It's not nearly as high as it should be, because the American people have for the most part declined to hold the liars accountable.
What, you might ask, were those norms producing for us? Forever war or isolation is a false choice, they say.
At least that's how policymakers in three administrations have thought about the Afghan conflict, to judge from the Washington Post's latest scoop, a huge tranche of documents recording the candid, occasionally emotional assessments of the U.S. War in Afghanistan made by White House officials, generals, and policymakers.
The more troubling revelation in the Post's story was that multiple presidents and generals had lied elaborately to the public about the war, pretending it was going well even though they'd privately concluded that our objectives were contradictory and our strategy was a mess.
Has anyone asked what future allies might think of us for sticking around and bleeding our Afghan allies dry in a war we were simply unwilling to end or win?
The U.S. government's propaganda failed to convince American citizens that Afghanistan was really getting better, but American citizens have failed to punish their government for lying to us and wasting American blood and treasure.
In normal countries - that is, smaller and more vulnerable ones - failures in war are punished severely and even spectacularly.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/12/foreign-policy-afghanistan-government-lies-about-war-public-wont-hold-liars-accountable/
What, you might ask, were those norms producing for us? Forever war or isolation is a false choice, they say.
At least that's how policymakers in three administrations have thought about the Afghan conflict, to judge from the Washington Post's latest scoop, a huge tranche of documents recording the candid, occasionally emotional assessments of the U.S. War in Afghanistan made by White House officials, generals, and policymakers.
The more troubling revelation in the Post's story was that multiple presidents and generals had lied elaborately to the public about the war, pretending it was going well even though they'd privately concluded that our objectives were contradictory and our strategy was a mess.
Has anyone asked what future allies might think of us for sticking around and bleeding our Afghan allies dry in a war we were simply unwilling to end or win?
The U.S. government's propaganda failed to convince American citizens that Afghanistan was really getting better, but American citizens have failed to punish their government for lying to us and wasting American blood and treasure.
In normal countries - that is, smaller and more vulnerable ones - failures in war are punished severely and even spectacularly.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/12/foreign-policy-afghanistan-government-lies-about-war-public-wont-hold-liars-accountable/
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