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The Afghanistan Papers
- A Secret History of the War
- Narrated by: Dan Bittner
- Length: 9 hrs and 35 mins
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Publisher's Summary
A Washington Post Best Book of 2021
The number-one New York Times best-selling investigative story of how three successive presidents and their military commanders deceived the public year after year about America’s longest war, foreshadowing the Taliban’s recapture of Afghanistan, by Washington Post reporter and three-time Pulitzer Prize finalist Craig Whitlock.
Unlike the wars in Vietnam and Iraq, the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 had near-unanimous public support. At first, the goals were straightforward and clear: Defeat al-Qaeda and prevent a repeat of 9/11. Yet soon after the United States and its allies removed the Taliban from power, the mission veered off-course and US officials lost sight of their original objectives.
Distracted by the war in Iraq, the US military become mired in an unwinnable guerrilla conflict in a country it did not understand. But no president wanted to admit failure, especially in a war that began as a just cause. Instead, the Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations sent more and more troops to Afghanistan and repeatedly 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 “fast-paced and vivid” (The New York Times Book Review) 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. 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.
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 meet with him. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld admitted that 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 “searing indictment of the deceit, blunders, and hubris of senior military and civilian officials” (Tom Bowman, NRP Pentagon Correspondent) that will supercharge a long-overdue reckoning over what went wrong and forever change the way the conflict is remembered.
Critic Reviews
"Craig Whitlock has forged a searing indictment of the deceit, blunders, and hubris of senior military and civilian officials, with the same tragic echoes of the Vietnam conflict. The American dead, wounded, and their families deserved wiser and more honorable leaders.” (Tom Bowman, NPR Pentagon correspondent)
“At once page-turning and rigorous, The Afghanistan Papers makes a lasting and revelatory contribution to the record of America's tragic management of our longest war. In transparent and nuanced detail, Whitlock chronicles how American leaders and commanders undermined their country's promises to the Afghans who counted on them and to the US troops who made the ultimate sacrifice after 9/11.” (Steve Coll, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Ghost Wars and Directorate S)
“The Afghanistan Papers is a gripping account of why the war in Afghanistan lasted so long. The missed opportunities, the outright mistakes, and more than anything, the firsthand accounts from senior commanders who only years later acknowledged they simply did not tell the American people what they knew about how the war was going.” (Barbara Starr, CNN Pentagon correspondent)
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What listeners say about The Afghanistan Papers
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- Luke Nopool
- 11-12-2022
A good listen
A decent account of goings on in Afghanistan from Sep 11 onwards, but the performance detracted by the repeated phrase, "as told in an army lessons learned oral interview" after anyone was quoted as saying anything.
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- Love it
- 11-09-2021
Important history
What a timely and necessary piece of journalistic history.
The whole narrative is written to show what a waste of time the war in afghanistan was, the lives lost, the money wasted on corrupt, inept afghanis and contractors who just spent the money because it needed to be spent. The secretive accounts from different groups figures through three administrations really express a candid and confusing picture about the war, and what the point of it all was. My only real critique of this book is that it doesn’t detail enough about the civilians killed and the role of private mercenaries in the Middle East.
Biden was 100% right to get out this war became pointless 10 or so years ago. And was dragged on for nothing in the end. The government fell in a day and all the taliban had to do was ride it out.
The US is terrible and grossly incompetent at war, they know how to blow things up and waste money well and that’s it.
When bin laden was killed that should have been it. US generals prolonged this thing and lied to the US public and the world for 2 decades. I feel for the women of Afghanistan.
There is a very poignant point made in the book which sums up the better method of engagement, take a bunch of fifth graders educate them elsewhere and then send them back to run the place I have to agree that would have been better than the last 2 decades of war.
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- Anonymous User
- 27-03-2024
Honest
Honest look at history, non partisan and factual. a must read for anyone interested in modern strategic policy.
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- Danielle Phillips
- 26-10-2021
Afghanistan Papers.... Loved it
Loved this book, so informative and insightful. Well read and easy to listen to.
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- Amazon Customer
- 10-10-2021
Good overview of 20 years. fudged ending in Sep 21
Good matter of fact summary of 20 year conflict but huge let down at the end with a teary eyed vision of Pres Biden at Arlington national cementary as he made the decision to leave. The traumatic way we left and the many lives lost could have been the culmination of the poor senior leader decisions over 20 years. The Rumsfeld theme of "power up" has never ended or worked!
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