The war in Afghanistan was a calamity from the start and four US presidents (Bush, Obama, Trump, Biden) have deceived the American public about it as they wrecked the country. This is the inescapable conclusion one gets from reading Washington Post reporter Craig Whitlock's bestselling book The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War (Simon & Schuster). Whitlock obtained internal government records showing that U.S. officials at every level knew that the war lacked coherent objectives and that it was costing untold Afghan and U.S. lives with little benefit to anyone. As the Pentagon Papers did for Vietnam, The Afghanistan Papers exposes the way U.S. officials manipulated public perception and buried inconvenient facts over the course of a 20-year quagmire. Today on the podcast, Whitlock joins to explain the revelations contained in this "secret history" and recount the true facts of a military mission that has ended with the Taliban back in power and the country in ruins. 

The Washington Post report by Susannah George on the starvation of the Afghan people is here. The 2001 story about the U.S. rejecting a Taliban offer to turn over Osama bin Laden is here.