The Afghanistan Papers: Why the War Was a Failure (With Craig Whitlock)

The Michael Shermer Show # 218
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: 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.
Distracted by the war in Iraq, the US military became mired in an unwinnable guerrilla conflict. The Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations sent more and more troops to Afghanistan and repeatedly said they were making progress.
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.
Craig Whitlock is an investigative reporter for The Washington Post.
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[@DeconvertedMan]

This should be a very intriguing story.

[@eswyatt]

Interesting Shermer mentions the sunk costs fallacy, given what he said on Aug 23: "I nominate [Jocko Willink] for President in 2024, for any party. This is the kind of leadership we need. While I lean more toward isolationism than interventionism (there's a balance in there somewhere), once we commit to an intervention then we need to finish the job."

[@txdmsk]

Sunk cost is not necessarily a fallacy, it's more like an attribute of human cognition. The results it leads to are not necessarily bad.

[@dakotamurray554]

Got a pot of coffee ready, let's dive into it!

[@James-ip7zk]

I would like to learn about the role of the military-industry complex on these wars. How much money ended in american and international companies, plus all the money placed in weapons and gears. Also if they had any role on lobby or contacts with congress men and generals.

[@TraditionalAnglican]

We never seemed to ask, “What does victory look like?!?” or to establish a set of objectives & then do whatever was needed to accomplish those goals. We also kept Pakistan from providing sanctuary & resupply for the Taliban as they had done for the Mujahideen or Cambodia & Laos had done for the NVA & Vietcong.

[@DeconvertedMan]

Why didn't they just tell us what they wanted - or did they try and we didn't listen to them?

[@patriciak8936]

Why do we call Afghan opium growers Warlords and not Drug Lords?

[@txdmsk]

I would assume there are plenty of weapons and military-like violence / power expression. After all, the area does not really have a leviathan force, and I would assume that the drug lords are filling the power vacuum, so it should be different compared to some Chicago drug lord or even a Mexican cartel. But I don't know much about afghan drug lords, so that's just my guess.

[@thomasgilson6206]

"Bezos could care less about what we print from day to day." What a ridiculous statement.

[@alz.7716]

This man so very greatly misunderstands Afghanistan if he believes democracy could've been done there correctly.

[@johnimusic12]

I would hypothesize that a democracy needs to be born from the "bottom-up", tha it has to be a desire of the people who inhabit a certain territory. The "top-down" approach of a foreign-power like the USA forcefully implementing a democracy onto a people doesn't make any logical Sense.

[@alz.7716]

@@johnimusic12 except in post WWII Germany and Japan.

[@txdmsk]

And democracy, if he thinks it is a desireable goal.

[@txdmsk]

@@johnimusic12 Look at western democracies where elections are decided through completely irrelevant factors. How many voters do you know that can be trusted to vote responsibly, and are informed on the issues at hand? If the US, or [random EU nation] are unable to make democracy work, it can't possibly translate well to low IQ stone age sheep herders and opium farmers.

[@wereyare9143]

1:20:28 Michael you say there has not been another 9/12. But there have been a few minor ones. The latest was Paris 2015!

[@RSHU12]

James Burke British historian of science. Interview on Sceptic Podcast 😍plzzzzz

[@cosmicwave1458]

You know, you know, you know, etc.?

[@dalzy1969]

US Military Industrial Complex. This is what Eisenhower warned us about in his final speech. “Beware of the US Military Industrial Complex.” Jack Kennedy, “I’m worried, there’s a part of the government I don’t control or have any oversight.” We are a war economy. We ALWAYS need an enemy. The last time the United States government (or any politician) was truly honest with the American public was President Lincoln.

[@TraditionalAnglican]

15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers came from Saudi Arabia, while 0 came from Afghanistan, but, unlike Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan had no money or oil.

[@DeconvertedMan]

yes but the question I have on that is - did we get any oil from our war?

[@TraditionalAnglican]

@@DeconvertedMan - No - We didn’t get any oil from the war in Afghanistan, & we could’ve bought the oil from Iraq for the same highly discounted price the French were paying without risking a single life.

[@DeconvertedMan]

@@TraditionalAnglican so what the bleep was anything about - we just wanted revenge on those that hurt us and charged in with no idea what to do? O_o;

[@TraditionalAnglican]

@@DeconvertedMan - That’s basically it. No one defined what victory looked like, so no strategy was devised to achieve it. That’s why we didn’t protect “The Lion of Panjshir” (Ahmed Shah Massoud) who was assassinated on 9/9/2001, why we didn’t send in enough forces to trap & capture OBL, why we never invaded & cleaned out the sanctuaries in Pakistan, why we had to fly into Pakistan to get OBL, & why we “overstayed our welcome”. It’s also why we never considered doing what Patton had done in Germany after the war…

[@DeconvertedMan]

@@TraditionalAnglican During the talk it was mentioned that "they" that had attacked us did so because they felt that the US was supporting places that were suppressing extreme religious groups, so they felt attacked by that - do you think they ever asked the US to negotiate - or do you think they just started attacking us? If so did we just not hear or care? I also remember- sometime after 9/11 I was going to a college class - and a girl was crying, saying we should nuke them all - the whole country. That sort of anger, is unreasonable - yet - understandable. Perhaps we should realize that revenge is never the answer? Maybe we should leave other places alone and mind our own business? IDK - now that the Talban is in charge - what will happen next? Will they go after us again? What are your thoughts on this?

[@MikeHunt-rw4gf]

Algorithm.

[@kungfreddie]

I'm 3 min in.. I bet 100 bux he won't ask about wapo russiagate mania!

[@williamculver1274]

Yeah, no. I value this gentleman's perspective. But wapo, regardless of ownership, only values long form investigations in as much as they do not challenge the cathedral's precepts.

[@nishuee9349]

Michael: "Why the War Was a Failure?" Mr. Craig Smarty-Pants replies: "Because of lies and incompetence!" Michael nods in agreement!! Really, Michael?? Not only an hour and a half gone to waste, but fuel to the laymen to mistrust the institutions one more notch.

[@johnimusic12]

Doesn't seem to be much talk about the financial incentives for war profiteering. Didn't Eisenhower warn us about the eventual emergence of a Militaty Industrial Complex???

[@robertwildes7550]

Hindsight is 20-20.