Afghanistan Papers: Secret History of the War

Craig Whitlock, WashPo, 8/31/21; Pfc. Sandoval, A. Wells, Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History

The Afghanistan Papers (Craig Whitlock)

Out today, this is the groundbreaking investigative story of how three successive presidents and their military commanders deceived the American public year after year about America’s longest war.

It was a foreshadowing of the Taliban’s recapture of their country, Afghanistan, by Washington Post reporter and three-time Pulitzer Prize finalist Craig Whitlock.

Unlike the US wars on Vietnam and Iraq, the illegal US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 had near-unanimous public support.

At first, the goals were straightforward and clear: Defeat al-Qaeda ("The List") and prevent a repeat of 9/11.

Yet soon after the United States and its arm-twisted allies removed the Taliban from power, there was mission creep.

The mission veered off course, and US officials lost sight of their original objectives, which were already accomplished within about six months.

• [That means the other 19.5 years we were there and the $2 trillion dollars we wasted were siphoned off as private profits at public expense.]

What did you do to my country? (S. Gula)

Distracted by its War on Iraq, the US military became mired in an unwinnable guerrilla conflict, just like Vietnam, in a country it also did not understand.

But no president -- and five are guilty of involvement -- wanted to admit failure, especially in a war that began as a just cause.

Instead, the Bush [Cheney], Obama [Biden], and Trump administrations sent more and more troops to Afghanistan and repeatedly lied when they said they were making progress, even though they knew there was no realistic prospect for an outright victory.

Just as the Pentagon Papers changed the public’s understanding of Vietnam, The Afghanistan Papers contains startling revelation after revelation from people who played a direct role in the war, from leaders in the White House and the Pentagon to soldiers and aid workers on the front lines.

Where is Afghanistan? Next to India and Iran

In unvarnished language, they admit that the US government’s strategies were a mess, that the nation-building project was a colossal failure, and that drugs and corruption gained a stranglehold over their allies in the Afghan government.

All told, the account is based on interviews with more than 1,000 people who knew that the US government was presenting a distorted, and sometimes entirely fabricated, version of the facts on the ground.

Statue of the Buddha, Mes Aynak, 3rd-6th cent. CE

Documents unearthed by The Washington Post reveal that President Bush didn’t know the name of his Afghanistan war commander — and didn’t want to make time to meet with him.

Secretary of War Defense Donald Rumsfeld admitted he had “no visibility into who the bad guys are.” His successor, Robert Gates, said: “We didn’t know jack shit about al-Qaeda.”

The Afghanistan Papers is a shocking account that will supercharge a long overdue reckoning over what went wrong and forever change the way the conflict is remembered. More + AUDIO

• Buddhism in Afghanistan is more the Buddhas of Bamiyan
• World's largest Buddhist temple: Mes Aynak, Afghanistan