The Afghanistan Papers
A Secret History of the War
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Narrated by:
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Dan Bittner
About this listen
A Washington Post Best Book of 2021
The number-one New York Times best-selling investigative story of how three successive presidents and their military commanders deceived the public year after year about America’s longest war, foreshadowing the Taliban’s recapture of Afghanistan, by Washington Post reporter and three-time Pulitzer Prize finalist Craig Whitlock.
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: 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 become 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 public’s understanding of Vietnam, The Afghanistan Papers contains “fast-paced and vivid” (The New York Times Book Review) 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 government’s 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 didn’t know the name of his Afghanistan war commander - and didn’t want to meet with him. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld admitted that he had “no visibility into who the bad guys are”. His successor, Robert Gates, said: “We didn’t know jack shit about al-Qaeda.”
The Afghanistan Papers is a “searing indictment of the deceit, blunders, and hubris of senior military and civilian officials” (Tom Bowman, NRP Pentagon Correspondent) that will supercharge a long-overdue reckoning over what went wrong and forever change the way the conflict is remembered.
©2021 Craig Whitlock and The Washington Post (P)2021 Simon & Schuster AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
"Craig Whitlock has forged a searing indictment of the deceit, blunders, and hubris of senior military and civilian officials, with the same tragic echoes of the Vietnam conflict. The American dead, wounded, and their families deserved wiser and more honorable leaders.” (Tom Bowman, NPR Pentagon correspondent)
“At once page-turning and rigorous, The Afghanistan Papers makes a lasting and revelatory contribution to the record of America's tragic management of our longest war. In transparent and nuanced detail, Whitlock chronicles how American leaders and commanders undermined their country's promises to the Afghans who counted on them and to the US troops who made the ultimate sacrifice after 9/11.” (Steve Coll, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Ghost Wars and Directorate S)
“The Afghanistan Papers is a gripping account of why the war in Afghanistan lasted so long. The missed opportunities, the outright mistakes, and more than anything, the firsthand accounts from senior commanders who only years later acknowledged they simply did not tell the American people what they knew about how the war was going.” (Barbara Starr, CNN Pentagon correspondent)
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Interesting Perspective, but One-Sided
- By Benjamin on 02-09-14
By: Michael R. Gordon, and others
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Dirty Wars
- The World Is a Battlefield
- By: Jeremy Scahill
- Narrated by: Tom Weiner
- Length: 24 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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From Afghanistan and Pakistan to Yemen, Somalia, and beyond, Scahill speaks to the CIA agents, mercenaries, and elite Special Operations Forces operators who populate the dark side of American war-fighting. He goes deep into al Qaeda-held territory in Yemen and walks the streets of Mogadishu with CIA-backed warlords. We also meet the survivors of US night raids and drone strikes - including families of US citizens targeted for assassination by their own government - who reveal the human consequences of the dirty wars the United States struggles to keep hidden.
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Non political BUT very anti-violence
- By aaron on 05-11-13
By: Jeremy Scahill
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The Quiet Americans
- Four CIA Spies at the Dawn of the Cold War - a Tragedy in Three Acts
- By: Scott Anderson
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean, Scott Anderson
- Length: 22 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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At the end of World War II, the United States was considered the victor over tyranny and a champion of freedom. But it was clear—to some—that the Soviet Union was already seeking to expand and foment revolution around the world, and the American government’s strategy in response relied on the secret efforts of a newly formed CIA. Chronicling their fascinating lives, Scott Anderson follows the exploits of four spies. Despite their ambitions, time and again their efforts went awry, thwarted by ham-fisted politicking and ideological rigidity at the highest levels of the government.
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A Tragedy for One
- By Amazon Customer on 09-23-20
By: Scott Anderson
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Descent into Chaos
- The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia
- By: Ahmed Rashid
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 19 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Rashid examines Central Asia, and the corridors of power in Washington and Europe, to see how the promised nation building in the region has progressed. His conclusions are devastating.
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Useful!
- By John Robert BEHRMAN on 02-24-09
By: Ahmed Rashid
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Fiasco
- The American Military Adventure in Iraq
- By: Thomas E. Ricks
- Narrated by: James Lurie
- Length: 10 hrs and 15 mins
- Abridged
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The American military is a tightly sealed community, and few outsiders have reason to know that a great many senior officers view the Iraq war with incredulity and dismay. But many officers have shared their anger with renowned military reporter Thomas E. Ricks, and in Fiasco, Ricks combines these astonishing on-the-record military accounts with his own extraordinary on-the-ground reportage to create a spellbinding account of an epic disaster.
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History not Politics
- By Scott on 08-10-06
By: Thomas E. Ricks
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Legacy of Ashes
- The History of the CIA
- By: Tim Weiner
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 21 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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This is the book the CIA does not want you to read. For the last 60 years, the CIA has maintained a formidable reputation in spite of its terrible record, never disclosing its blunders to the American public. It spun its own truth to the nation while reality lay buried in classified archives. Now, Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter Tim Weiner offers a stunning indictment of the CIA, a deeply flawed organization that has never deserved America's confidence.
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Flawed but Important
- By Michael on 07-18-08
By: Tim Weiner
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The American War in Afghanistan
- A History 1st Edition
- By: Carter Malkasian
- Narrated by: Jonathan Todd Ross
- Length: 27 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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The American war in Afghanistan, which began in 2001, is now the longest armed conflict in the nation's history. It is currently winding down, and American troops are likely to leave soon - but only after a stay of nearly two decades.
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A superb summary of the Afghan war
- By Charles Olmsted on 06-18-22
By: Carter Malkasian
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Pakistan on the Brink
- The Future of America, Pakistan, and Afghanistan
- By: Ahmed Rashid
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 8 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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What are the possibilities—and hazards—facing America as it withdraws from Afghanistan and reviews its long engagement in Pakistan? Where is the Taliban now in both of these countries? What does the immediate future hold, and what are America’s choices going forward? These are some of the crucial questions that Ahmed Rashid—Pakistan’s preeminent journalist—takes on in this follow-up to his acclaimed Descent into Chaos.
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A Very Long NPR-like Interview and History Lesson
- By Harry Zimmer on 04-23-12
By: Ahmed Rashid
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The Gamble
- General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006-2008
- By: Thomas E. Ricks
- Narrated by: James Lurie
- Length: 10 hrs and 16 mins
- Abridged
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Fiasco, Thomas E. Ricks's #1 New York Times bestseller, transformed the political dialogue on the war in Iraq - The Gamble is the next news-breaking installment. Thomas E. Ricks uses hundreds of hours of exclusive interviews with top officers in Iraq and extraordinary on-the-ground reportage to document the inside story of the Iraq War since late 2005 as only he can, examining the events that took place as the military was forced to reckon with itself.
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A Sure Bet
- By Joshua Kim on 06-10-12
By: Thomas E. Ricks
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Surge
- My Journey with General David Petraeus and the Remaking of the Iraq War
- By: Peter R. Mansoor, General David Petraeus - foreword
- Narrated by: Mark Boyett
- Length: 17 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Surge is an insider's view of the most decisive phase of the Iraq War. Using newly declassified documents, unpublished manuscripts, interviews, author notes, and published sources, Surge explains how President George W. Bush, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, Ambassador Crocker, General Petraeus, and other U.S. and Iraqi political and military leaders shaped the surge from the center of the maelstrom in Baghdad and Washington.
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Helpful for the Army War College
- By BBP on 02-24-18
By: Peter R. Mansoor, and others
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State of Denial
- Bush at War, Part III
- By: Bob Woodward
- Narrated by: Boyd Gaines
- Length: 7 hrs and 14 mins
- Abridged
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Bob Woodward examines how the Bush administration avoided telling the truth about Iraq to the public, to the Congress, and often to themselves in State of Denial. Woodward's third book on President Bush is a sweeping narrative from the first days George W. Bush thought seriously about running for president, through the recruitment of his national security team, the war in Afghanistan, the invasion and occupation of Iraq, and the struggle for political survival in the second term.
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Concerning and hard to put down
- By Chris on 12-10-06
By: Bob Woodward
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Chain of Command
- The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib
- By: Seymour M. Hersh
- Narrated by: Peter Friedman
- Length: 7 hrs and 22 mins
- Abridged
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Since September 11, 2001, Seymour M. Hersh has riveted readers, and outraged the Bush Administration, with his stories in The New Yorker magazine, including his breakthrough pieces on the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. Now, in Chain of Command, he brings together this reporting, along with new revelations, to answer the critical question of the last three years: how did America get from that clear morning in September to a divisive and dirty war in Iraq?
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Absolutely Fantastic
- By Nicholas on 10-12-04
By: Seymour M. Hersh
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Ghost Wars
- The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001
- By: Steve Coll
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 26 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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The explosive first-hand account of America's secret history in Afghanistan. With the publication of Ghost Wars, Steve Coll became not only a Pulitzer Prize winner, but also the expert on the rise of the Taliban, the emergence of Bin Laden, and the secret efforts by CIA officers and their agents to capture or kill Bin Laden in Afghanistan after 1998.
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An Exceptional Accomplishment
- By Joe on 11-08-13
By: Steve Coll
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An Exceptional Accomplishment
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A superb summary of the Afghan war
- By Charles Olmsted on 06-18-22
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Directorate S
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Resuming the narrative of his Pulitzer Prize-winning Ghost Wars, best-selling author Steve Coll tells for the first time the epic and enthralling story of America's intelligence, military, and diplomatic efforts to defeat Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan since 9/11.
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Slow At Times But Always Horrifying And Engaging
- By Gillian on 02-20-18
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Fat Leonard
- How One Man Bribed, Bilked, and Seduced the U.S. Navy
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All the admirals in the US Navy knew Leonard Glenn Francis—either personally or by his legendary reputation. He was the larger-than-life defense contractor who greeted them on the pier whenever they visited ports in Asia, ready to show them a good time after weeks at sea while his company resupplied their ships and submarines. On the surface, with his flawless American accent, he seemed like a true friend of the Navy. What the brass didn’t realize, until far too late, was that Francis had seduced them by exploiting their entitlement and hubris.
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Multiple levels of justice
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Black Flags
- The Rise of ISIS
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- Narrated by: Sunil Malhotra
- Length: 13 hrs and 33 mins
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In a thrilling dramatic narrative, awarded the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction, Joby Warrick traces how the strain of militant Islam behind ISIS first arose in a remote Jordanian prison and spread with the unwitting aid of two American presidents.
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So much learned
- By mike flavin on 02-11-16
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Great overview of Afghanistan's history
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An Exceptional Accomplishment
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- Length: 27 hrs and 3 mins
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The American war in Afghanistan, which began in 2001, is now the longest armed conflict in the nation's history. It is currently winding down, and American troops are likely to leave soon - but only after a stay of nearly two decades.
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A superb summary of the Afghan war
- By Charles Olmsted on 06-18-22
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Directorate S
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Resuming the narrative of his Pulitzer Prize-winning Ghost Wars, best-selling author Steve Coll tells for the first time the epic and enthralling story of America's intelligence, military, and diplomatic efforts to defeat Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan since 9/11.
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Slow At Times But Always Horrifying And Engaging
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Fat Leonard
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All the admirals in the US Navy knew Leonard Glenn Francis—either personally or by his legendary reputation. He was the larger-than-life defense contractor who greeted them on the pier whenever they visited ports in Asia, ready to show them a good time after weeks at sea while his company resupplied their ships and submarines. On the surface, with his flawless American accent, he seemed like a true friend of the Navy. What the brass didn’t realize, until far too late, was that Francis had seduced them by exploiting their entitlement and hubris.
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Multiple levels of justice
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In a thrilling dramatic narrative, awarded the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction, Joby Warrick traces how the strain of militant Islam behind ISIS first arose in a remote Jordanian prison and spread with the unwitting aid of two American presidents.
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So much learned
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Two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and author of the national best seller Ghost Wars, Steve Coll presents the story of the Bin Laden family's rise to power and privilege, revealing new information to show how American influences changed the family and how one member's rebellion changed America.
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The basis for the film The Post, The Pentagon Papers are a series of articles, documents, and studies examining the Johnson Administration's lies to the public about the extent of US involvement in the Vietnam War, bringing to light shocking conclusions about America's true role in the conflict. With a brand-new foreword by James L. Greenfield, this edition of the Pulitzer Prize-winning story is sure to provoke discussion about free press and government deception.
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Awful as an audiobook
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America’s chaotic retreat from Afghanistan in 2021 was nothing short of a horror show. Women and children were trampled to death outside the gates of the Kabul airfield. Desperate Afghans fell from the landing gear of departing planes. Taliban fighters mercilessly whipped and humiliated U.S. civilians. Countless Afghan interpreters were abandoned to the mercy of the Taliban after risking their lives alongside American troops for years. And thirteen U.S. service members were murdered in an ISIS suicide bombing. Still, the full story is worse than anyone imagined.
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If you’ve grown weary of the current GOP administration’s incompetence...
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Not since the last American troops left Vietnam have we faced such a sudden vacuum in our foreign policy—not only of authority, but also of explanations of what happened, and what the future holds. Few analysts are better poised to address this moment than Noam Chomsky and Vijay Prashad, intellectuals and critics whose work spans generations and continents.
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There is nothing better than a Chomsky book.
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The Achilles Trap
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From bestselling and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Steve Coll, the definitive story of the decades-long relationship between the United States and Saddam Hussein, and a news-breaking investigation into one of the costliest geopolitical conflicts of our time.
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From the Saddam’s Point of View.
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An apolitical account of our recent wars.
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Saad Mohseni, chairman and CEO of Moby Group, Afghanistan’s largest media company, charts a twenty-year effort to bring a free press to his country after years of Taliban rule, and how that effort persists even after the Taliban’s return to power in 2021.
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Afghanistan
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The task of implementing an effective American policy and cementing Afghan rule is hampered by what Isby sees as separate but overlapping conflicts between terrorism, narcotics, and regional rivalries, each presenting separate yet equally challenging issues to resolve. This book provides the road map to overcoming these obstacles and finding a way forward for the U.S. and the Afghan nation.
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The Chosen Few
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A single company of US paratroopers—calling themselves the "Chosen Few"—arrived in eastern Afghanistan in late 2007 hoping to win the hearts and minds of the remote mountain people and extend the Afghan government's reach into this wilderness. Instead, they spent the next fifteen months in a desperate struggle, living under almost continuous attack, forced into a slow and grinding withdrawal, and always outnumbered by Taliban fighters descending on them from all sides.
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Wow! What an amazing group of men!
- By Myla on 06-22-18
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Fiasco
- The American Military Adventure in Iraq
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The American military is a tightly sealed community, and few outsiders have reason to know that a great many senior officers view the Iraq war with incredulity and dismay. But many officers have shared their anger with renowned military reporter Thomas E. Ricks, and in Fiasco, Ricks combines these astonishing on-the-record military accounts with his own extraordinary on-the-ground reportage to create a spellbinding account of an epic disaster.
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History not Politics
- By Scott on 08-10-06
By: Thomas E. Ricks
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Outlaw Platoon
- Heroes, Renegades, Infidels, and the Brotherhood of War in Afghanistan
- By: Sean Parnell, John Bruning
- Narrated by: Ray Porter
- Length: 10 hrs and 18 mins
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At 24 years of age, U.S. Army Ranger Sean Parnell was named commander of a forty-man elite infantry platoon - a unit that came to be known as the Outlaws - and was tasked with rooting out Pakistan-based insurgents from a mountain valley along Afghanistan's eastern frontier. Parnell and his men assumed they would be facing a ragtag bunch of civilians, but in May 2006 what started out as a routine patrol through the lower mountains of the Hindu Kush became a brutal ambush.
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Great book...Everyone should listen to this book!!
- By Chris on 04-09-12
By: Sean Parnell, and others
What listeners say about The Afghanistan Papers
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- Leo
- 09-11-21
Very important book
This book should be read by anyone looking for more information about what happened in Afghanistan. There is no party politics, no glowing words for one side or the other. This book delivers the harsh reality of how this war was mismanaged from inception to its end.
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- Mihal Ceittin
- 09-07-21
Jawdropping
I, like many Americans, considered the war like wallpaper until I actually went on an assignment to Kabul in 2014. My job was to be a policy advisor to the Afghan government on certain economic development matters. What I experienced was a surreal blend of incompetence, corruption and perfidy that poisoned the entire system which included the Afghans, the Americans, the Europeans, the Pakistanis and a host of others. I couldn't understand how things could be so bad after 13 years of engagement and billions of dollars spent, but now that I have heard Craig Whitlock's account it has all become clear. The 'war on terror' and the 'hunt for Osama bin Laden' had morphed into a long-running ponzi scheme for military generals to get promotions and combat ribbons (and pay); for military contractors to make a bundle and keep the funds flowing to congressional people who supported the continuation of the war; and for one US president after another to lie to the American people about what exactly was going on. We thought it would never happen again after Vietnam. The lying that took place in Afghanistan makes Vietnam look like a model of transparency. Yet there has been no accountability. No big shake-up at the Pentagon. Many of the worst offenders have gone off to lucrative careers in the defense industry while thousands of young veterans deal with the scars of war and thousands of families grieve lost ones. The beauty of Mr. Whitlock's account is that he doesn't editorialize. Most of the words are taken from transcripts by the involved parties. It should be required reading for every citizen. It will be a painful exercise, perhaps even a shameful one but a necessary one to understand that even the military is not above the worse instincts of an increasingly corrupt and cynical public sphere.
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- aaron
- 10-02-21
An Shakespearean comedy of dunces
This would easily be the funniest book of the year, if not for all the brave lives lost for what has amounted to be a completely pointless war. Oh, and let’s not forget the two TRILLION dollars spent, which could’ve put a sizable dent in America’s epidemic of poverty, as well as raised much of the lower class up to the middle class ranks. Or, it could’ve been used to just give a bunch of very deserving people a much needed living wage, but….
I’m more pissed about the lives needlessly lost.
Don’t get me wrong, we (‘Merica) were totally right in our declaring war on Al Qaeda. However, the countless missteps, unmitigated arrogance, and downright idiocy of three consecutive administrations turned this into a complete and utter catastrophe. How the main architects of this war, that later fabricated “reasons” to invade Iraq were never charged with war crimes is a mystery I may never understand.
As for this book, it’s a must read. It’s tedious in places, but it’s well researched and well narrated. Every American needs to know the truth behind the 20 year quagmire that cost so many lives and so much treasure.
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- Todd E. Weaver
- 09-05-21
Unforgiving history
I try to stay informed about politics and war. This is a deep dive that makes one question anything that is reported by our military and the administrations that guide them. What a disaster from 2 months in. Well written. Thoughtful. Real.
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- YunusTheOptimist
- 09-05-21
Excellent Book
This is an excellent book. It makes me think what we could achieve with 2 trillion dollars.
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- Amazon Customer
- 01-05-23
Understand what happened to us
If you want to understand what was done to us in Afghanistan, watch Ken Burns' The Vietnam War and then read this book. History doesn't repeat, but it often rhymes.
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- John W Patty III
- 07-17-23
Informative, Well-organized and A Lack of Bias
It’s easy to have seen 20 years of war in your lifetime through a certain, possibly more positive lens from what was portrayed in the media and by govt officials. However, this book details the insider accounts that really help you see the other side. For anyone looking for truth on what happened during America’s time in Afghanistan, I’m confident this book will shed light without agenda or framing “how” you should think.
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- William H. Folk II
- 10-11-24
Clear and concise
This was a great book documenting the US presence in Afghanistan and took a much needed "here's the truth" approach to what has gone on with our involvement. I believe that the average American knows only 5% of this story, and I think I'm being generous. Amazingly well put together book.
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- Paula Ball
- 10-25-21
Great work, fascinating
I liked this audiobook very much, it revealed a lot things that had been hidden, something we did know most not I am recommending this audiobook to everyone who is interested. Hopefully we will never get in a situation like this as a nation again
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- Thirsty Bear
- 11-12-23
Easy read…well documented
Recommended by author Jack Carr. Opened my eyes to the corruption behind our longest war, a sad story.
I would have given the book a 5 overall but the author could not put side his hatred for Trump with subtle jabs and insults. His excellent reporting was overshadowed by his bias.
Overall a fair book.
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