Military Report Shows Afghan Surge Complete Failure

The Taliban insurgency is as strong as ever, Kabul is weak, and overall violence has not subsided.

Anti-War

John Glaser

The US-led NATO military command in Afghanistan has found in a new report that the surge ordered by President Barack Obama has failed to improve conditions on the ground, according to Wired‘s Danger Room.

“That conclusion doesn’t come from anti-war advocates,” Danger Room reports. “It relies on data recently released by the NATO command in Afghanistan, known as ISAF, and acquired by Danger Room. According to most of the yardsticks chosen by the military — but not all — the surge in Afghanistan fell short of its stated goal: stopping the Taliban’s momentum.”

The ISAF report primarily aggregates data on insurgent attacks, and documents that the NATO surge, training operations, and occupation of Afghanistan have not mitigated those trends.

In August 2009, as the Obama administration was preparing for the surge, insurgents attacked occupation forces approximately 2,700 times. And in August 2012, they attacked just under 3,000 times.

The more than 30,000 surge troops deployed to Afghanistan were completed their withdrawal from the country last week. But the Taliban insurgency is as strong as ever, Kabul has not been able to build up stable and independent security forces, and overall violence has not subsided.

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