In today's Washington Post, Donald Rumsfeld has an Op-Ed Afghanistan Five Years Later keyed to the anniversary of the start of military operations against the Taliban.
The main point of the article, of course, is to refute all the nay-sayers who predicted failure for the mission and are claiming that it is in trouble today. Rumsfeld accurately lists some genuine achievements. But he accomplishes a deception double play by distorting the meaning of a quotation from President Karzai in order to cover up the administration's biggest failure on Afghanistan.
That failure is the establishment by the Taliban of a safe haven for their command and control, recruitment, training, funding, propaganda, and resupply in Pakistan. There are numerous failings of the Afghan government and of the US effort there, but these failures would not generate a terrorist insurgency without a safe haven across the border.
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