US Troop Draw Down in Afghanistan by 2021

Davis pulled no punches. His report's opening statement read: "Senior ranking US military leaders have so distorted the truth when communicating with the US Congress and American people in regards to conditions on the ground in Afghanistan that the truth has become unrecognisable."

The report detailed an alarming picture of Taliban advances and spiralling violence. Afghan security forces were unwilling or unable to fight, or actively aiding the enemy. That picture was contrasted with repeated rosy statements from US military leaders. His classified version was far more damning, but it remains a secret. "I am no WikiLeaks guy part two," Davis said. He foresees a simple and logical end point for Afghanistan – civil war and societal collapse, probably long before the last US combat soldier is scheduled to leave. He says the Afghan army and police simply cannot cope and the US forces training and working with them know that, despite official pronouncements to the contrary. "What I saw first hand in virtually every circumstance was a barely functioning organisation often co-operating with the insurgent enemy," Davis's report said.

The document was also damning about the role of the US media in reporting the war. Ever since Vietnam, generals have slammed the press as a potential danger to military operations, but Davis's report lambasted journalists for failing to question the official army line. He said the media were obsessed with getting "access" to military bases and generals and tempered reporting in order to maintain that situation. "Most of the media just takes the talking points and repeats them," he said.

And I'm sure the twitter accounts of the naysayers will be super important in the dissertations of PhD candidates circa 2125. But, unfortunately, nobody's paying attention to them today or yesterday or 9 years ago. Nobody who matters.

Now they're being informed.

Those videos and pictures will play prominently in Republican attack ads.

The Taliban are sitting on $1 trillion worth of minerals the world desperately needs

The swift fall of Afghanistan to Taliban fighters two decades after the United States invaded the country has triggered a political and humanitarian crisis. It’s also causing security experts to wonder: What’s going to happen to the country’s vast untapped mineral wealth?

Afghanistan is one of the poorest nations in the world. But in 2010, US military officials and geologists revealed that the country, which lies at the crossroads of Central and South Asia, was sitting on mineral deposits worth nearly $1 trillion that could dramatically transform its economic prospects.

Supplies of minerals such as iron, copper and gold are scattered across provinces. There are also rare earth minerals and, perhaps most importantly, what could be one of the world’s biggest deposits of lithium — an essential but scarce component in rechargeable batteries and other technologies vital to tackling the climate crisis...