New internal reports on the Afghanistan War reported out by the Washington Post

The Washington Post is publishing documents on the Afghanistan War they are calling "The Afghanistan Papers: A secret history of the war" by Craig Whitlock, Leslie Shapiro and Armand Emamdjomeh. A number of the documents are linked in that piece.

This is the Post's video on the report, Exclusive: A secret history of the war in Afghanistan, revealed 12/09/2019:

A podcast is also available, The Afghanistan Papers Washington Post 12/09/2019.

People who have followed critical reporting on the Afghanistan War won't be surprised to find out that the Pentagon and various policymakers lied for 18 years about how things were going in the Afghanistan War. Nor that there was immense waste of lives and money. Nor that the actual mission beyond providing a counterstrike against Bin Laden and Al Qaida after the 9/11 attacks on New York and the Pentagon was vague. Nor that it was often unclear even who the enemy was.

Juan Cole is one those not greatly surprised by those things: We didn’t Need the Documents: America’s Trillion $ Failure in the Afghanistan War has been Obvious All Along Informed Comment 12/10/2019.

One should always keep in mind a few things while evaluating reports like these. The Pentagon has a long-standing standard alibi for disastrous outcomes in war, which is that it's the fault of civilians who didn't let them kill enough people for long enough to achieve Success. Another is that civilians did a bad job, unlike the Pentagon, which did everything right and performed brilliantly. And it is a great temptation for US policymakers as well as the Pentagon to leave troops in a country where the US fought a war for a prolonged period of time.

Craig Whitlock provides details on the Post's findings in six articles: Informed Comment

• Part 1: At War with the Truth Washington Post 12/09/2019
• Part 2: Stranded Without a Strategy Washington Post 12/09/2019
• Part 3: Built to Fail Washington Post 12/09/2019
• Part 4: Consumed by corruption
• Part 5: Unguarded nation Washington Post 12/09/2019
• Part 6: Overwhelmed by opium Washington Post 12/09/2019

See also:

Craig Whitlock, Jenn Abelson and Meryl Kornfield, Responses from people featured in The Afghanistan Papers Washington Post 12/09/2019

Peter Beaumont, US lies and deception spelled out in Afghanistan papers' shocking detail Guardian 12/09/2019