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How intelligent people can stretch matters so unrealistically
Reviewed in the United States on January 18, 2021
General Bolger in authors note states his basic premise about the book as below:--
Outwardly bombastic and blunt , this statement has serious basic analytical flaws.
Guerrilla wars cannot be won . They cannot also be lost . A guerrilla war is always a state of mind and both sides in a guerrilla war can claim victory or concede defeat.
So much for our authors bluntness or trutfulness.May be he was being truthful but his definition of the “ truth” was confused or flawed.
Bolger defines his role in Afghanistan and Iraq and sum of his experiences as below:--
Bolger defines the specific US failure as below:--
As one who closely observed the US Afghan war , I would respectfully differ.
US failure was coming to the wrong place and following the wrong higher strategy framed in Washington DC and not flawed military leadership.
Bolgers reasoning is also flawed when he makes te statement below:--
Afghan war as well as Iraq wars firstly were “unjust wars” , about which Bolger has nothing to say.
Secondly US highest level political leadership was confused and this was the core reason for US so called failure in both Afghanistan and Iraq.
There are defects in Bolgers thinking when e makes the statement below:--
The central issue is that the system in USA is based on winning the next elections.
As nations degrade , they stop producing statesmen.Instead they produce political con men with short term agendas of winning the next elections.
Thus the extension of wars to years and decades to which Bolger refers.
Bolgers melodramatical descriptions as on page 14 are interesting but unrealistic:--
He compares US Iraq war of 1990 with Iran Iraq war, while the two wars had simply no comparison.
The USA was fighting a mickey mouse foe in Iraq in 1991 which the USA was massively dominating with excessive technological and material superiority , so here Bolgers melodramatics are massive exaggerations.
I served in Pakistan Armys tank corps where we had the misfortune to have tanks almost similar to T 72s whose designs were so flawed that a tank which fired a main gun round could not see where his round went , simply because so much dust was kicked by the tank and the tanks height was so low.
Russian T series tanks were about 1 metre lower in height than US M series tanks and this made seeing where the Russian tanks main gun round went impossible.
Gunnery wise there was simply no comparison between M Series American tanks and T series Iraqi tanks.
Bolgers comparison with Iraq Armys Iran war performance is also far fetched as both armies were similar , while US military in 1991 was overwhelming superior to Iraqi Army technically , materially and in every manner.
Bolgers observation proves that Iraqis were technically and gunnery wise overwhelmingly inferior :--
Bolger has a marked tendency to inflate US successes in Iraq war of 1991 which is a negative and weak part of his analysis.
Bolgers assertions that Soviet Russia as it stood in 1991 could invade Saudi Arabia are far fetched to the most exaggerated extreme :--
Bolgers discussion of first US Iraq war is superfluous and unnecessary and it was torture reading his well known repition of facts.
While discussing first US Iraq war Bolger perhaps is not aware that Saudi Arabia first asked Pakistan to field a very large army but when the Pakistan Army chief General Baig refused , Saudis asked USA .
Bolger has nothing to say about how USA ripped off Saudi Arabia for cost of troops fielded.
This is extreme analytical intellectual dishonesty on Bolgers part.
While Bolgers discussion of Iraq war -1 is largely a waste of time , I am shocked as well as amused at the naievette of Bolgers conclusions like below :--
Bolger is exaggerating OBL who had a limited role in US Afghan or Iraq war to too high a pedestal.
Firstly no lesson was learnt by anyone.
What we saw in Afghanistan was greed of US politicians to make short term political gains and pointless sacrifice of brave young soldiers in a scenario where there was no strategy and not even a worthwhile credible operational strategy.
Bolgers conclusions are naieve and far fetched.
9/11 remains the most mysterious part of the whole affair ?
And why go to Afghanistan in order to avenge 9/11 ?
The British company came to rule Aden in 1839 but Bolger wants us to believe that it happened in 1832 :--
Page 46 one finds a US general Bolger severely rocked by one minor incident in US naval history i.e the attack on USS Cole :--
The problem with modern USA is not Al Qaeda or its enemies , but undue and excessive sensitivity to even minor loss of life.
It’s a society which as lost the zest for life and lacks the necessary previous brutality that it once had to conduct war.
The British for example faced countless incidents like the mickey mouse attack on USS Cole but they always dealt with such incidents with immediate as well as effective punishment.
The USA instead is encumbered with a huge decision making bureaucracy that makes a mountain out of a molehill and yet remains supremely indecisive.
Bolgers analysis as on page 46 lacks historical context as well as depth:--
Instead of analyzing US overkill in Soviet Afghan war and mobilizing pointlessly all kind of Islamist nuts worldwide against USSR , Bolger gives us shallow nonsense , superficial analysis.
Ex General Ziauddin who headed Pakistans ISI , in various conversations with this scribe on the other hand always stated that OBL was viewed by the ISI as a CIA agent.
Bolgers conclusions are myopic and unsubstantiated as on page 47:--
How intelligent people can stretch matters so unrealistically make such massive exaggerations is hard to understand.
Bolgers narrative lacks information like on page 50 he fails to note that OBL was provided Afghan passports etc by the so called Mujahideen, Sayyaf etc who later on allied with the US :--
Bolgers wild assertions that OBL lured back the USA to Afghanistan are also sheer nonsense and unsupported by any factual evidence :-- (page-51)
He appears to be very found of playing to the gallery.
Now OBL was a mickey mouse player in Talibans Afghan set up which was largely a Pakistani state proxy.But Bolger exaggerates and highly overrates OBLs position in the Taliban set up in Afghanistan.
Bolgers assessment that Musharraf was on board with the USA (page -71) is highly fallacious:--
Sources close to Musharraf indicate that the wily general had decided from the onset to deceive the USA while outwardly acting as an ally.The Taliban were regarded as too precious assets by the Pakistani security establishment led by Musharraf.
Again on page 71 Bolgers descriptions are unnecessarily vague:--
While Panjsher had been practically abandoned by Masud, although never occupied by Taliban , Masuds forces were not holding some districts as Bolger fallaciously claims but two provinces i.e Badakhshan and Taloqan.
Bolgers supreme wisdom as expressed on page 73 is wisdom of hindsight :--
Meanwhile Bolger continues exaggerating Al Qaeda which in reality was a very small player in Taliban controlled Afghanistan.
On page 75 Bolger starts talking absolute non factual nonsense :--
Bolger perhaps is ignorant of the fact that in the First Afghan War a private British company overran Afghanistan using a 75 % Indian private army.
Bolger again perhaps does not know that in Second Afghan war the British defeated Afghanistan with nominal casualties.
Above all Bolger perhaps does not know that the British managed Afghanistan with an annual subsidy of 13 Lakh rupees per month in return for which Afghanistan surrendered its complete foreign relations to a private British company.
Bolgers entire idea of Afghan British history is highly fallacious.
Bolger continuously overrates OBL again on page 75 :--
OBL was a small cog in the whole machine. Todate it remains unclear who carried out 9/11. There is no denial that it happened.But there is considerable ambiguity about who did it ?
OBL was a Taliban chattel , hiding from US rockets. Later handed over to Pakistani state by the Taliban.
But somehow our so called brilliant US general continuously overrates OBL and wants us to believe that it was OBL who lured USA to Afghanistan.
One can only term Bolgers assertion as pure and unadulterated nonsense.
Bolger massively exaggerates Mazar Sharif battle of late 2001.Whereas the factual position was that Taliban were in hostile territory in Mazar Sharif with the vast majority of population against them and the odds were severely against the Taliban.
Bolger has nothing to say about the fact that Afghanistan was captured by the USA without the loss of a single soldier in actual fighting.
Bolger forgets that Taliban were above all from their very first days a Pakistani state proxies and their actions were planned by Pakistani handlers.
What happened was that Taliban carried out an organized withdrawal into Pakistan well before the actual US onslaught of Afghanistan took place.
This was by design and this was the precise reason why the US forces suffered zero casualties and the US allies or vassals Northern Alliance suffered very low casualties.
Bolger misses the real issue.That is US military failure to coordinate with Pakistani military and create an arrangement forcing it to interdict Taliban with US liaison officers stationed all along Afghan Pakistan border.
The USA had about two and half complete months to do so but failed .A major US military failure.But Bolger has nothing to say about this.
Chapter four dealing with Operation Annaoconda is a massive exaggeration and at this point I completely lost faith in Bolgers credentials as a serious or credible military historian.
I am surprised how much an American general like Bolger could exaggerate about Annaconda like as below , where he quotes Tommy Franks , another master of massive exaggerations:--
A puny battle exaggerated to the level of a Cannae or Borodino !
Later on even in USA these massive exaggerations were criticized.
The US public was simply being a totally false script about the heavy odds that US forces were supposedly facing in Afghanistan.
I visited Khost in 2002 and could hardly find as gory as painted in various US accounts.
Bolger has no geographical sense also , as he places Taliban in Pakistan in Pakistans northwest whereas it was well known that Taliban citadel was in Pakistans south west province of Baluchistan (page-120 ) :--
Now disenfranchised Pashtuns had nothing to do with Taliban resurrection.
This was a clear cit Pakistani strategic command decision made once Pakistani state got unnerved because of the escalating Baloch insurgency in Pakistans Baluchistan.
Here the major US strategic failure which our naieve author failed to analyse was US inability to clearly and substantially address Pakistani fears about US intentions in Afghanistan.
As the adage goes “fear made men believe in the worst” and Pakistani state was believing in the worst by 2006 middle , as far as US intentions were concerned.
Taliban resurgence as far we saw and this scribes sources in Pakistani decision making echelons of that time indicated was a clear cut Pakistani state decision.So here Bolger is totally wrong.
Bolger writes unsubstantiated nonsense and a great deal of it repeatedly like as below :--
Only one British regiment 44th Foot comprising about 700 soldiers overwhelmingly outnumbered by 50,000 Afghans was butchered in British companys First Afghan War. So one is at a loss about which “regiments” is Bolger talking about ?
I cannot recollect any British regiment bolting in Afghanistan.
On page 120 Bolger asks the right question for once :--
But I was surprised and rather shocked by the dumb naievette of our author where he offered no worthwhile answer !
The main enemy that US was facing were the Pakistani state handlers of Afghan Taliban , but our hopeless author has no analysis to offer.
This scribes own analysis was as below:--
Bolger criticizes President Bush but has no worthwhile analysis to offer.
Bolger fails to analyse that US commanders in Afghanistan could have done a lot in addressing Pakistani fears but this escapes the sagacity of Bolger , if he ever possessed a quality known as sagacity or insight !
Bolgers exaggerations about the odds that USA faced in Iraq are pure intelleftual dishonesty since in Iraq some 80 % of Iraq i.e majority Shias and Kurds were staunchly pro USA so any assertion that USA faced major odds in Iraq on part of Bolger is far fetched and a total distortion of reality.
Bolger is right that Iraq was a strategic failure but has no analysis to offer .
A major failing of the book.
How Bolger places a British battalion at 600 is a factual failure (page-289) :--
And why Bolger has to cite such figures without proper knowledge ?
Bolgers analysis about British in Helmand is shallow and superficial to the highest extreme (page-290) :--
He has no analysis to offer why British went to Helmand and achieved nothing but beats about the bush.
I was based in Helmand in 2004-5 and again in 2006 and there was no Taliban resurgence in Helmand , which our author fallaciously claims :--
There was no strategic or operational reason to go to Helmand except dominating the morphia paste production, but Bolger makes totally false premises about Taliban resurgence.
Below is this scribes analysis based entirely on actual presence in Helmand from 2004 to 2011 with very frequent visits:--
Bolger offers no worthwhile analysis about the fact that te British were operating most haphazardly in Helmand.
Here he assumes a most non committal and evasise posture.
Again I will quote from my book to illustrate what this scribe personally witnessed in Helmand :--
About sacking of Mc Kiernan again Bolger has little analysis to offer which is a serious failing of this book.
Bolger is non committal and does not have much to say.
The bottom line is that Mc Kiernan was removed based on whims of the US political and military leadership.
If Mc Kiernan was B Class as US senior decision makers fallaciously claimed and Mc Chrystal A class , then what did A class achieve ?
Mc Chrystals strategic insight was so low that despite thinking initially that going to Helmand was a bad idea he finally went to Helmand and distributed US troops in penny packets , condemned to be blown like partridges by Taliban IEDs ?
Bolgers unnecessary buttering up and projection of General Petraeus is in bad taste :-- (page-355 )
Finally the book offers no worthwhile analysis of “why the USA lost in Afghanistan” .Iraq one cannot call a US military defeat . Although it was a USA strategic political failure in strengthening Iran. But then as my mentor Ed Luttwak probably said words to te affect that Iraq war did create a massive Shia Sunni divide in middle east which the USA can always exploit .
Bolger has nothing to say about the grand strategic deception that Pakistans General Musharraf practiced on US troops in Afghanistan.
Bolger has nothing to say about the absolutely pointless US drone program in Pakistan which attacked the wrong people.
Bolger has nothing to say about the idea of General Mc Kiernan that Taliban safe havens in Pakistan be attacked.
Bolger has nothing to say about the damage inflicted on US troops by naieve self styled strategists like Riedel.
Bolger likes to be supremely non committal and evasive as speaking the truth would not help him in an apple polishing society like the USA ?
Bolgers book lacks maps , the most essential part of a military analysis book ? He is found of talking absolute non essential nonsense and always evades offering worthwhile analysis.
A sad disappointment and a rather barren book
Outwardly bombastic and blunt , this statement has serious basic analytical flaws.
Guerrilla wars cannot be won . They cannot also be lost . A guerrilla war is always a state of mind and both sides in a guerrilla war can claim victory or concede defeat.
So much for our authors bluntness or trutfulness.May be he was being truthful but his definition of the “ truth” was confused or flawed.
Bolger defines his role in Afghanistan and Iraq and sum of his experiences as below:--
Bolger defines the specific US failure as below:--
As one who closely observed the US Afghan war , I would respectfully differ.
US failure was coming to the wrong place and following the wrong higher strategy framed in Washington DC and not flawed military leadership.
Bolgers reasoning is also flawed when he makes te statement below:--
Afghan war as well as Iraq wars firstly were “unjust wars” , about which Bolger has nothing to say.
Secondly US highest level political leadership was confused and this was the core reason for US so called failure in both Afghanistan and Iraq.
There are defects in Bolgers thinking when e makes the statement below:--
The central issue is that the system in USA is based on winning the next elections.
As nations degrade , they stop producing statesmen.Instead they produce political con men with short term agendas of winning the next elections.
Thus the extension of wars to years and decades to which Bolger refers.
Bolgers melodramatical descriptions as on page 14 are interesting but unrealistic:--
He compares US Iraq war of 1990 with Iran Iraq war, while the two wars had simply no comparison.
The USA was fighting a mickey mouse foe in Iraq in 1991 which the USA was massively dominating with excessive technological and material superiority , so here Bolgers melodramatics are massive exaggerations.
I served in Pakistan Armys tank corps where we had the misfortune to have tanks almost similar to T 72s whose designs were so flawed that a tank which fired a main gun round could not see where his round went , simply because so much dust was kicked by the tank and the tanks height was so low.
Russian T series tanks were about 1 metre lower in height than US M series tanks and this made seeing where the Russian tanks main gun round went impossible.
Gunnery wise there was simply no comparison between M Series American tanks and T series Iraqi tanks.
Bolgers comparison with Iraq Armys Iran war performance is also far fetched as both armies were similar , while US military in 1991 was overwhelming superior to Iraqi Army technically , materially and in every manner.
Bolgers observation proves that Iraqis were technically and gunnery wise overwhelmingly inferior :--
Bolger has a marked tendency to inflate US successes in Iraq war of 1991 which is a negative and weak part of his analysis.
Bolgers assertions that Soviet Russia as it stood in 1991 could invade Saudi Arabia are far fetched to the most exaggerated extreme :--
Bolgers discussion of first US Iraq war is superfluous and unnecessary and it was torture reading his well known repition of facts.
While discussing first US Iraq war Bolger perhaps is not aware that Saudi Arabia first asked Pakistan to field a very large army but when the Pakistan Army chief General Baig refused , Saudis asked USA .
Bolger has nothing to say about how USA ripped off Saudi Arabia for cost of troops fielded.
This is extreme analytical intellectual dishonesty on Bolgers part.
While Bolgers discussion of Iraq war -1 is largely a waste of time , I am shocked as well as amused at the naievette of Bolgers conclusions like below :--
Bolger is exaggerating OBL who had a limited role in US Afghan or Iraq war to too high a pedestal.
Firstly no lesson was learnt by anyone.
What we saw in Afghanistan was greed of US politicians to make short term political gains and pointless sacrifice of brave young soldiers in a scenario where there was no strategy and not even a worthwhile credible operational strategy.
Bolgers conclusions are naieve and far fetched.
9/11 remains the most mysterious part of the whole affair ?
And why go to Afghanistan in order to avenge 9/11 ?
The British company came to rule Aden in 1839 but Bolger wants us to believe that it happened in 1832 :--
Page 46 one finds a US general Bolger severely rocked by one minor incident in US naval history i.e the attack on USS Cole :--
The problem with modern USA is not Al Qaeda or its enemies , but undue and excessive sensitivity to even minor loss of life.
It’s a society which as lost the zest for life and lacks the necessary previous brutality that it once had to conduct war.
The British for example faced countless incidents like the mickey mouse attack on USS Cole but they always dealt with such incidents with immediate as well as effective punishment.
The USA instead is encumbered with a huge decision making bureaucracy that makes a mountain out of a molehill and yet remains supremely indecisive.
Bolgers analysis as on page 46 lacks historical context as well as depth:--
Instead of analyzing US overkill in Soviet Afghan war and mobilizing pointlessly all kind of Islamist nuts worldwide against USSR , Bolger gives us shallow nonsense , superficial analysis.
Ex General Ziauddin who headed Pakistans ISI , in various conversations with this scribe on the other hand always stated that OBL was viewed by the ISI as a CIA agent.
Bolgers conclusions are myopic and unsubstantiated as on page 47:--
How intelligent people can stretch matters so unrealistically make such massive exaggerations is hard to understand.
Bolgers narrative lacks information like on page 50 he fails to note that OBL was provided Afghan passports etc by the so called Mujahideen, Sayyaf etc who later on allied with the US :--
Bolgers wild assertions that OBL lured back the USA to Afghanistan are also sheer nonsense and unsupported by any factual evidence :-- (page-51)
He appears to be very found of playing to the gallery.
Now OBL was a mickey mouse player in Talibans Afghan set up which was largely a Pakistani state proxy.But Bolger exaggerates and highly overrates OBLs position in the Taliban set up in Afghanistan.
Bolgers assessment that Musharraf was on board with the USA (page -71) is highly fallacious:--
Sources close to Musharraf indicate that the wily general had decided from the onset to deceive the USA while outwardly acting as an ally.The Taliban were regarded as too precious assets by the Pakistani security establishment led by Musharraf.
Again on page 71 Bolgers descriptions are unnecessarily vague:--
While Panjsher had been practically abandoned by Masud, although never occupied by Taliban , Masuds forces were not holding some districts as Bolger fallaciously claims but two provinces i.e Badakhshan and Taloqan.
Bolgers supreme wisdom as expressed on page 73 is wisdom of hindsight :--
Meanwhile Bolger continues exaggerating Al Qaeda which in reality was a very small player in Taliban controlled Afghanistan.
On page 75 Bolger starts talking absolute non factual nonsense :--
Bolger perhaps is ignorant of the fact that in the First Afghan War a private British company overran Afghanistan using a 75 % Indian private army.
Bolger again perhaps does not know that in Second Afghan war the British defeated Afghanistan with nominal casualties.
Above all Bolger perhaps does not know that the British managed Afghanistan with an annual subsidy of 13 Lakh rupees per month in return for which Afghanistan surrendered its complete foreign relations to a private British company.
Bolgers entire idea of Afghan British history is highly fallacious.
Bolger continuously overrates OBL again on page 75 :--
OBL was a small cog in the whole machine. Todate it remains unclear who carried out 9/11. There is no denial that it happened.But there is considerable ambiguity about who did it ?
OBL was a Taliban chattel , hiding from US rockets. Later handed over to Pakistani state by the Taliban.
But somehow our so called brilliant US general continuously overrates OBL and wants us to believe that it was OBL who lured USA to Afghanistan.
One can only term Bolgers assertion as pure and unadulterated nonsense.
Bolger massively exaggerates Mazar Sharif battle of late 2001.Whereas the factual position was that Taliban were in hostile territory in Mazar Sharif with the vast majority of population against them and the odds were severely against the Taliban.
Bolger has nothing to say about the fact that Afghanistan was captured by the USA without the loss of a single soldier in actual fighting.
Bolger forgets that Taliban were above all from their very first days a Pakistani state proxies and their actions were planned by Pakistani handlers.
What happened was that Taliban carried out an organized withdrawal into Pakistan well before the actual US onslaught of Afghanistan took place.
This was by design and this was the precise reason why the US forces suffered zero casualties and the US allies or vassals Northern Alliance suffered very low casualties.
Bolger misses the real issue.That is US military failure to coordinate with Pakistani military and create an arrangement forcing it to interdict Taliban with US liaison officers stationed all along Afghan Pakistan border.
The USA had about two and half complete months to do so but failed .A major US military failure.But Bolger has nothing to say about this.
Chapter four dealing with Operation Annaoconda is a massive exaggeration and at this point I completely lost faith in Bolgers credentials as a serious or credible military historian.
I am surprised how much an American general like Bolger could exaggerate about Annaconda like as below , where he quotes Tommy Franks , another master of massive exaggerations:--
A puny battle exaggerated to the level of a Cannae or Borodino !
Later on even in USA these massive exaggerations were criticized.
The US public was simply being a totally false script about the heavy odds that US forces were supposedly facing in Afghanistan.
I visited Khost in 2002 and could hardly find as gory as painted in various US accounts.
Bolger has no geographical sense also , as he places Taliban in Pakistan in Pakistans northwest whereas it was well known that Taliban citadel was in Pakistans south west province of Baluchistan (page-120 ) :--
Now disenfranchised Pashtuns had nothing to do with Taliban resurrection.
This was a clear cit Pakistani strategic command decision made once Pakistani state got unnerved because of the escalating Baloch insurgency in Pakistans Baluchistan.
Here the major US strategic failure which our naieve author failed to analyse was US inability to clearly and substantially address Pakistani fears about US intentions in Afghanistan.
As the adage goes “fear made men believe in the worst” and Pakistani state was believing in the worst by 2006 middle , as far as US intentions were concerned.
Taliban resurgence as far we saw and this scribes sources in Pakistani decision making echelons of that time indicated was a clear cut Pakistani state decision.So here Bolger is totally wrong.
Bolger writes unsubstantiated nonsense and a great deal of it repeatedly like as below :--
Only one British regiment 44th Foot comprising about 700 soldiers overwhelmingly outnumbered by 50,000 Afghans was butchered in British companys First Afghan War. So one is at a loss about which “regiments” is Bolger talking about ?
I cannot recollect any British regiment bolting in Afghanistan.
On page 120 Bolger asks the right question for once :--
But I was surprised and rather shocked by the dumb naievette of our author where he offered no worthwhile answer !
The main enemy that US was facing were the Pakistani state handlers of Afghan Taliban , but our hopeless author has no analysis to offer.
This scribes own analysis was as below:--
Bolger criticizes President Bush but has no worthwhile analysis to offer.
Bolger fails to analyse that US commanders in Afghanistan could have done a lot in addressing Pakistani fears but this escapes the sagacity of Bolger , if he ever possessed a quality known as sagacity or insight !
Bolgers exaggerations about the odds that USA faced in Iraq are pure intelleftual dishonesty since in Iraq some 80 % of Iraq i.e majority Shias and Kurds were staunchly pro USA so any assertion that USA faced major odds in Iraq on part of Bolger is far fetched and a total distortion of reality.
Bolger is right that Iraq was a strategic failure but has no analysis to offer .
A major failing of the book.
How Bolger places a British battalion at 600 is a factual failure (page-289) :--
And why Bolger has to cite such figures without proper knowledge ?
Bolgers analysis about British in Helmand is shallow and superficial to the highest extreme (page-290) :--
He has no analysis to offer why British went to Helmand and achieved nothing but beats about the bush.
I was based in Helmand in 2004-5 and again in 2006 and there was no Taliban resurgence in Helmand , which our author fallaciously claims :--
There was no strategic or operational reason to go to Helmand except dominating the morphia paste production, but Bolger makes totally false premises about Taliban resurgence.
Below is this scribes analysis based entirely on actual presence in Helmand from 2004 to 2011 with very frequent visits:--
Bolger offers no worthwhile analysis about the fact that te British were operating most haphazardly in Helmand.
Here he assumes a most non committal and evasise posture.
Again I will quote from my book to illustrate what this scribe personally witnessed in Helmand :--
About sacking of Mc Kiernan again Bolger has little analysis to offer which is a serious failing of this book.
Bolger is non committal and does not have much to say.
The bottom line is that Mc Kiernan was removed based on whims of the US political and military leadership.
If Mc Kiernan was B Class as US senior decision makers fallaciously claimed and Mc Chrystal A class , then what did A class achieve ?
Mc Chrystals strategic insight was so low that despite thinking initially that going to Helmand was a bad idea he finally went to Helmand and distributed US troops in penny packets , condemned to be blown like partridges by Taliban IEDs ?
Bolgers unnecessary buttering up and projection of General Petraeus is in bad taste :-- (page-355 )
Finally the book offers no worthwhile analysis of “why the USA lost in Afghanistan” .Iraq one cannot call a US military defeat . Although it was a USA strategic political failure in strengthening Iran. But then as my mentor Ed Luttwak probably said words to te affect that Iraq war did create a massive Shia Sunni divide in middle east which the USA can always exploit .
Bolger has nothing to say about the grand strategic deception that Pakistans General Musharraf practiced on US troops in Afghanistan.
Bolger has nothing to say about the absolutely pointless US drone program in Pakistan which attacked the wrong people.
Bolger has nothing to say about the idea of General Mc Kiernan that Taliban safe havens in Pakistan be attacked.
Bolger has nothing to say about the damage inflicted on US troops by naieve self styled strategists like Riedel.
Bolger likes to be supremely non committal and evasive as speaking the truth would not help him in an apple polishing society like the USA ?
Bolgers book lacks maps , the most essential part of a military analysis book ? He is found of talking absolute non essential nonsense and always evades offering worthwhile analysis.
A sad disappointment and a rather barren book