For 16 years American presidents have talked about Afghanistan in their SOTU speeches and promised us victory. Trump is no different.



“Our warriors in Afghanistan also have new rules of engagement,” Trump said in his State of the Union address. “Along with their heroic Afghan partners, our military is no longer undermined by artificial timelines, and we no longer tell our enemies our plans.”

Earlier that day, after a string of suicide bombings, Trump was even more belligerent.



SHAPIRO: Let's talk about the U.S. role in all of this because last August, the White House announced that it would increase the military pressure on the Taliban to force them to the negotiating table. But then President Trump spoke this afternoon and said this. (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: There's no talking to the Taliban. We don't want to talk to the Taliban. We're going to finish what we have to finish, what nobody else has been able to finish. We're going to be able to do it.

Sounds like someone who is winning!

Now that might sound good with his base, but it has nothing to do with reality, and the Trump Administration knows it.

You see, two days ago The Donald made sure that not only would "we no longer tell our enemies our plans”, Trump made sure that the American people wouldn't be told anything important either.



The U.S. military is keeping information from the public that gauges the war in Afghanistan’s success, a government watchdog said after significant insurgent gains.

The Defense Department has restricted data on population figures and on what areas are held by either the government or insurgents, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, or SIGAR, said in a report released late Monday.

... The watchdog was given no justification for the new restrictions, according to the report.

It also comes after several other measures for gauging the development and strength of Afghanistan’s security forces — which are heavily funded by the U.S. — were blocked or restricted in the fall. Among them were casualty and attrition rates.

So literally any official measurement of how poorly we are doing in Afghanistan will be blocked from the public.



The DOD also classified the exact strength figures for most of the Afghan security forces this quarter, SIGAR said.

The watchdog added that specific security goals for Afghanistan outlined in the Trump administration’s new South Asia strategy and information about the recent rise in U.S. and coalition airstrikes in the country have also been classified.

Gee. Why would Donald do that? Would it have something to do with this?



Taliban fighters, whom US-led forces spent billions of dollars trying to defeat, are now openly active in 70% of Afghanistan, a BBC study has found.

Months of research across the country shows that the Taliban now control or threaten much more territory than when foreign combat troops left in 2014.