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A review by thebookbin
The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War by Craig Whitlock
dark
informative
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
As much as I distrust the Washington Post, I do regard Craig Whitlock as an honest reporter, so I was definitely interested in this book. As a 27 year-old, the United States has been at war nearly my entire life. It was such a part of life that it never really registered to me as anything out of the ordinary. I am from the generation that has very foggy memories of 9/11 itself, and was rather traumatized by the teachers and school system that made us watch videos of people jumping to their deaths out of a burning building every year in the save of "remembrance."
When Joe Biden announced he was pulling American troops out of Afghanistan, I was sad for the Afghan women, but overall glad with the development. I am not ever in favor of imperialism, and there is no other way to describe the United States' actions in the Middle East. When this book was published, I was interested, but in the middle of trying to graduate, and I didn't get the time for it. After taking my time to really digest this book, the sins of the US are many indeed.
Whitlock details the war timeline alongside an examination of a few key indicators of the war: corruption, irresponsible spending, the opium trade, ect. As he takes us through all the documents he's recovered through his legal battle with the Pentagon and FOIA request crusade, and the details are astonishing. I think in this era of "respect the flag" discourse this should be required reading for Americans who have such devout blind faith in their governments. There are chilling quotes:
“The Afghan army and police forces looked robust on paper. But a large percentage materialized as ghost billets, or no show jobs. Afghan commanders inflated the numbers so they could pocket millions of dollars in salaries — paid by US taxpayers — for imaginary personnel, according to US government audits.”
That price paid by American citizens was $8 trillion and almost three thousand US military deaths, saying nothing of the millions of civilians who perished in the never-ending conflicts. Whitlock was able to glean much of this information from the Army's Center for Lessons Learned and their reports, which are astounding to read. While three American presidents claimed we were making progress to the American people, their Generals and troops on the ground were admitting defeat.
“Of all the flaws with the Afghanistan nation-building campaign—the waste, the inefficiency, the half-baked ideas—nothing confounded U.S. officials more than the fact that they could never tell whether any of it was actually helping them win the war.”
When Joe Biden announced he was pulling American troops out of Afghanistan, I was sad for the Afghan women, but overall glad with the development. I am not ever in favor of imperialism, and there is no other way to describe the United States' actions in the Middle East. When this book was published, I was interested, but in the middle of trying to graduate, and I didn't get the time for it. After taking my time to really digest this book, the sins of the US are many indeed.
Whitlock details the war timeline alongside an examination of a few key indicators of the war: corruption, irresponsible spending, the opium trade, ect. As he takes us through all the documents he's recovered through his legal battle with the Pentagon and FOIA request crusade, and the details are astonishing. I think in this era of "respect the flag" discourse this should be required reading for Americans who have such devout blind faith in their governments. There are chilling quotes:
“The Afghan army and police forces looked robust on paper. But a large percentage materialized as ghost billets, or no show jobs. Afghan commanders inflated the numbers so they could pocket millions of dollars in salaries — paid by US taxpayers — for imaginary personnel, according to US government audits.”
That price paid by American citizens was $8 trillion and almost three thousand US military deaths, saying nothing of the millions of civilians who perished in the never-ending conflicts. Whitlock was able to glean much of this information from the Army's Center for Lessons Learned and their reports, which are astounding to read. While three American presidents claimed we were making progress to the American people, their Generals and troops on the ground were admitting defeat.
“Of all the flaws with the Afghanistan nation-building campaign—the waste, the inefficiency, the half-baked ideas—nothing confounded U.S. officials more than the fact that they could never tell whether any of it was actually helping them win the war.”