportunity to hold hearings. At least six members of Congress have come forward publicly supporting Davis, but no hearings have been scheduled.
It's incredible that Congress has virtually ignored Davis' allegations that it's been misled. You might expect that the Foreign Affairs, Armed Services, or Intelligence Committees would jump at the chance to hold hearings on Afghanistan and ask Davis to testify. But you'd be wrong.
Why should we listen to Davis? He's a soft-spoken, unassuming soldier who was described in one evaluation as someone whose "devotion to mission accomplishment is unmatched by his peers." Davis also made the point that he is no "WikiLeaks guy part II"— he's made a concerted effort to protect classified information.
"Entering this [most recent] deployment, I was sincerely hoping to learn that the claims were true: that conditions in Afghanistan were improving, that the local government and military were progressing towards self-sufficiency," Davis wrote in his op-ed. "Instead, I witnessed the absence of success on every level."
In Davis' 84-page unclassified report, he outlined the misconduct he perceived among senior officials in Afghanistan after interviewing a reported 250 soldiers — from low-ranking 19-year-old privates to division commanders. He alleged that the March 2011 congressional testimony by Gen. David Petraeus on the surge in Afghanistan ranged from "misleading" to "completely inaccurate." Petraeus is now the director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
Additionally, according to Davis, the "inaccurate assigning of the reason for the 2007 Iraq surge's success had profound implications for our current war in Afghanistan and doubly so for the surge forces ordered by the President in late 2009." One senior ground commander who led much of the U.S. fight in Anbar province told Davis that "75 to 80 percent of the credit" for the success in Iraq's surge lay elsewhere.
A bipartisan group of representatives sent a letter on Feb. 14 urging House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to hold hearings on Davis' allegations because they are supported by the 2011 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Afghanistan. The 2011 NIE has not yet been declassified, but two members of Congress sent a letter to President Obama in February asking that he declassify it.
According to The New Yorker, which also called for the document's declassification: "[The NIE] is said to raise doubts about the authenticity and durability of the gains the military commanders believe they have made since Obama's troop surge began in 2009. The findings also raise questions about the Administration's strategy for leaving behind a stable Afghanistan."
The lawmakers' letter is on target. If taxpayers are to get a full picture of what's happening on the ground, Obama needs to declassify the National Intelligence Estimate. Additionally, whistleblowers like Davis shouldn't be dismissed once the media fanfare has died down. His allegations should be seriously considered in congressional hearings. With the cost of the Afghanistan War climbing far past the Obama administration's estimate, the public deserves to hear the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but.
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19 Comments so far
Show AllUnless we leave Afghanistan altogether, and there is no subsequent benefit to Western interests in terms of access to energy resources or strategic military bases, it will always be misleading to call it a "failure." You cannot eliminate resistance through occupation, regardless of how much torture, repression, and propaganda is brought to bear.
When you stop looking at Afghanistan through the GWOT kaleidoscope, and see it in terms of geopolitics, it makes sense. It's also revealed as a completely dishonorable resource grab with no real benefit to the people of the United States or Afghanistan.
I would also add that without revealing anything "classified," which can include literally anything and usually has nothing to do with protecting military personnel, these kind of post-hoc "revelations" will have no impact. The US Navy has now labelled themselves "A Global Force for Good" in their recruiting campaigns, as if Iraq and Afghanistan never happened. We're a slave-owning family, praising the overseers for keeping the fieldhands in line around the world....
I'm not a Lt. Colonel with two tours in Afghanistan. Heck, I've never even been in the military. But I knew back in 2001 what he knows 11 years later.
....Post-Constitutional America
Yes, it has been obvious all along. Many of us knew, and were concerned, about the Taliban long before 9/11. But we also knew enough history and anthropology to know that this war of vengeance was a fool's errand. We were even surer of it in 2009, when a different fool made the errand his own. And now, finally, 2/3 of the American people have figured this out.
However, we make a mistake to think that those in Washington are as stupid as they appear. They have long known this, too, but presidents, senators and representatives, generals, admirals and senior bureaucrats who benefit from the military industrial complex's largesse are less concerned with the deaths, disabilities, hardships, impoverishment, accumulating debt and deteriorating respect in the world than they are with their own enrichment.
Until we reform campaign finance and close the revolving doors, we will forever be at war.
For Post-Constitutional America and Cassandra Speaks -- I too am willing to say that on Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran . . . I think that I was able to advance, on the basis of publically available information, cogent argument that the official story was not the real story. Assuming that that was so, what accounts such as Lt. Col. Davis's do that arguments such as mine -- and Post-Constitutional America's, Cassandra Speaks', and any others not having been where Lt. Col. Davis has been -- cannot do, is two-fold: First, he, in common with others like him, and unlike Post-Constitutional America, Cassandra Speaks, and me, presents great quantities of, in the legal sense, competent evidence based on personal knowledge (reading it in a trusted source is not that). Secondly, they do so from the perspective of "supporting the mission" -- i.e., they cannot be dismissed as just being anti-American and presenting a lack of support for "the troops" -- or of actually seeking to aid "the enemy". Both of these distinguishing characteristics are of extraordinary importance. In my view, the only fair minded response to this article, and to Lt. Col. Davis, from anyone who agrees with, but claims to have come to his views sooner than, the Lt. Col., is also two-fold: First, Thank you for a contribution that we are not in a position to make. And second, keep on making the contributions that careful reading and decency have allowed us to make, so that those like the Lt. Col., who can do more, will continue to feel encouraged to do so.
Truth and wars of choice are mutually exclusive premises, so there will be no uncovering of "truth" regarding conditions in Afghanistan so long as the all-powerful MIC elects to be there... supporting the interests of Empire.
I wonder if Petraeus will seek to retaliate against this brave young man for the sinister offense of telling the truth? What we see in operation is a precise demonstration of the thing Ike warned against.
"brave young man"
Lt. Col. Davis isn't a young man. He's a 17 year vet. That puts him minimum 35 years old. Probably older.
Well, with my 70th birthday visible in the rear view mirror, that seems "young" to me . . .
People like Davis give me hope for the future.
Right on, LJG100
The Army will pull another Pat Tillman because this soldier opted to step outside the MIC box and blow the whistle. Although I commend him for having the courage to come forward I do wonder what took him so long since any person of average intelligence already knows the debacle that is Iraq is mirrored in the debacle that is Afghanistan.
My understanding is not that it "took him so long . . . [to] know. . . the debacle that is Iraq is mirrored in the debacle that is Afghanistan", but rather to collect the direct evidence from which to make a case for a far more detailed, nuanced, and therefore persuasive statement.
"It's incredible that Congress has virtually ignored Davis' allegations that it's been misled. "
I don't think it's incredible at all. Congress does not address ANY issue that threatens the empire. Period. I would speculate that congress is not "misled" in any way. I'm sure senior members of congress know exactly what's happening, and frankly don't care. The dog and pony show put out by the military brass to congress is purely for public consumption.
I believe that LTC Davis has been effectively ignored. There is no need to silence what we can't hear.
There is no place for honesty in Afghanistan or Washington DC or Langley or the NY Times, maybe not anywhere that is in the sphere of American exceptionalism.
It takes some of the military and political top echelon ( see McCarthy )roughly forty years to tell the truth about anything,so it is refreshing to hear of people like Davis speaking-up at a point in their career that could cost them their career.This type of courage is totally absent in the highly paid and highly praised.They should hang their head in shame.
Hey Justin--- You mean McNamara? On the travesty of Viet Nam... ? / .............. McCarthy? I count three such as important in recent U.S. politics (of the last century). Charles McCarthy, who wrote the book, The Wisconsin Idea, Joseph McCarthy, a Wisconsin Senator from Washtano County who raped The Wisconsin Idea (McCarthyism), and the third is the northern-tier candidate for President in 1972, Senator Eugene McCarthy. /
.............. Wisconsin is strange. It has produced some of the best Progressives, but now gives us Paul Ryan and that Walker thing. It probably has to do with "defense" contracts.
-30-
Liars like Patreas get promoted and truth-tellers like Davis get ignored. "You want the truth? You can't handle the truth!"
Strange world we live in isn't it?
Yes,OleManRiver,you are correct and I suspected it was the wrong name but I knew the CS reader would twig who I was talking about.Thanks for the correction."Fog of War ", McNamara's mea culpa of soughts,had me wondering how many of his contemporaries would follow suit; I can't recall any offhand.
What are we to understand all those schools for Afghan girls were bogus, that democracy is not now rampant, the Afghan people don't worship the ground our soldiers walk on and they don't feel safer when they are around?
We will get out when the Afghan governemnt sells out their mineral resources to foreign multinational corporations and not a day before.