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NELLIS AIR FORCE BASE, Nev. (AFNS) --

Two pararescue Airmen received the Silver Star medal in a ceremony Dec. 13, for gallantry in action against enemies of the United States while deployed to Afghanistan.

Tech. Sgt. Gavin Fisher and Staff Sgt. Daniel Swensen were awarded the U.S. Armed Forces third highest military combat decoration for saving nearly 40 lives and eliminating more than 100 enemy fighters in two separate combat engagements.

For some of you, you may ask yourself how these two individuals in the face of such adversity performed so admirably, said Lt. Col. Douglas Holliday, 58th Rescue Squadron commander. Airmen like Dan and Gavin are part of a profession that dedicates their lives to a motto That Others May Live. A foundation of that motto is a pledge they made going through selection and years of arduous training. In the face of adversity, when Americans and our allies lives are on the line, under no circumstance will you quit on them. Never quit.

Gen. CQ Brown Jr., Pacific Air Forces commander, echoed Hollidays sentiments while comparing the actions of Fisher and Swensen to those of yesteryears comic book heroes and the rarity of heroes today.

We can become so absorbed by the tales and the characters and their abilities that we can lose sight of our real-life heroes heroes like Tech. Sgt. Gavin Fisher and Staff Sgt. Daniel Swensen, Brown said. Only 1% of our service men and women, representing 1% of the population have received this Silver Star. So, these gentlemen are in a very exclusive club.

Tech. Sgt. Gavin Fisher 350th Special Warfare Training Squadron, Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, Texas

Fisher was awarded the Silver Star medal for his gallantry as a pararescue technical rescue specialist while engaged in ground combat against U.S. enemies Aug. 11 and 12, 2018, in Ghazni Province, Afghanistan.

Ultimately, Fishers actions saved the lives of 10 critically injured U.S. Soldiers, medically evacuated 20 casualties and eliminated 118 Taliban fighters.

Prior to the attack, a Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force was conducting a 10-day crisis response mission to fend off Ghazni City from more than 500 Taliban fighters. Fisher was serving as a rear gunner for the lead vehicle of the convoy, when Taliban fighters struck the armored vehicles with rocket propelled grenades and heavy machine gun fire.

In the midst of the ambush, Fisher was struck by grenade shrapnel; however, he remained focused, firing back at the Taliban and directing his vehicle out of danger. While still fending off two enemy fighters, he provided advanced medical treatment, stopping bleeding and administering blood transfusions to two critically injured Soldiers. Fisher then kept his brothers-in-arms stable until a medical evacuation team arrived.

Wounded and refusing to leave with the patients, Fisher was involved in a second ambush. Placing others lives before his, he treated five additional critically injured partner force casualties and requested a second medical evacuation.

The Taliban continued to strike the task force, eventually striking the mission support site and wounding 12 partner-force soldiers. Fisher, without hesitation or regard for his safety, maneuvered through 75 meters of heavy machine gun and small-arms fire to treat five of the wounded comrades.

Jumping back into the rear gunner seat of his armored vehicle, a wounded Fisher manned the heavy machine gun as his team continued clearance operations of the city. Suddenly, a rocket-propelled grenade struck the vehicle, severely wounding Fisher; however, he refused to falter while on guard.

Fisher returned fire and directed his team to safety, before he finally relented to medical care.

Getting this medal is important because it lets people know the war is still going on, and valiant efforts by men and women are still going forth, Fisher said. People are still out there dying and fighting for each other, and it needs to be recognized.

Staff Sgt. Daniel Swensen 58th Rescue Squadron, Nellis AFB, Nevada

Swensen was awarded the Silver Star medal for his gallantry as a pararescueman while engaged in ground combat against U.S. enemies Sept. 13 and 14, 2019, in Farah Province, Afghanistan.

Ultimately, Swensens actions directly saved the lives of nine American and partner force special operators.

On the night of the attack, U.S. Army Special Forces Operational Detachment-Alpha 1215 was conducting a helicopter assault to reclaim the Anar Darah District Center and police headquarters, which were under Taliban control. Simultaneously, Swensen, who was embedded with the detachment, was leading a ground-assault team through a compound, when Taliban fighters initiated an ambush less than 100 meters away.

Within moments, the Taliban were relentlessly sending heavy machine gun fire and rocket propelled grenades into the compound. Eventually, a grenade struck the wall behind Swensen, wounding him and five of his teammates.

Injured, trapped and separated from the support fire team, Swensen remained vigilant as he fired back at the Taliban and directed his partner forces to safety. In the midst of the chaos, he ran through intense enemy fire to rescue a fallen Soldier incapacitated by his injuries. As the gunfire sprayed overhead, Swensen treated the life-threatening wounds before moving him out of danger.

Swensen, continuing to ignore his injuries, grouped the casualties and prepared for extraction. He loaded an injured Soldier onto his shoulders and then directed the team to the helicopter landing zone 800 meters away.

Not long after the group had arrived, the Taliban executed a second ambush with heavy machine gun fire.

With disregard for his safety, Swensen remained exposed to enemy fire to direct the casualties behind cover and then continued treatment of the critically injured. Eventually, the medical evacuation helicopter arrived, and the injured were flown to safety; however, for Swensen, there was still work to be done. He then led the remaining team members back through the city to retrieve four additional casualties before allowing medical attention for his wounds.

Its weird to receive so much attention for something that I feel anyone else wouldve done on the battlefield that night, Swensen said. Im honored my peers think I deserve this medal.

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Two pararescue Airmen receive Silver Star for gallant actions in Afgha - Maxwell-Gunter Air Force Base

Editors Note: This article originally appeared on Order from Chaos.

It is a serious charge to accuse U.S. officials of deceit and duplicity in their dealings with the American people. That is arguably what happened in Vietnam, to a large extenthelping explain why the 1960s were among the worst decades in American history in terms of domestic cohesion and trust. Now, the Washington Post has accused U.S. officials of both parties and several recent administrations of a similar pattern of untruthfulness in regard to the American-led mission in Afghanistan since 2001. Does this charge hold up?

The short answer is no. The Washington Post did a disservice with this report. At a time when trust in American institutions is already weak, and U.S. officials accuse each other of lying all the time, the country does not benefit from yet more of its trusted voices being wrongly demeaned and diminished.

Yes, the Afghanistan experience these last 18.5 years has been marked by tragedy, frustration, many failures, and a general sense of disappointment. Even those of us who generally have supported the mission would acknowledge as much. But no, there has not been a campaign of disinformation, intentional or subliminal.

It is fine to accuse many elected leaders, ambassadors, generals, and other officials of endorsing bad policiesand not seeing clearly or quickly enough when those policies were failing. That is much different, however, than an assault on the integrity of those individuals. To be sure, wishful thinking afflicts public servants as much as other human beings, and people who favor one policy or another sometimes spin the facts to suit their pre-determined argument. But that is much different than intentional and concerted efforts to lead the country astray. And for every person attempting positive spin about the Afghanistan mission over the years, there have usually been several harping on all the problems.

Indeed, very few American leaders have ever seen Afghanistan through rose-colored glasses. Consider:

The Washington Post is right to document, for the umpteenth time, the lack of progress in fighting opium production, making Afghanistan safer for its citizens, reducing government corruption, and building Afghan security forces that can handle the job without us (though it is worth noting that those forces now do in fact hold all major and mid-sized cities, and do perhaps 95% of the fighting and more than 99% of the dying among coalition forces these days). It is wrongbadly wrongto claim to have proven that the Bush, Obama, and/or Trump administrations, as well as top military and diplomatic leaders charged with the Afghanistan mission, systematically and intentionally misled the country about what was going on.

Continued here:
What the Washington Post Gets Wrong About the United States and Afghanistan - Lawfare

Thank you very much, Madam President. And thank you to the Special Representative and Ms Khurram for their really helpful briefings and nice to see Ms Khurram here again. And thank you to my colleague, the Afghan Ambassador. Were very pleased to be part of the Group of Friends of Women in Afghanistan and its very heartening to hear so much support from colleagues around the table. So thank you very much for that. And also, big thank you to the Indonesian Foreign Minister for her guidance as well.

First of all, I think for the Special Representative, its a huge thank you once again for what youre doing and for the work of UNAMA in incredibly challenging circumstances. So thank you for that. And Id like to come on in a minute to the three main issues of today: the peace process, the elections and economic development.

But at first, I just wanted to add the United Kingdoms voice to all those condemning the attack on the UN vehicle in Kabul last month and the recent attack that killed Dr. Nakamura. We join all those who lament the loss of these fine colleagues. We send our sympathies and our condolences to their families and to all those who knew them. There is absolutely no justification for these disgraceful acts of violence. The Taliban claim to speak for the people of Afghanistan and yet if they do not take part directly in such attacks, they certainly create an environment where such attacks become possible. And in that connection, I would like to mention the Taliban attack on Bagram last Tuesday, which killed two civilians and injured many more. And the United Kingdom calls on the Taliban to end such attacks in order to give Afghans a chance for the stable and just peace that they so much deserve.

Turning to the peace process, we share the view of other members that only a political process can deliver a lasting and just peace. And a deal between the US and Taliban is crucial to unlocking intra-Afghan talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban. The United Kingdom also hopes talks can resume soon, but its clear the Taliban need to firmly commit to a concrete reduction in violence as a matter of urgency. The Taliban needs to show its serious about peace, the Afghan people need respite from the awful violence, and we need to create a conducive environment for these crucial intra-Afghan talks to succeed.

Madam President, Ive mentioned the vital role that women have to play in the peace process and I join my colleagues in once again underscoring that. I wanted to commend you now on the opening of the Nationwide Global Open Days on women, peace and security with the symposium in Kabul in October.

My second point concerns the Afghan presidential elections. Madam President, we join others in calling on all stakeholders to respect and uphold the integrity of the electoral management bodies as they work to complete the process and deliver the results in a timely manner.

We welcome UNAMAs continued engagement around the elections with national and international partners. And we likewise support UNAMAs call for transparency, impartiality and independence as the results of process. It was good to see that the Independent Electoral Commission will be able to move forward with recounts in the remaining provinces. We hope this process can move forward expeditiously and transparently and we look forward to preliminary results.

My last point, Madam President, is on Afghanistans economic development needs, regardless of what happens in the months ahead. Afghanistan will continue to have considerable economic development and humanitarian needs, as the Indonesian representative so clearly set out. Financial commitments made at the Brussels Summit in 2016 will run out next year. The UK supports the holding of a pledging conference in 2020 to address the financing gap and identify development priorities for the remainder of the transformation decade. And we therefore welcome, Madam President, the work that UNAMA is doing with the Afghan government in preparation for the 2020 Ministerial Conference on Afghanistan and the initiation of discussions with potential hosts for that event.

Thank you.

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Welcoming the progress made by UNAMA in Afghanistan - GOV.UK

Since the Washington Post first published the "Afghanistan papers," I have been reminded of a scene from "Apocalypse Now Redux" in which Army Col. Walter Kurtz reads to the soldier assigned to kill him two Time magazine articles showing how the American people had been lied to about Vietnam by both the Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon administrations.

In one of the articles, a British counterinsurgency expert tells Nixon that "things felt much better and smelled much better" during his visit to Vietnam.

"How do they smell to you, soldier?" Kurtz asks.

The Washington Post's reporting reveals that top government officials have known for years that the Afghanistan war has been unwinnable, yet they have continued to support it in public, going so far as to twist statistics to make things appear to be better than they really were.

The stories confirm that the U.S. military's strategy has been to "muddle along" and continue to send troops to fight a conflict that cannot be won on the battlefield.

Yet rather than owning up to the truth, several prominent supporters of the Afghan war, who have invested their reputations in its outcome, have instead attacked the Washington Post.

Michael E. O'Hanlon, of the left-leaning Brookings Institution think tank in Washington, accused the Post of doing a "disservice" by reporting that U.S. officials have been less than forthright about the prospects of success in Afghanistan.

"It is wrong badly wrong to claim to have proven that the Bush, Obama, and/or Trump administrations, as well as top military and diplomatic leaders charged with the Afghanistan mission, systematically and intentionally misled the country about what was going on," O'Hanlon wrote in a Dec. 10 post for the Brookings Institution's blog.

Oh really? Let's play a fun game and count the number of times defense officials have claimed that Afghanistan has turned the corner.

This is what then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said during his December 2011 visit to Afghanistan: "I think 2011 will go down as a turning point here in Afghanistan. We've weakened the Taliban. We've been able to secure more areas here in Afghanistan. The Afghan army is asserting itself, becoming more operational. We're transitioning areas. Over 50 percent of the population has now been transitioned to areas of Afghan governance and security."

In May 2014, Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called Afghanistan's elections a "turning point in the confidence" of Afghan security forces.

And Army Gen. John Nicholson, who led all U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, said this during a November 2017 Pentagon news briefing: "Now, looking ahead to 2018, as President Ghani said, he believes we have turned the corner and I agree. The momentum is now with the Afghan Security Forces and the Taliban cannot win in the face of the pressures that I outlined. Again, their choices are to reconcile, live in irrelevance, or die."

As Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) pointed out during the June 2018 confirmation hearing for the current U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, "We've supposedly turned the corner so many times that it seems now we're going in circles."

But others insist that the Afghanistan war is still worth fighting, citing the good the United States has accomplished there, such as advances in education.

Ryan Crocker, who served as charg d'affaires to Afghanistan in 2002 and later as the U.S. ambassador from 2011 to 2012, wrote in the Washington Post that only 900,000 children were in school all of whom were boys when the U.S. military initially toppled the Taliban government.

"When I left Afghanistan as ambassador in 2012, 8 million Afghan kids were in school, a third of them girls," Crocker wrote. "Does that sound like a disaster?"

However, it is still extremely difficult to be a woman in Afghanistan, especially outside of Kabul and Jalalabad, said John F. Sopko, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction.

"Go out into the hinterlands," Sopko told reporters in April. "Women are still treated very poorly, and we have to remember that."

Still, it is impossible to argue that life would improve for Afghans if the United States withdrew all of its troops from the country.

Former Defense Secretary James Mattis, who also led troops in Afghanistan, noted that Afghan security forces continue to fight the Taliban even though more than 28,500 of their troops and police have been killed since 2015.

"Why is that army still fighting having suffered that many casualties if the whole thing is just a waste and it can't be successful?" Mattis told David Ignatius of the Washington Post. "You couldn't fight many armies that could take those casualties and stay in the brawl."

Mattis also said he was perplexed at the notion that the U.S. government tried to hide how bad the situation in Afghanistan really was.

"I have walked the ground with your reporters beside me, who were embedded in the units, who were watching this close up," Mattis said. "The reporting, I thought, was pretty accurate."

True, but those embeds ended several years ago and Army Gen. Austin Miller, who has led all U.S. troops in Afghanistan for more than a year, has not held a single Pentagon press briefing.

The U.S. military has also stopped making public how much territory the Afghan government actually controls and other metrics for success have become classified, Sopko said in April.

"Embarrassing things tend to get classified in this town," Sopko said at a Defense Writers Group breakfast. "Governments don't usually classify good news. If they do by mistake, it's leaked."

All of this is a long way of answering the question posed by Col. Kurtz. How does the party line about Afghanistan smell? Like bullshit.

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Jeff Schogol covers the Pentagon for Task & Purpose. He has covered the military for 14 years and embedded with U.S. troops in Iraq and Haiti. Prior to joining T&P, he covered the Marine Corps and Air Force at Military Times. Comments or thoughts to share? Send them to Jeff Schogol via email at schogol@taskandpurpose.com or direct message @JeffSchogol on Twitter.

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There are lies, damn lies, and even more damn lies about Afghanistan - Task & Purpose

The US-led war in Afghanistan turned 18 in October, and those two decades of fighting and rebuilding appear to have yielded little progress.

The counternarcotics effort there, for example, "has just been a total failure," John F. Sopko, special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, said at the Wilson Center in Washington, DC, in November.

The US Drug Enforcement Administration has "done a yeoman's task there" and the special Afghan units they've trained have "made wonderful seizures," Sopko said. "The Afghans with the cooperation of the DEA have actually seized more drugs in Afghanistan than I believe we in the United States have seized on the Mexican border."

An Afghan man works on a poppy field in Jalalabad province, May 1, 2014. REUTERS/Parwiz

Nevertheless, "the amount seized over ... I think it's the last 10 years still is less than 5% of the crop that was grown last year 10 years of seizures, less than 5%. So you're never going to work your way out of that by just seizures alone," he said. "That's an area where we definitely have seen no improvement. If anything, I think we've probably gone back."

The Taliban banned opium in 2000, leaving many farmers destitute but causing drug production to hit a historic low in 2001, when the US invaded.

The invasion and collapse of governing institutions opened a vacuum that allowed cultivation to increase, leading to more robust counter-drug efforts by the US-led coalition.

UNODC Afghan opium survey 2018

Production leveled off in 2009 and 2010 but has steadily risen since 2011.

"From 2013 to 2016, drug production continued at or near the highest levels ever consistently seen in Afghanistan," according to a 2018 SIGAR report.

The most recent SIGAR quarterly report, released at the end of October, said the US has allotted about $8.94 billion to fight drugs in Afghanistan since 2002.

In 2018, opium cultivation covered 263,000 hectares in Afghanistan, according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime. That was down from 328,000 hectares in 2017 but still more than any other year since 1994.

SIGAR 45th Quarterly Report

While Afghanistan's opiate economy shrunk by two-thirds between 2017 and 2018, it was still 6% to 11% of the country's GDP and exceeded the value of the country's official legal exports of goods and services, according to SIGAR.

The broader problem of impunity also affects anti-drug efforts.

"We created a counternarcotics court to handle the narcotics issues," Sopko said. "They try a lot of people, but they try the poor slob who happens to be a the scene of the crime and not the big fish."

An Afghan child receives polio vaccination drops in Kabul, March 24, 2014. Mohammad Ismail/Reuters

Sopko said there had been progress on other development efforts, but each came with caveats.

"Education has improved, so our work in that area has helped. Whether all the money was spent wisely, I don't know," Sopko said. "The number of kids going to school has improved over time. How much we can say is related to US programs vs. the fact that other donors were involved, we can't tell."

"Healthcare has improved, particularly maternal healthcare ... that's mainly been in the major cities," he added.

"I think the military has improved overall, although it's hard to say how much, because our government no longer collects data on indica of improvements, which we find a little disconcerting," Sopko said. "For years they had different ways to rate the improvements in the military, and every time we went to audit, our military would change the goal posts, and after a while they just stopped collecting the data."

One of four A-29 Super Tucano aircraft given to the Afghan air force by the US at Hamid Karzai International Airport. Video by Staff Sgt. Robert Kingery/Released

Sopko said the Afghan air force and Afghan special forces have "improved dramatically" with US assistance. But US forces still appear to be doing most of the air transport and strikes on insurgents.

The Afghan military has also failed to train enough air controllers and liaisons, according to a Defense Department Inspector General report, which found that just 2.5% to 7.5% of airstrikes by Afghan aircraft involved tactical Afghan air controllers.

"We're always cautious when US government agencies claim dramatic increases due to their programs," Sopko said. "There's usually not a tie between them."

President Donald Trump with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani during Trump's surprise Thanksgiving Day visit, at Bagram Air Field, Afghanistan, November 28, 2019. Alex Brandon / AP

"Corruption, particularly in a country like Afghanistan, is a national security issue," Sopko said. "Because one of the best ways for the Taliban to recruit is to [tell Afghans to] look at all the corrupt government officials."

Sopko complimented the anti-corruption efforts of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and the country's chief executive, Abdullah Abdullah, but said there had been backsliding.

"It's hard for us to comprehend what it's like when you are the president or senior official and you appoint somebody as a minister, and even though that minister may be honest everybody in his chain of command is on the take," he added.

While the Afghan government is good at "checking boxes," he said, it falls short on other important measures like the number of indictments, the number of arrests, or the amount of money seized.

Sopko cited as an example the creation of a special anti-corruption force with dedicated police, prosecutors, and judges. At the US's suggestion, the Afghans polygraphed those officials but didn't remove those who failed. After some prompting, they removed the officials who failed but then didn't replace them.

Trump addresses US troops during his surprise Thanksgiving Day visit, at Bagram Air Field, November 28, 2019. Alex Brandon / AP

Asked about privatization and the role of contractors, Sopko chided the US Corps of Engineers, which he said has been "horrendous in not holding contractors' feet to the fire" for mistakes and other problems with their projects.

A particular problem with Afghan contractors has been companies that only exist on paper.

"We're currently investigating one company that does purchasing of gas for us," Sopko said. "Fuel is liquid gold, and over 50% of the fuel we buy for the Afghans is stolen or doesn't exist, and we're looking at one company and ... this individual has about 200 to 300 companies paper companies. So when we shut him down in this name, he opens up in another name, and we've had a big problem with that."

Sopko said his agency would urge the US and other donors not to focus on how much money was given to support reconstruction in Afghanistan but rather on where it goes and how it's used.

"If we don't, you might as well just pile up all of that money in Massoud Circle and burn it," he said.

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The war on drugs in Afghanistan 'has just been a total failure,' the US's top watchdog there says - INSIDER