Deceptive Pentagon

.
.
.
.

What difference would it make to the Taliban if they knew whether there were 8400 troops in Afghanistan (The official figure) or 12,000, possibly the true figure or 30,000 including private contractors and NATO?

The Taliban after all are CIA managed "Controlled Opposition" actors.

In a DEMOCRACY for the sake of accountability Capital Hill MUST know the true figures.

Especially when $8 trillion Pentagon expenditure since whenever is not audited.....nobody knows where that huge taxpayer money went.....to pay for new golf courses in the PERSIAN GULF, new casino's in the Philippines, or whore houses near the American military bases in Guam.....who knows, nobody.

In the case of Afghanistan, why does it require $50 billion taxpayer money to sustain 8400 servicemen in very low-intensity warfare?


_____________________________________________________

Pentagon’s Concealment of Troop Levels Faces Mounting Criticism

Keeping Figures Secret Is Convenient for Leadership, Avoiding Debates

Posted Jason Ditz at antiwar.com

Alongside announcing the escalations of US wars in Iraq and Syria, the Pentagon was given the decision of whether or not to inform the public about those troop levels. Unsurprisingly, this has so far meant no announcements at all.

President Trump followed that up with an announced escalation in Afghanistan last week, and once again insisted that exact troop levels would be secret from now on, because he doesn’t want “the enemy” to know. In both cases, concern about public oversight has been dismissed by officials.

But not by NGOs, with analysts increasingly concerned that the Pentagon is setting its own troop levels, and apart from negotiating with foreign governments, the American public is being kept totally in the dark on the final decisions.

This, in many cases, is a convenience for the Pentagon. 8,400 troops “officially” in Afghanistan on the day of Trump’s announcement was actually more like 12,000. The cap on troops in Iraq was already far exceeded before the escalation there as well.

Not making those figures public both prevents public debate on wars that are increasingly out of control, and makes negotiation with the foreign states hosting them easier, as in the case of Iraq, Prime Minister Abadi faces an election next year, and revealing how many troops he’s allowed in would be a political embarrassment, the sort that might have him blocking further escalations.

Instead, the troop levels are secret, and no one is the wiser. This means that officials can try to skirt the very real ramifications of their overseas deployments by simply not telling anyone how many troops are involved.