Daily Times

“Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it”, the famous phrase is in essence a summary of what George Santayana wrote in the Reason in Common Sense. International politics and power structures also seem to verify the veracity of this statement. Many great powers and empires have demonstrated similar cyclical patterns that have ultimately led to their demise. The recent release of the ‘Afghanistan Papers’ might come as a surprise to audiences, but the fact of the matter is that the US has gone through the same process in its previous administrations as well.

The Afghanistan Papers have helped to highlight the liberties that the US governments have undertaken in order to project their war in Afghanistan as a success. While it is true that the US did ultimately achieve its objective in the fact that they were able to dismantle the Al-Qaeda network and kill Osama bin Laden, but the glaring example is that Afghanistan today is as much unstable as it was before the US invasion. The protracted conflict and the constant pouring in of funds into this conflict have had a strain on the US economy and the people.

With the looming US negotiations on the horizons, the US administration seriously needs to take stock of the ongoing situation in Afghanistan and acknowledge the factors that are in play

In particular, the Afghanistan Papers have raised two very important issues, one is the fact that the US governments grossly exaggerated and misquoted statistical figures to show their successes in the war. Secondly, the administrations have downplayed the role of corruption in the democratic Afghan setup and the mishandling and misappropriation of US aid. Another very important and glaring fact that the Afghanistan Papers has highlighted that the US administrations seemed to lack a game plan when it came to addressing the rehabilitation of Afghanistan.

These revelations represent that the US had a bullish approach when handling the war in Afghanistan and there was a lack of understanding of the political dynamics of Afghanistan, as a result of this, the conflict was protracted. Gross misrepresentation of the statistics by the US governments was an attempt to persuade the US domestic audience of a successful effort in Afghanistan. At the end of the conflict, the report suggests, that there were unjustifiable human and financial losses which could have been avoided with a proper and thorough representation of the facts.

On the surface, these revelations seem so damning that one has to assume that this may just be a one off incident. Sadly, this isn’t the case. The release of the Pentagon Papers by the New York Times in 1971 demonstrated a similar construct. The Pentagon Papers reflected that the Johnson administration had deliberately ‘lied’ to the US Congress and the domestic audience about the Vietnam War. The Pentagon Papers also described that the US government had enlarged the scope of operations in Vietnam and had even resorted to attacking the neighboring countries such as Laos and Cambodia. Due to the centralization of the media at the time, such incidents and events never made their way to mainstream media, which indicates that the US governments were content in subverting information.

Considering the release of Pentagon Papers and the Afghanistan Papers, a case can be made that there seems to be a pattern and cyclical order to how the US governments seem to portray conflicts to the domestic audience. The bloated facts and successes of these governments in conflicts are a modus operandi to acquire human and financial resources for the conflict.

With the looming US negotiations on the horizons, the US administration seriously needs to take stock of the ongoing situation in Afghanistan and acknowledge the factors that are in play. By fully appreciating the political dynamics of Afghanistan, the US can admit to the on ground situation and work towards a resolution. It is imperative that the current US government learns and realizes the lessons of history and not be doomed to repeat it again.

The writer works at the Islamabad Policy Research Institute as a Consultant