As the US and Nato marked 10 years of war in Afghanistan last Friday, a grim picture emerged from scores of interviews over six months across the country with ordinary Afghans, government officials, soldiers, and former and current Taliban, along with recent data. The difference between the often optimistic assessment of US generals and the reality on the ground for Afghans is stark.

There are signs of progress — an important one is that schools are open. More than six million children are in school today, according to the United Nations. During the Taliban’s tenure, girls were denied schooling, and before that most schools were closed because of fighting. The media is also flourishing, with several newspapers, weekly magazines and 10 television channels in operation.

But for Afghans, it has been a decade of one step forward and two steps back.

Afghanistan is failing in two major areas in particular: Security and good government. Violence has gone up this year with increasingly brazen attacks, and has spread to the once-peaceful north of the country. And widespread corruption is bedeviling attempts to create a viable Afghan government and institutions to take over when the US and Nato leave in 2014.

Recent portrayals of the Afghan war by US generals have been cautiously positive. International forces released data last month saying violent attacks are down. The generals claim they have gained back land in the south, and that the morale of the Taliban is sinking.

But other reports challenged these assessments. The International Crisis Group, based in Brussels, reported in August that more districts are in fact coming under Taliban control, as the insurgency spreads to areas seen until recently as safe.

Poll after poll shows that the biggest issue for Afghans is the lack of security. Even in southern Kandahar, the former Taliban headquarters where the US generals claim to have made progress, violence is a part of life.

There were 2,108 clashes and other violent incidents per month for the latest quarter, up 39% from the same period last year, according to the United Nations. And last year was the deadliest of the war for international troops, with more than 700 killed.

In recent months, brazen daylight attacks have been mounted with alarming regularity, including an assault on the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul in June, a 20-hour siege of the US Embassy and Nato headquarters in September and an attack that killed a CIA contractor at one of the agency’s offices in Kabul, also in September.

In the north, a number of senior police chiefs and a governor have all been killed, among others. Last month, a suicide bomber killed former president Burhanuddin Rabbani, head of the council tasked to talk peace with the Taliban.

US generals dismiss the attacks as signs of desperation within the Taliban ranks. But others say they show that a stronger insurgency can now infiltrate Afghan institutions and slip into parts of the capital, Kabul, under the tightest security control. The Taliban have also taken over highways, severely limiting people from moving around.

The Taliban have returned in part because Afghans have learned to expect little from a failed government and institutions wracked with corruption.