Jonathan Arnold reviewed The Commanders by David Loyn
Review of 'The Commanders' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
A long detailed and, of course, depressing account of the US involvement in Afghanistan. Very detailed and pretty opinionated, it makes for a pretty good read on the disastrous intervention.
As I said, Loyn is not afraid of offering up his opinions on strategies and the leaders of the effort. I can't vouch for either his "facts" or his opinions, but one thing becomes immediately obvious even to this all too casual observer - this was doomed to failure pretty much from the beginning. Everyone from the top down approached this as a short term thing, which, in the end, resulted in a more than 20 year involvement.
The turnover was hard to track. And each year, the American commander had completely different ideas on how to approach the conflict, which led to an entirely discombobulated strategy, if you could even call it that. Mostly money right down the toilet, …
A long detailed and, of course, depressing account of the US involvement in Afghanistan. Very detailed and pretty opinionated, it makes for a pretty good read on the disastrous intervention.
As I said, Loyn is not afraid of offering up his opinions on strategies and the leaders of the effort. I can't vouch for either his "facts" or his opinions, but one thing becomes immediately obvious even to this all too casual observer - this was doomed to failure pretty much from the beginning. Everyone from the top down approached this as a short term thing, which, in the end, resulted in a more than 20 year involvement.
The turnover was hard to track. And each year, the American commander had completely different ideas on how to approach the conflict, which led to an entirely discombobulated strategy, if you could even call it that. Mostly money right down the toilet, with no forethought or long term thinking. Across administrations, across political parties, nobody had any idea what to do with it, besides pouring in manpower and money, which led to nothing in the end.
I have to admit to not even finishing the book. I got about 2/3 the way thru it, and it just got too depressing. Small victories quickly led to total defeats in ideas and strategy. I am not sure if Loyn had the answers, or just was armchair quarterbacking from a distance, but nothing was right about this, and it continues to fester. I wish the best for the Afghan people, but we didn't help at all, despite losing thousands of American lives and probably hundreds of thousands of Afghan lives. So depressing. But important to read.