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The Afghanistan Papers
The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War | The Washington Post, Craig Whitlock
9 posts | 8 read | 5 to read
The groundbreaking investigative story of how three successive presidents and their military commanders deceived the public year after year about the longest war in American history by Washington Post reporter Craig Whitlock, a three-time Pulitzer Prize finalist. 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: to 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 became 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 publics 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. In unvarnished language, they admit that the US governments 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 didnt know the name of his Afghanistan war commanderand didnt want to make time to meet with him. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld admitted he had no visibility into who the bad guys are. His successor, Robert Gates, said: We didnt 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.
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OmarDwidar93
The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War | The Washington Post, Craig Whitlock
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Pickpick

It‘s the victory, misleading, lies, and withdrawal chaos of one of America‘s longest war in history ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

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WellReadCatLady
The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War | The Washington Post, Craig Whitlock
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Pickpick

This book really lays out what went wrong in Afghanistan and how many people in government lied about it to the public.

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jpj7474
The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War | The Washington Post, Craig Whitlock

Mixed on this. Well written, interesting. But if you regularly followed the coverage of this war over the last 20 yrs, not really any bombshell revelations here. In preface author self-servingly builds it up as the Pentagon Papers-style expose that the public was clamoring for. Not really.

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Tkgbjenn1
The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War | The Washington Post, Craig Whitlock
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Pickpick

So many miscalculations. Such shortsightedness. At times an oversimplification of the people of Afghanistan. An over simplification of Islam. At times this war was just ignored as focus was placed on Iraq. Over confidence on projected outcomes. And more often than not just flat out lies about the truth on the ground to placate the American public. We once said “No more Vietnam‘s” but how quickly we forgot our lessons.

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JenReadsAlot
The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War | The Washington Post, Craig Whitlock
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Cortg
The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War | The Washington Post, Craig Whitlock
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Pickpick

I‘ve been wanting to understand the war in Afghanistan better. I tried to read a friend‘s books from a Dept. of Defense masters course but they were over my head. This book does a terrific job of painting a picture of Afghanistan, Al-Qaeda, the Taliban and Afghan civilians. It covers each of the presidencies throughout the war and where things went wrong. It was a great listen that helped put things into perspective and well researched journalism.

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Susan
The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War | The Washington Post, Craig Whitlock
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And seriously folks, we all need to read this.

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Megabooks
The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War | The Washington Post, Craig Whitlock
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This #audiobook is a comprehensive look at the failure of the Afghanistan War. Particularly timely now. The most sensible thing I read was someone that said we should‘ve paid for a generation of students to go to school in India, then let them run their own country. I think that would‘ve been a lot more effective than the nation building the US did try to do.

#booked2021 #RelatedTo911

8little_paws I just got this last week. Can't wait 3y
MallenNC I am on hold for this at my library. 3y
Megabooks @8little_paws I definitely think this is up your alley. So many things went wrong there! 3y
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Megabooks @MallenNC I hope you find it as enlightening as I have. Fascinating book. 3y
Cinfhen So relevant!!! How sad on the 20th anniversary of 911 the Taliban is back in power 😞😭 3y
Megabooks @Cinfhen true. I definitely see the point I paraphrased in my review that if we had focused on meeting Afghans where they were at rather than funneling money and trying to make it America, perhaps we would‘ve been more successful at lasting change. 3y
BarbaraTheBibliophage I think that point is incredibly wise. While agree that finding bin Laden and eliminating his terror network was important, I think pretty much everything else we did there was misguided and short sighted. Education—especially of girls—might‘ve made a huge difference. 3y
Megabooks @BarbaraTheBibliophage a lot of the quotes in this book from all levels of the military as well as some civilians are from a project called “Lessons Learned”. I hope we did learn lessons from this. Some of the Pakistani people said they were hedging their bets by staying on the Taliban‘s good side. Just an incredibly f***ed up situation that cost a lot of lives. 3y
BarbaraBB That would have been so wise indeed. Instead so much was lost. 3y
Megabooks @BarbaraBB agree, unfortunately. 3y
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SweetP1967
The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War | The Washington Post, Craig Whitlock
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Pickpick

A lot of information to digest but ultimately the book‘s message is that troops should have left Afghanistan shortly after the war started. According to the records used to support the book, defeat was inevitable once the goal was changed to nation building. 5 stars.