January 1, 2020 • 58 mins
The United States invaded Afghanistan on October 7th, 2001 and remains embroiled in the conflict almost two decades later, making this the longest war in US history. Leaders from both of the dominant political parties continually argued that this was a winnable war, proposing new strategies, more troops, and more surges. Yet documents obtained by The Washington Post show that the long-running internal conversations painted a different -- and vastly more disturbing -- picture. Tune in to learn more about the Afghanistan Papers.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hello, Welcome
(00:25):
back to the show. I'm not wearing a hat, here
wearing pants, though I am wearing pants. My name is Matt,
my name is North. They called me Ben. We are
joined as always with our super producer, Paul Mission Controlled Decond.
Most importantly, you are you. You are here, and that
makes this stuff they don't want you to know. This
is a wartime episode. As we record today's episode, the
(00:48):
United States of America is still in the middle of
the longest war in the country's history. That means there
are literally people listening to the show today who were
not alive when this war began. Think about that. The
United States invaded Afghanistan on October seven, two thousand one,
(01:10):
and we are still there as we speak. Why how
much did our leaders know and when did they know it?
To answer that, oddly enough, even though this country has
been at war in this other country for the better
part of two decades, many people, many voters, aren't a
hundred percent sure what Afghanistan is, where it is, and
(01:35):
why it's such a big deal. It's also now the
first time we've been engaged there. No no, no, no, no.
Uh this uh, this has an interesting name. First things first,
here are the facts. Afghanistan is located in what is
commonly called Eurasia, right the vast stretch of land between
(01:56):
Asia and the continent we call Europe. It's landlocked. It's
bordered by some greatest hits countries in the rogues gallery
of the United States, historically Pakistan, Iran, Tajikistan, Zbekistan, and China.
It's capital is a place called Kabul. Outside of several cities,
(02:17):
the country is extraordinarily rural. We're talking places that are
simply physically hard to access in the mountains or in
the rugged wilderness. The country itself was not officially formed
until seventeen o nine, but as you alluded to, Matt,
it has a history, a long and bloody history of
(02:40):
being a battleground. In fact, Afghanistan is sometimes called the
Graveyard of Empires due to just the sheer number of
militaries that tried and failed to control it. And it's
an interesting thing there because and just when we're talking
about it's the battle ground, right, the place where the
wars or fought or the battles are fought. And generally
(03:03):
controlling the area is kind of the goal. But a
lot of times and and this is what we're going
to kind of outline here, is that it's the land,
the place where two different warring powers end up where
they just kind of go right. So it's not it's
not as though Afghanistan itself is rising up to you know,
fight a lot of the battles. It's generally it's where
(03:25):
proxy wars happen. It's where, Um, it's interesting. We're gonna
we're gonna continue on with this throughout the show. So
let's just keep going down into the history of Afghanistan. Okay,
let's do a little ancient history, shall we. Okay, So,
experts believe that early humans were living in Afghanistan as
long as fifty thousand years ago because it was rich
soil for farming. Um. There were communities of farmers in
(03:48):
Afghanistan that were some of the very earliest farmers in
the entire world. Um. And for a time the area
was known as Ariana, or the land of arians. This
is because multiple waves of people from Central Asia migrated
to the region Uh and many of these settlers were
in fact Arians. They were speakers of the parent language
of Indo European languages. Um Arians also migrated to Persia
(04:12):
and India in those prehistoric times. And then let's jump
to the sixth century when the Persian Empire of the
Achimenid dynasty controlled Arianna and Uh, good look saying Achimunid,
it's really fun and to to look at. And right
in about three thirty b C, the little guy you
might remember named Alexander the Great defeated the last ruler
(04:34):
of the Achimenid uh dynasty there and he made his
way to the eastern borders of the place that it
was called Arianna. Now after this guy, old Great Alexander
himself died in three hundred and twenty three BC in
his early thirties, feeling that he was a failure. By
the way, Yeah, I know that Alexander. He sure was great,
(04:54):
wasn't he. I mean he was he was a guy.
He was a guy. He did great things, did some
huge stuff. Whether it was great or terrible is depending
on which side of the battles you were on. Some
large scale stuff. Let's leave it in. Okay, that's yes,
there we go um so he he died three BC.
(05:16):
All these other kingdoms they were out there. Listen to
name them off here, the Salu kids maybe Seleucids, Salut kids,
the Bactria, and the Indian Mauran Empire. They all were
fighting to attempt in an attempt to control this territory
there was known at the time as Ariana. So understandably
(05:36):
there were a lot of folks jockeying for position and
a lot of kind of power grabs, situations in the vacuum. Yes,
the history of Afghanistan involves a ton of handoffs and
power grabs, with a lot of names that might be
unfamiliar to you know, unless you have specifically studied this history.
(05:57):
So strap in, we're just gonna do some high It's
a lot of these empires are no longer around and
the names will sound unfamiliar. In the seventh century A.
D or c. Whichever way you want to go with that,
Arab armies carried this brand new religion of Islam to Afghanistan,
(06:20):
and the western provinces of Herat and Sistan came under
the rule of these Arab forces. But the people of
these provinces revolted. They returned to their old pre existing
beliefs as soon as uh these military forces were not
you know, literally using violence to make them pretend to
(06:41):
practice Islam. In the tenth century, Muslim rulers called Samanids
from Bukhara and what's now is Pakistan extended their influence
into the afghan area. And this this kind of when
we see extending influence, it means that there was a
soft hegemony, but you know, expanding. Their people started to
(07:03):
use uh, the currency of those rulers. They started to
speak similar languages, they acquired their culture. So the Samanid
established the dynasty in Gasni called the Gaznavids. And again
matt president with that pronunciation. We do not speak these languages.
The greatest of the Gaznavids was a king named Mahmoud
(07:28):
who ruled from to ten thirty. He is the one
most responsible for establishing the solid foundation of Islam throughout
the area of modern day Afghanistan. He led a lot
of military expeditions into India. Even back then, people started
thinking of uh of of Afghanistan too as the gateway
(07:51):
to these kingdoms of India. That state falls in the
middle of the twelfth century to the Gurid Kingdom, which
arose in gur that's a west central old region of
present day Afghanistan. Those guys get kicked out early in
the thirteenth century by another Central Asian dynasty, and these
folks are all swept away around twelve twenty by Jengis Khan,
(08:14):
that Genghis Khan guy that's actually called Jengis Khan. I
like to call him Jangi. Jeni k jang Ki reminds
me of that tower game Jengaeh. And so we include
we we include some of this ancient history because it's
important to know that already it's twelve twenty. Already two
(08:36):
of the greatest conquerors in the world have come through
this place, and now a third one appears. Near the
end of the fourteenth century, the Central Asian military leader
tim or Lang or the Lame Timore, also known as
tamer Lane in the West, conquered Afghanistan and he immediately
(08:57):
moved on to India. And when he moved on, his
his children and his descendants couldn't hold the empire together.
They couldn't rule everything. Their grandfather, their patriarch, took over,
but they were able to keep a hold on Afghanistan
roughly for a little while. And now we get to
(09:18):
where it eventually becomes an independent nation, as we said,
you know, in seventeen hundreds becomes independent. But there's a
story behind that too. There's even more switching off. People
are trying to control this. They're dying left and right.
And we're gonna talk about, let's say, a strategy. He's
something that's gonna ripple across time here that occurs in
(09:41):
the eighteenth century. The King of Persia around that time,
a guy named the dear Shaw. He was employing this
tribe of Pashtuns. They're a Dolli tribe of Pashtoons, and
he was using them in his wars in India. So
he's he's got a contingency of other fighters. I wouldn't
call them mercenaries, but they're they're fighters for under another flag,
(10:04):
essentially fighting under his flag. Right, and uh Ahmad Shaw,
this of Dolli chief who had gained this high post
within the army there he established himself after the deer
Shaw's assassination, that the guy we're talking about the King
of Persia, after he was assassinated in seventeen forty seven.
So Ahmad Shaw is, you know, looking to move up
(10:26):
a little bit, and thankfully this assembly of tribal chiefs
proclaim him the new Shaw. And then the Afghans extend
their rule as far east as Kashmir and Delhi, and
then north to the Amu Daria and west into northern Persia.
So they really just begin expanding there under the rule
of Ahmad Shah. Yeah, and he retires from the throne
(10:51):
in seventeen seventy two. He's one of the few people
with the distinction of retiring. He dies in Kandahar. He
has a son, tim or Shot, who assumes control the
Afghan Empire survives mostly intact through the next twenty years. Now,
think about that time, Yeah, seventeen seventy two. America is
(11:12):
forming right right in this time period here increasingly irritated
colonists half a world away, our dreaming of revolution and saying, hey,
one day there will be a popular Broadway play about us.
And you may be wondering, rightly, so what does all
this have to do with me? When does all this
obscure Eurasian history have to do with me? When does
(11:38):
my team enter the game? A lot of people in
the Western wondering, well, there is an entire era of
history involved heavily involving Afghanistan that concerns just this. It's
called the Great Game. We did an episode on this earlier,
longtime listeners may recall. But let's look like, let's what's
the quick and dirty. The Great Game is world dominance. Really,
(12:03):
that's what it is. It's a bunch of extremely powerful
countries and people deciding, Hey, I want to maybe be
the ruler of all this. Um, let's see what we
can do. But there are all these other people trying
to do the same thing. So we have to play
these mind games and diplomatic games and resource control games. Yeah. So,
(12:26):
for most of the nineteenth century eight to be precise,
the British and Russian Empires were vying for control of
Central and South Asia, including the country of Afghanistan. Um.
This period was known, as you mentioned matt as the
Great Game, where both empires were trying to protect and
(12:46):
secure their own territories they already held and also expanding
outward into others. Britain was a huge player in this game,
and that they were very concerned that Russia might take
control over India. Which was the crown jewel of the
British Empire. Um. Despite the fact that Russia this wasn't
really something that they had designs on. But um, you
(13:08):
know Britain that you gotta protect what you got, and
they were maybe be a little paranoid. Um. Afghanistan became
once again, as you mentioned Matt, a very fertile battleground. Right.
You can see, Uh, you can see some excellent fiction
based on this period of time, a work by Richard Kipling,
(13:28):
intensely problematic author. But I would I would say a
talented poet. Uh. He wrote a novel called Kim, which
is about a child becoming embroiled in what they later
learned is the Great Game Roderid Kipling. Of course it
would be Uh. I would be remiss not to mention
this is the person. Uh is the person most responsible
(13:50):
for the phrase white man's burden. So he's not a
good dude. But that was a well written book. A
series of conflicts transpired in real life, not just in
the book. And these are these are breaking out two wars,
but they don't really turn into world wars at this point.
One of these conflicts, the Second Anglo Afghan War, which
(14:13):
was from eighteen thirty eight to forty two, ended in
a treaty that gave Britain control of Afghanistan's foreign affairs,
so it turned into a vassal or a puppet state
until UH nineteen nineteen, when Amunala Khan declared independence from
British influence. He tried to have introduce some social norms UH,
(14:34):
such as abolishing the practice of product which UH is
the is the idea that women should not be allowed
to be seen or interact in public. So he was
a more forward facing leader in some social regards UH.
He was trying to do that. He was trying to
(14:55):
He ended up fleeing the country in nineteen nine. People
did not really people are not receptive to this change. Next,
Zahir Shah becomes king and for the following four years
Afghanistan is a monarchy. In nineteen fifty three, a guy
named General Mohammed Daoud became Prime minister. He turned to
(15:18):
the Soviets, to the U S. S R. He said,
help me out with the economy, help me out with
military assistance. Also, I want to introduce some social reforms,
including the abolition of p DA. He was forced to
resign in nineteen sixty three, it's a tenure rule there.
But in nineteen seventy three he regained power in a
coup and he said, okay, now we're a republic, and
(15:42):
he said, you know what I get. I get the uh,
the trend of history here. So I'm gonna try to
play these world powers against one another. It doesn't work
the way he wanted it to, because just a few
years later, in nineteen seventy eight, he is murdered or
assassinated in a pro Soviet coup. There's a new governing faction,
(16:04):
the new kids on the block in this situation, and
the People's Democratic Party it come to power, but they
have a lot of infighting in their own, jockeying for
position in the hierarchy. And then of course they are
eternally battling the Mushadeen groups that are backed by Uncle Sam.
That is was at one time seen as controversial. That
is clearly a proven fact. And let's pause for word
(16:28):
from our sponsor, and then we'll get to the modern history.
So the Soviet era, Paul, can we get some kind
of you know, like really authoritarian sounding big but yeah,
that kind of music. There we go. Soviet era yes,
(16:51):
so the U. S. S R. It's uh, it's in
Afghanistan in nineteen seventy nine, and it really is trying
to show were up this newly established regime, right that
we talked about the People's Democratic Party that's running things
over there, and those guys are by the way in
the capital Kabul, And in short order, nearly a hundred
(17:12):
thousand Soviet soldiers took control of a lot of the
major areas, the cities, the highways, the ways, things are
being transported, all by all means. And here's the thing
people didn't really take to that. There was rebellion. It
came quickly. It was all over the place. The Soviets
(17:33):
were dealing harshly with the Mujahadeen rebels and the people,
you know, the families, the the small groups that were
supporting them. They were just taking out entire villages. Again,
it like sounds so familiar of the course of our history,
of the things we've talked about. Um, they're they're trying
to deny any place where or that would be considered
(17:55):
a safe haven for enemy soldiers to be hanging out
and you know, regrouping. And while this is happening, there
are outside foreign supporters who are propping up all of
these diverse groups of rebels that are fighting back against
the Soviet Union, playing the great game once again exactly
that that whole um the proxy the proxy battle thing
(18:15):
is in full effect here. And you know you've got
rebels poorting from Iran, Pakistan, China, the the US even
has some people over their training folks um and having
fighters over there. And there's this brutal nine year conflict
that just goes on and on and on, and an
estimated one million civilians are killed in this conflict, Afghanistan
(18:38):
civilians as well as others UM. And there are also
ninety thousand Mujahadeen fighters, eighteen thousand Afghan troops and four
fourteen thousand, five hundred Soviet soldiers, all of them who
are killed in this But in this these battles, in
this conflict, and the US support varied in in any
(19:00):
different ways over the course of this conflict. That we
do have to remember this is Cold War era stuff, right.
So so originally they had some suits and some agents
from the company uh the right, right, right, and it
starts with it does and uh And by six they
(19:23):
were becoming more um, they were being less subtle Uncle
Sam was UH. They started supplying Stinger missiles to the Mossadin,
which we're a game changer because these Stinger missiles allowed
people on the ground to shoot down Soviet helicopter gunships
in UH four countries, Afghanistan, the USSR, Pakistan, the US
(19:47):
signed peace accords, and the Soviet Union says, okay, we'll
start pulling out troops. The last of the troops leave
the next year in ninety nine, and UH civil war
consumes the country, which should not have surprised anyone. Let's
talk really quickly about some of the landscape there and um,
the mountains, the mountain ranges, the mountains areas, the very hilly,
(20:12):
UH sometimes very stark areas where if you know, as
the Mujahadeen, if you're given something like a Stinger missile
when you're just troops on the ground, it's very difficult
to battle against something like these Soviet gun ships, the
helicopters that can roll through. They can just travel across
these landscapes to wherever they need to be in there,
heavily armed. But you know, if you're on the ground
(20:35):
as just a single person or even a battalion, small
battalion anywhere from a hundred to ten people. Um, fighting
back against the gun ship is very, very difficult. But
if you're given a stinger missile and you can hide
out somewhere within you know that terrain, you can easily
have an upper hand there. And again, these are ripples
(20:56):
throughout time of things that we are going to see
where an explosive in the hands of somebody that understands
the area, that has lived there. Um, you only need
a few people to gain the upper hand on large
military forces. Well, it's one of those things where you
see it. I mean, it's even like sn L sketches
from the time and going back and watching a lot
(21:17):
of Will Ferrell sketches from those days, and there's the
one where he's the old prospector. You know, you've seen this.
It's great, but it's well, Chris Catan is playing the
sargen or whatever, and he keeps making the joke that
it's an unconventional, unconventional war, so I got to use
unconventional methods, which in the sketches having an old prospect
or to lead them through the terrain. But it's true,
that's what they're talking about. That's the thing you've heard
(21:38):
thrown around constantly in the news was what an unconventional
war was and required unconventional tactics. Yeah. And in this case,
and an old prospector, how to forget the premise with
an old prospector who was like a cousin of somebody
who was in command of the military, isn't gonna do
you much good. You need somebody who has lived there
and knows the history and the terrain. Yeah. And also
(22:00):
for the record, Uh, the old Will Ferrell sketches in
general hold up, not saying that because he's technically a
coworker of hours, just saying it, because they do hold
up pickle shoes, sentiment, and gravy. So who comes out
ahead in this next iteration of the power vacuum. That
would be a group known as the Taliban. They seize
(22:23):
control of Kabul by seven they have they have a
solid grip on about two thirds of the country, and
they're starting to be recognized in the international sphere. Pakistan
Saudi Arabia, for instance, both recognize the government until that is,
the US enters the Great Game as a full on combatant.
(22:46):
And it's different because before proxy wars, right, let's call
these people rebels. Yeah, yeah, and uh so fast forward.
As we said at the top, in October of two
thousand one, US led bombing of Afghanistan begins. And this
is right after the attacks on September eleven, two thousand
(23:08):
one on the US soil anti Taliban Northern Alliance forces Intricable,
pretty much right after and this marks the official beginning
of what has become the longest war in US history.
Across the next eighteen years, multiple precedents, three different administrations
from both sides of the US political divide, would continually
(23:34):
escalate the conflict. They would send more troops, they would
proposed what they called surges. They would vow we were
making progress in a war that we knew we could win.
Today's question, what if they were lying? Here's where it
gets crazy. So behind the scenes, everyone knew, all of
(23:56):
the decision makers knew this was a disaster. And Matt,
you recently had a conversation that touched on some of this.
Is that right, Yes, quite a bit. And I spoke
with the gentleman named Steve Hooper that I very much
want to have on the show. We want to have
on this show. Um I I forget his exact titles
within the FBI, but he was a high level person. UM.
(24:21):
I hope he doesn't mind me saying his name. He
has a podcast on the I Heart network that he
uh talks about some of this stuff, so I think
it should be okay. But he was just talking to
me about how the United States was keeping was aware,
very much aware of one Osama bin Laden and uh
(24:41):
Taliban forces and you know, after all of the the
conflicts and help that we've essentially given to that area. Um,
and we know our intelligence agencies know a lot of
the operators, we know a lot of the mechanisms that
that exists out there with some of these forces. They
also knew just from past bombings like the nine attack
(25:04):
on the World Trade Center where a rider truck was
used and thankfully did not destroy the entire building then
in but it was certainly a disaster and a terror
attack and a major, a major warning sign basically that oh,
we need to be paying attention to this. And he
was just telling me that after that attack in ninety three,
(25:26):
the intelligence apparatus is were so aware of it. However,
we went right back to the FBI at least went
right back to focusing on drug gangs and drug cartels
that existed, and we're operating within the US, and they
didn't turn their eyes towards terrorism at that point because
there was a lot of siloing of information and gate keeping. Right, yes,
(25:51):
because again, you think about operating outside of the U
S where intelligence is gathered, operating inside the US a
lot of times it's separated, and there this whole thing,
it kind of became a mess, at least according to
Stephen our conversation, after you create the Department of Homeland
Security and as that giant behemoth of organizations begins trying
(26:13):
to keep tabs on things like that and organize, you know,
who's controlling what, who's looking into what? Um, I say,
a mess, but that's not true. Anyone who's out there
working in any of these organizations, you know that's not
necessarily true. But it was certainly the birth pains of
something bigger. Oh that's poetic. I like that, Yeah, it's
(26:35):
it is. It is unfortunately true that many of the
same people publicly touting progress in this quagmire, we're often
the very same people lamenting the doomed situation, at least
doomed as they saw it behind closed doors. We know
this is not a conspiracy theory. We know this is
(26:55):
indisputably true. Thanks to the fantastic journalistic f and the
of the Washington Post and the recent publication of something
called the Afghanistan Papers. On December nine of this year,
the Washington Post finally won a legal battle that was
three years in the making and like the war in
Afghanistan continues today. But what did they get? What happens
(27:20):
we'll tell you after a word from our sponsor. So,
three year legal battle, Washington Post acquires more than two
thousand pages of quote lessons learned end quote. Uh. And
these are interviews that were connected by the Office of
Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction or cigar give me
(27:45):
I love a good cigar. Um, and uh, it's not
pretty what's uncovered here. There was no internal consensus on
any objective, any reasons for going to war. The country
was spending billions of dollar ours with no idea whatsoever
what any kind of end game looked like. Um. They
(28:06):
literally had no idea how to get out of the war.
There was no excess strategy. Well yeah that if you
guys recalled back. And this was just to date myself
a little bit. This was occurring right around the time
that I was going to be finishing and graduating from
high school. As all of these conflicts are occurring, as
the debates about this stuff is happening, and I remember
(28:29):
for the first time, not for the first time, but
maybe for the first time looking at the news with
a little more understanding of history. After some classes that
I was taking and hearing people discussed this, they would
argue on the news like, well, what what is it? Actually?
What does this conflict? Actually? What does victory mean? What
does it look like? And you have even the president
(28:51):
coming on and kind of giving you a vague you know,
it's a victory, you know it's it's good, We're gonna victory, right,
what does that mean? Yeah? The thing is that there
was not There were some metrics for ideas of success,
(29:11):
but there was nothing that people agreed on with concrete steps.
There was no universal definition. And without a universal definition,
as uh chinuab would say, things fall apart. The post
got hundreds of memos that are really they're almost like
(29:33):
they're almost like YouTuber Reddit comments from Donald H. Rumsfeld.
They were called and this has nothing to do with
the current usage of the word today, but they were
called snow flakes. You know, that's a more of a
right wing um pejorative on the internet today, But in
this case, they were called snowflakes because they would just
(29:56):
sort of be sprinkled on all these communications, brief instructions
or comments that the that Rumsfeldt would tell his employees
during the course of his time working on the war.
And there are things that are so informal, like there's
there's one where it says, I'm not sure who the
enemies are here, like we don't know we're shooting at
(30:21):
someone for sure. So all together, these memos and these
two thousand plus pages revealed by this Freedom of Information Act, uh,
they function as a genuine secret history of what we
know about the war. And some people taking a longer
view of history would say, well, this is just another
(30:44):
act in the ongoing war that has been occurring on
the land of Afghanistan for much much longer than eighteen years.
But here's where we learned the reports. The journalist and
the analyst at the Washingt Post found for common and
disturbing themes running throughout these papers, and they're pretty brutal
(31:07):
to hear, but We looked through them, and they are
well researched and there's not a ton of editorializing. So
every single year covered by these papers, US officials, at
least some of them, purposefully refused to tell the public
the truth about the war. In some way or another,
(31:28):
they would issue these pronouncements, they would say stuff that
they straight up knew wasn't true, and they would hide
unmistakable evidence that for one reason or another, the war
had become unwinnable, which was an odd concept of it
being winnable or unwinnable, because it just didn't seem like
there was one or the other. Right, Chocolate rations have
(31:50):
been increased, right, uh, and now they're going to be
eighty percent less than they were. So they also in
these papers we see that officials who were interviewed and
again this this was all internal documentation, and so they
wanted to tell the truth. They they depicted purposeful, explicit
(32:11):
efforts by the US government to mislead the public. And
then they also it's you could describe it, and maybe
this is a little bit too much editorial voice here,
but you could describe it as a sort of collective
disbelief in the facts, kind of cherry picking the stuff
(32:34):
that would be good, ignoring the stuff that would run
counter to the narrative. So everybody is like, everybody's doing
a thing where they're like, all right, we're going to
all agree that this is fine. Everything's great, We're gonna win,
and stuff is gonna be good afterwards. You know what,
(32:56):
You know what that guy who said the house is
on fire, what he meant was is worm and cozy
in here. Just look at this banner. What does it
say mission accomplished, We're done? Look at that sweet bomber jacket.
I mean, look at that shrut, that confident gait that
the president has. I mean, seriously and again it's it's
funny because people who consider themselves domestic political partisans in
(33:22):
the US, uh, Like someone who would definitely hate the
right side of American politics would be uh would levy
valid inviting criticism of the misleading pr that the Republicans
side was doing when they had a presidential administration, And
(33:43):
then people who hated the left side would levy the
same again valid criticism at the Democrat administrations because they
were doing the same thing. All that changed was the
brand names on the facts. It was still a bucket
of poison pills. They just had different labels. Dude, you're
(34:07):
so right though, And I remember seeing that we're going
to have a surge, right, and a surge will fix
But that's okay. So that's just one deliberate, at the
very least at the most generous, deliberately misleading the public,
who is, by the way, paying billions of dollars for this.
And here's the thing we kind of mentioned of above.
(34:28):
This is number two. By the way, the officials from
you know, the United States and the Coalition of Forces
the Allies that we're going into Afghanistan with us, they
pretty much admitted openly that the mission had really no
discernible strategy, like, we don't know there's there, doesn't seem
to be a strategy. We've got a lot of people there,
(34:49):
there are a lot of troops there and some facilities
that were building. Um, but yeah, we really don't have
great objectives. We were not sure what we're doing there.
Stuff on the on the level of like, well, have
you guys talked to Todd, because Todd put it really well,
like I remember walking out of a meeting and I
was like, this is for sure what we're doing and uh,
(35:11):
I just can't I can recall it right now. He
just seems so confident and everything. You know, that's he's
just he's he's such a he's got such a good haircut.
I mean, I just love the cut of his jacket.
You can tell him man like he goes to a manicure. Absolutely,
his cuticles are impeccable, and you just you can't really
disbelieve a guy like that. So, as far as I
(35:33):
was concerned, if Todd's good, we're good, right, Yeah, you're right. Um,
hopefully hopefully Todd can just keep us keep that morale up,
you know, and the interviewers like Todd, who I think,
Oh that's a great Uh, you got disappeared. There are
a lot of he worked. He worked somewhere in the building.
It may have been the subway. He may have been
(35:55):
a general. I just look at you guys. You'll know
him when you see him. It's true. At first, there
was this pretty solid rationale they were going to we're
aiming to destroy al Gaeda, who was you know, we're
involved in these various terrorist acts, not just being accused
of involvement in the September eleventh attacks, but also being
(36:17):
active in attacks throughout the nineties that you mentioned earlier,
Matt with certain leaders with names that you might know
or people that were purportedly a part of them. Yeah,
but Todd would never do that. Once once al Qaeda
have been you know, largely muzzled, the officials involved said
(36:38):
they had mission creep. The goals got muddy and unclear,
and they began adopting strategies that might contradict the strategies
of other agencies or institutions, and they started having goals
that were unattainable. And people who were running this war,
folks are dying, billions of dollars going down the drain.
(36:58):
The people in charge were saying, I have problems with
basic questions. Who is the enemy here? I am not
being hyperbolic when Donald RUMs held said that who is
the enemy here? Who amidst these various complicated groups? Uh?
And alliances? Can we count on as allies? And also,
(37:19):
you know, I know it's a weird question, drop it
for thirty on a Friday, But how do we know
when we've won? Yeah, there's there's no bell that goes off,
like or specific person you have to defeat or a
king to overthrow, you know, there's no goal post like that. Yeah,
(37:42):
And it turns out that the Third Revelation, years into
the conflict, the United States still had a very poor
understanding of of the country overall. Officials from not just
the US but also from the Afghan government told interviewers
that allow out of the policies and initiatives coming from
Uncle Sam, everything from like training Afghan forces to trying
(38:06):
to I'm going to say it again, trying to whosh whoosh,
trying to stop the opium trade. All of them felt
like they were designed to fail. Whether that's because of incompetence,
because they were based on flawed assumptions, or whether because
there was some sort of ulterior motive, or whether it
was just a country they did not understand, or you know,
(38:31):
I don't want to put my biases on it, but
a country that maybe some of those people in charge
just didn't care about at a certain level. There are
disturbing accounts or allegations and interviews in some of these
papers where an officials say something like we were just
giving consultants tons of money, and you know, somebody would
(38:55):
fly on a plane and they would read the Kite
Runner or something while they were on the plane and
they would out, and I think that they understood everything
about this place that has been a battleground for centuries
and centuries and has been trod upon by one outside
empire after another, the fourth one, which clearly is a
(39:16):
bit of a cheap scape. Myself, I've been having a
hard time not mentioning this. Yet the US flushed billions
and billions and billions of dollars down the geopolitical drain
trying to nation build in Afghanistan. Nation building is a
risky endeavor that can pay great dividends if you get
(39:37):
it off the ground. It was once called colonialism. That's
building a different kind of nation. But that's I mean, yes,
so they wanted to I don't know, they were just
so out of out of touch with what was happening,
so they there's this, there's this great comparison. Or similarly,
(40:01):
in the accounts of the early days here, it was
an economic boom from the military industrial complex, obviously for
the associated energy and defense industries. It was a boom
contractors of course. Uh. And we can just say like
that was immediately affected by these September eleventh attacks and
(40:21):
the public acceptance essentially that yeah, we should probably protect
ourselves more and spend a lot more money than we
were sure, So we'll pay for it. You handle the details.
I want to feel good when I see the news
and feel like I've done my part. So since so
here's the here's the similar. One of the sources says
(40:45):
money is like water. In Afghanistan was like a desert,
and when you pour too much water too quickly, the
land cannot absorb it and it becomes a wash. With
this money, and that that struck me because if it
not only does it feel true, but it has the
(41:07):
unfortunate quality of being true. Since two thousand and two,
the US has allocated more than eighty three billion dollars
in security assistance to Afghanistan that dwarfs the defense budget
the entire defense budget of other developing nations. At two
thousand eleven alone, at the peak of the war, this
(41:31):
country got eleven billion dollars in security aid from Washington.
That's three billion more than what Pakistan, which has nuclear
weapons in a way bigger army, spent on its entire
military that year. That's nuts. They spent eight billion, and
the US gave Afghanistan eleven billion. Now, I do want
to say, it may sound like we're being unfair here,
(41:54):
we have to remember that the military operators people were
for the US government and the contractors involved, they're not
in these rooms. They're not in these uh these board rooms,
in these war rooms and so on. They're being sent
(42:14):
to a place to risk their lives, and they are
they are trying to save people on the ground, you
know what I mean, They're trying to help civilians, they're
trying to prevent these deaths. Yes, But the other side
of that coin is that the almost the feeling of
a goalless occupation like that caused a lot of situations where,
(42:40):
you know, a few a small amount of those contractors
and military personnel felt as though or at least acted
as though there was no rule of law, there were
no rules. Things could happen there. And I think it's
because that top down guidance just didn't exist. Well, we
talked to about how you know, maybe this is hyperbolic,
(43:01):
and I've heard people kind of poop to this idea,
but comparing Afghanistan to Vietnam, in the sense that it
was very difficult terrain, it was an enemy that they
didn't fully understand, uh, and it seemed to have empowered
a lot of military personnel to commit sem atrocities. Right,
we also have to consider I think that is I
(43:22):
don't think that's not based comparison. We also have to
consider that a lot of the horror stories we hear
came from the crimes of private contractors, So people are
working private industry that have been subcontracted out by the U. S.
Government or NATO, or they come from people who were
supposed to be the authorities in in like from Afghanistan.
(43:46):
So you know, there are there are stories which are
true of military service members being brigged uh and in
danger of being dishonorably discharged because they refused to tolerate
the sexual abuse of children which they saw firsthand, not
(44:07):
in not in some like, not in some sketchy part
of town necessarily, but like in the police chiefs compound
in the police station, or having to make nice with
warlords and crack a deal with them because of their
influence over you know, a region of the area. Adjusted
(44:30):
for inflation and for just as they say talking Turkey
for perspective, eleven billion US dollars is more than the
US spent in the entirety of Western Europe with the
Marshall Plan after World War Two. Think about that the entirety.
But after almost two decades of help from Washington, or
(44:52):
attempts to help from Washington, the Afghan army and the
police force are still not probably not going to be
capable of fending off all these insurgents. It's not just
the Taliban, it's it's I asked, the Islamic State and
others without outside assistance, without backup from the U. S. Military. Um,
I just want to jump in there really fast before
(45:13):
we keep going. Just two. We mentioned the Marshall Plan,
which was the program, and we mentioned it was after
World War Two as well. But that was a program
of aid, right that we that we gave to most
of or a lot of Europe just to rebuild after
the battles were fought in that region, just putting up
Yeah exactly, yeah, yeah, and thank you. So back to
(45:35):
the money, which I promise I'll I'll stop harping on
at some point. It's just like it's crazy, Yeah, what
could eleven billion dollars do you know what I mean?
Superpowers could be rocked, there could be brought into life.
There was so much money flowing that bribery, fraud, and corruption.
(45:59):
They became superpowered as as tendencies and trends. One advisor
who was working for the US said that when he
was working in this particular air base, many Afghan people,
mean native Afghan people who are working there regularly rereaked
of jet fuel because they were just smuggling so much
(46:20):
of it out to sell on the black market. And
then we have another point about corruption within the police force,
and this this comes from an interviewee who was comfortable
being named. Yes. And one interviewed Thomas Johnson, who was
a Navy official serving as a counter insurgency advisor in
Kanadahar Province, said that the Afghans viewed the police as
(46:43):
predatory bandits uh. He called them quote the most hated
institution in all of Afghanistan um. And then another interviewee
and unnamed Norwegian official told interviewers that he estimated thirty
of Afghan police recruits deserted with their government issued weapons
so they could quote set up their own private checkpoints
(47:06):
a k A highway robbery, right, literally just extorting people
that were traveling through what they were doing, right, And
the other statements these officials make don't don't sound pretty,
but of course we you know, we have to point
out again that part of this is a maybe a
(47:30):
function of the shifting goal post, right, But to not
know who your enemies are and not know who the
difference from your enemies and your allies is is, that's
tough when, especially in a situation like this. There were
other revelations. It turns out that several senior US officials
believe there was a realistic opportunity to cut a piece
(47:50):
deal with the Taliban back in two thousand two or
two thousand three. Again, we're not saying it's definite. We're
saying that's what they felt was in the cards. Also,
when this stuff came out, you know who else was surprised? Congress,
And with Congress it's tough, like how many is it performative? Right?
I have to be upset at this for my constituents,
(48:12):
so they know that I was definitely upset at this. Right,
And there's bipartisan Uh, there's bipartisan anger at this. At
least if we look at Senators Richard Blumenthal and Josh Howley,
they're both on the Senate Armed Services Committee, and they've
already called for hearings based on these reports. Even former
Afghan President Haman cars I gave an interview to the
(48:35):
AP Associated Press UH recently and he said the Afghanistan
Papers proved the US was at fault for his country's corruption. However,
Craig Whitlock, one of the journalists who brought the story
to light from the Post, said the US was at fault,
but the Afghan government did not prosecute many people for
corruption or fraud, that's for sure, Jess. And this this
(49:02):
is where this is where this leaves us. I know
it's a high level look, but there's so many other
things to report. Well, there will be new revelations, surely, right,
I mean, there's a lot of documents here. I'm glad
you brought that up, because, yeah, as we record today
the Washington Post, we said it was an ongoing war
for them, right. They're still in court fighting for more documents,
(49:22):
and they're pressing Cigar to identify everyone they interviewed for
the Afghanistan Papers, which they haven't yet. Currently, the Trump
administration is holding direct peace talks with the Taliban. A
lot of the experts that The Post spoke with said
that they believe the only way to end this war
is to cut a deal that militarily it is impossible
(49:45):
to entirely defeat the Taliban unless it's something like so
in the Earth with salt a k A nukes, which
no one wants policy. Yeah, please don't do that. Anyone
who's listening to has one of those things. Yeah, and
and this has given these out of civilians. Now, yeah,
costco baby, it's the only thing is you have to
(50:07):
buy three to get the deal. Don't you remember in
that whole declaration happened and we all got nukes that
it was the mutually assured destruction agreement of other have
a giant psychic squid? Those are coming to have Have
you heard the news the good news. Yeah, there's this guy.
(50:27):
He's working on a giant intergalactic squid thing. I don't know.
I don't know the details. I have no comment. Well
are you the guy? I know? Look, let's go to
a different yours. This is another thing about this story
that is still continuing. And this I don't know, this
is just my I want to be too conspiratorial. I
(50:50):
do want to know. It is a fact. Currently Afghanistan
still dominates global opium markets. Last year, according to the
UN Office on drugs and crimes, so tighten right, eight
two per cent of the world's opium supply was produced
in Afghanistan. Some of the biggest problems in the US,
(51:15):
they're drug related, come from opium. Yeah, they're not growing
a ton of it here, are they? Like you know,
the different the different UH pharmaceutical companies that are probably
gonna avoid too many serious consequences of creating the opium crisis.
Nobody's saying conspiracy here, people, We're just we're just going, hey,
(51:39):
look at this and just say we We talked about
this in a previous episode. Just how much security was
devoted to what looks like from the reporting and the
images that were sent back over the course of years
up until very recently, that we are protecting the poppy fields,
I guess from allowing anyone to use them. Right. Well,
(52:03):
it's also tough because you can see interviews with farmers
in the area who say, you know, I'm a subsistence
farmer what like. There there were different plans to uh
institute new crops for cash, but opium makes the most
money to sell and the markeup is huge. The worst
part is those farmers are not making what UH you know,
(52:27):
nobody's going to be buying a mansion doing that. What's
the same way with cocaine and in Colombia and stuff, right,
I mean largely the cartels put the burden of cultivating
it and growing it on these families who look at
it as you know, some sort of subsistence living. But
they're not sharing in the profits of the criminal enterprise. Again,
(52:47):
elephants war and grass. Right, when the elephants make war,
the grass suffers. It's there's a lot of stuff that
we missed, and we've got to emphasize, just on the
ending note, we have to emphasis as the human element,
you know what I mean. People who are soldiers are
not bad. People who are civilians in a country that
(53:10):
is being subjected to a conflict are not bad either.
This is these are all human beings who are trying
to survive. And the horrific thing is that a lot
of decisions upon which lives hinged are made by people
who will never physically travel to the places where they
see their consequences of their decisions made real. I want
(53:34):
to add to that, but I don't need to. Yeah,
I'm right there with you that that is tremendously frustrating
and quite heartbreaking actually, and we know that we have
a lot of survivors of conflicts in our audience today.
We have many military veterans in our audience today as well,
and we are fortunate because we have people who have
(53:58):
a first hand look at what the military we call
the facts on the ground. So, if you are comfortable,
you are by no means obligated, But if you are
comfortable sharing your story with us, we would love to
hear from you. Uh please just let us know if
it's something you're comfortable sharing on air, or if you
(54:19):
would just like to give an anonymous account. You can
find us on Facebook. You can find us on Instagram.
You can find us on Twitter. Were conspiracy stuff on
Twitter and Facebook. We are Conspiracy Stuff show on Instagram.
We also highly recommend our Facebook community page. Here's where
it gets crazy. But wait, as Billy Mays just want
(54:42):
to say, there's more. You can find us on as
individuals on some of those social meds. Yes, I am
Matt Frederick, underscore my heart. I think, Yeah, I thought
you'd thought you'd torched it. No I was, I was,
I was throwing people off my scent. I see your
social scent now back, I'm glad to hear it. I
(55:04):
follow you, and I was worried that I wasn't gonna
get the uh the joy of of of experiencing your
online presence anymore. Well, look at that, I haven't posted
anything in two and a half years or so. Away.
I would say that quality trump's quantity. It does. Indeed,
I try to go for that m O on my
social media account singular where you can find me at
(55:27):
how now Noel Brown exclusively on Instagram is though like
I'm sponsored by them or something. I am. I am
on those uh social media's as well. You can check
me out at Ben Bolan on Instagram uh and Twitter
at Ben Bowling hs W. But hey, you might be saying,
(55:49):
I h I hate social media. I find it abhorrent.
I loathe it and is unclean. But I have a
story to tell you. What of what am I to do? Oh? Well,
I will tell you because there's a number you can call,
and there's some other stuff. But right before we get
to that, I just want to put out here that
we are talking about the Washington Post and some amazing
(56:11):
reporting that they did. But there is a paywall there,
so if you want to go to other sources. I
just wanted to give people a few places they could
find reporting on this. UM. There is one that if
you just google that you will find from The Atlantic
that has a pretty good write up on it. But
the one, the source that I really appreciated was the
(56:32):
uh SIG I think it's Siggy online, c i g
I online, the Center for International Government's Innovation. They have
a really interesting whole series of articles about the Afghanistan Papers. Yeah. Yeah,
And I think the Guardian has done some great work too.
It also like to recommend I don't know if uh
(56:53):
if people are fans or foes of Reddit, but Reddit
has a subreddit called ask Historians, which gives some fantastic
background to some of the deeper dives of Afghan history
that we didn't get into today. Excellent UM. And and
it's not to say that you can't access the Afghanistan papers.
(57:15):
It's called the Afghanistan Papers, a Secret history of the war.
You can find it. There's one called at War with
the Truth UM that's from Craig Woodlock, and you you
can't find that in access that. I just know that
as you're going through navigating you may hit some walls there.
They're just putting that out there. Okay, so let's um,
let's jump to the idea that you can call us
(57:36):
if you wish to. You can call one eight three
three st d W I t K, leave a message,
talk to us, just what Ben said earlier. Anything you
want to tell us that you feel comfortable doing, please
do uh. And if you don't want to do any
of that stuff, you can give us a good old
fashioned email. We are conspiracy at ihart radio dot com.
(58:17):
Stuff they don't want you to know is a production
of I Heart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts
from my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hello, Welcome
(00:25):
back to the show. I'm not wearing a hat, here
wearing pants, though I am wearing pants. My name is Matt,
my name is North. They called me Ben. We are
joined as always with our super producer, Paul Mission Controlled Decond.
Most importantly, you are you. You are here, and that
makes this stuff they don't want you to know. This
is a wartime episode. As we record today's episode, the
(00:48):
United States of America is still in the middle of
the longest war in the country's history. That means there
are literally people listening to the show today who were
not alive when this war began. Think about that. The
United States invaded Afghanistan on October seven, two thousand one,
(01:10):
and we are still there as we speak. Why how
much did our leaders know and when did they know it?
To answer that, oddly enough, even though this country has
been at war in this other country for the better
part of two decades, many people, many voters, aren't a
hundred percent sure what Afghanistan is, where it is, and
(01:35):
why it's such a big deal. It's also now the
first time we've been engaged there. No no, no, no, no.
Uh this uh, this has an interesting name. First things first,
here are the facts. Afghanistan is located in what is
commonly called Eurasia, right the vast stretch of land between
(01:56):
Asia and the continent we call Europe. It's landlocked. It's
bordered by some greatest hits countries in the rogues gallery
of the United States, historically Pakistan, Iran, Tajikistan, Zbekistan, and China.
It's capital is a place called Kabul. Outside of several cities,
(02:17):
the country is extraordinarily rural. We're talking places that are
simply physically hard to access in the mountains or in
the rugged wilderness. The country itself was not officially formed
until seventeen o nine, but as you alluded to, Matt,
it has a history, a long and bloody history of
(02:40):
being a battleground. In fact, Afghanistan is sometimes called the
Graveyard of Empires due to just the sheer number of
militaries that tried and failed to control it. And it's
an interesting thing there because and just when we're talking
about it's the battle ground, right, the place where the
wars or fought or the battles are fought. And generally
(03:03):
controlling the area is kind of the goal. But a
lot of times and and this is what we're going
to kind of outline here, is that it's the land,
the place where two different warring powers end up where
they just kind of go right. So it's not it's
not as though Afghanistan itself is rising up to you know,
fight a lot of the battles. It's generally it's where
(03:25):
proxy wars happen. It's where, Um, it's interesting. We're gonna
we're gonna continue on with this throughout the show. So
let's just keep going down into the history of Afghanistan. Okay,
let's do a little ancient history, shall we. Okay, So,
experts believe that early humans were living in Afghanistan as
long as fifty thousand years ago because it was rich
soil for farming. Um. There were communities of farmers in
(03:48):
Afghanistan that were some of the very earliest farmers in
the entire world. Um. And for a time the area
was known as Ariana, or the land of arians. This
is because multiple waves of people from Central Asia migrated
to the region Uh and many of these settlers were
in fact Arians. They were speakers of the parent language
of Indo European languages. Um Arians also migrated to Persia
(04:12):
and India in those prehistoric times. And then let's jump
to the sixth century when the Persian Empire of the
Achimenid dynasty controlled Arianna and Uh, good look saying Achimunid,
it's really fun and to to look at. And right
in about three thirty b C, the little guy you
might remember named Alexander the Great defeated the last ruler
(04:34):
of the Achimenid uh dynasty there and he made his
way to the eastern borders of the place that it
was called Arianna. Now after this guy, old Great Alexander
himself died in three hundred and twenty three BC in
his early thirties, feeling that he was a failure. By
the way, Yeah, I know that Alexander. He sure was great,
(04:54):
wasn't he. I mean he was he was a guy.
He was a guy. He did great things, did some
huge stuff. Whether it was great or terrible is depending
on which side of the battles you were on. Some
large scale stuff. Let's leave it in. Okay, that's yes,
there we go um so he he died three BC.
(05:16):
All these other kingdoms they were out there. Listen to
name them off here, the Salu kids maybe Seleucids, Salut kids,
the Bactria, and the Indian Mauran Empire. They all were
fighting to attempt in an attempt to control this territory
there was known at the time as Ariana. So understandably
(05:36):
there were a lot of folks jockeying for position and
a lot of kind of power grabs, situations in the vacuum. Yes,
the history of Afghanistan involves a ton of handoffs and
power grabs, with a lot of names that might be
unfamiliar to you know, unless you have specifically studied this history.
(05:57):
So strap in, we're just gonna do some high It's
a lot of these empires are no longer around and
the names will sound unfamiliar. In the seventh century A.
D or c. Whichever way you want to go with that,
Arab armies carried this brand new religion of Islam to Afghanistan,
(06:20):
and the western provinces of Herat and Sistan came under
the rule of these Arab forces. But the people of
these provinces revolted. They returned to their old pre existing
beliefs as soon as uh these military forces were not
you know, literally using violence to make them pretend to
(06:41):
practice Islam. In the tenth century, Muslim rulers called Samanids
from Bukhara and what's now is Pakistan extended their influence
into the afghan area. And this this kind of when
we see extending influence, it means that there was a
soft hegemony, but you know, expanding. Their people started to
(07:03):
use uh, the currency of those rulers. They started to
speak similar languages, they acquired their culture. So the Samanid
established the dynasty in Gasni called the Gaznavids. And again
matt president with that pronunciation. We do not speak these languages.
The greatest of the Gaznavids was a king named Mahmoud
(07:28):
who ruled from to ten thirty. He is the one
most responsible for establishing the solid foundation of Islam throughout
the area of modern day Afghanistan. He led a lot
of military expeditions into India. Even back then, people started
thinking of uh of of Afghanistan too as the gateway
(07:51):
to these kingdoms of India. That state falls in the
middle of the twelfth century to the Gurid Kingdom, which
arose in gur that's a west central old region of
present day Afghanistan. Those guys get kicked out early in
the thirteenth century by another Central Asian dynasty, and these
folks are all swept away around twelve twenty by Jengis Khan,
(08:14):
that Genghis Khan guy that's actually called Jengis Khan. I
like to call him Jangi. Jeni k jang Ki reminds
me of that tower game Jengaeh. And so we include
we we include some of this ancient history because it's
important to know that already it's twelve twenty. Already two
(08:36):
of the greatest conquerors in the world have come through
this place, and now a third one appears. Near the
end of the fourteenth century, the Central Asian military leader
tim or Lang or the Lame Timore, also known as
tamer Lane in the West, conquered Afghanistan and he immediately
(08:57):
moved on to India. And when he moved on, his
his children and his descendants couldn't hold the empire together.
They couldn't rule everything. Their grandfather, their patriarch, took over,
but they were able to keep a hold on Afghanistan
roughly for a little while. And now we get to
(09:18):
where it eventually becomes an independent nation, as we said,
you know, in seventeen hundreds becomes independent. But there's a
story behind that too. There's even more switching off. People
are trying to control this. They're dying left and right.
And we're gonna talk about, let's say, a strategy. He's
something that's gonna ripple across time here that occurs in
(09:41):
the eighteenth century. The King of Persia around that time,
a guy named the dear Shaw. He was employing this
tribe of Pashtuns. They're a Dolli tribe of Pashtoons, and
he was using them in his wars in India. So
he's he's got a contingency of other fighters. I wouldn't
call them mercenaries, but they're they're fighters for under another flag,
(10:04):
essentially fighting under his flag. Right, and uh Ahmad Shaw,
this of Dolli chief who had gained this high post
within the army there he established himself after the deer
Shaw's assassination, that the guy we're talking about the King
of Persia, after he was assassinated in seventeen forty seven.
So Ahmad Shaw is, you know, looking to move up
(10:26):
a little bit, and thankfully this assembly of tribal chiefs
proclaim him the new Shaw. And then the Afghans extend
their rule as far east as Kashmir and Delhi, and
then north to the Amu Daria and west into northern Persia.
So they really just begin expanding there under the rule
of Ahmad Shah. Yeah, and he retires from the throne
(10:51):
in seventeen seventy two. He's one of the few people
with the distinction of retiring. He dies in Kandahar. He
has a son, tim or Shot, who assumes control the
Afghan Empire survives mostly intact through the next twenty years. Now,
think about that time, Yeah, seventeen seventy two. America is
(11:12):
forming right right in this time period here increasingly irritated
colonists half a world away, our dreaming of revolution and saying, hey,
one day there will be a popular Broadway play about us.
And you may be wondering, rightly, so what does all
this have to do with me? When does all this
obscure Eurasian history have to do with me? When does
(11:38):
my team enter the game? A lot of people in
the Western wondering, well, there is an entire era of
history involved heavily involving Afghanistan that concerns just this. It's
called the Great Game. We did an episode on this earlier,
longtime listeners may recall. But let's look like, let's what's
the quick and dirty. The Great Game is world dominance. Really,
(12:03):
that's what it is. It's a bunch of extremely powerful
countries and people deciding, Hey, I want to maybe be
the ruler of all this. Um, let's see what we
can do. But there are all these other people trying
to do the same thing. So we have to play
these mind games and diplomatic games and resource control games. Yeah. So,
(12:26):
for most of the nineteenth century eight to be precise,
the British and Russian Empires were vying for control of
Central and South Asia, including the country of Afghanistan. Um.
This period was known, as you mentioned matt as the
Great Game, where both empires were trying to protect and
(12:46):
secure their own territories they already held and also expanding
outward into others. Britain was a huge player in this game,
and that they were very concerned that Russia might take
control over India. Which was the crown jewel of the
British Empire. Um. Despite the fact that Russia this wasn't
really something that they had designs on. But um, you
(13:08):
know Britain that you gotta protect what you got, and
they were maybe be a little paranoid. Um. Afghanistan became
once again, as you mentioned Matt, a very fertile battleground. Right.
You can see, Uh, you can see some excellent fiction
based on this period of time, a work by Richard Kipling,
(13:28):
intensely problematic author. But I would I would say a
talented poet. Uh. He wrote a novel called Kim, which
is about a child becoming embroiled in what they later
learned is the Great Game Roderid Kipling. Of course it
would be Uh. I would be remiss not to mention
this is the person. Uh is the person most responsible
(13:50):
for the phrase white man's burden. So he's not a
good dude. But that was a well written book. A
series of conflicts transpired in real life, not just in
the book. And these are these are breaking out two wars,
but they don't really turn into world wars at this point.
One of these conflicts, the Second Anglo Afghan War, which
(14:13):
was from eighteen thirty eight to forty two, ended in
a treaty that gave Britain control of Afghanistan's foreign affairs,
so it turned into a vassal or a puppet state
until UH nineteen nineteen, when Amunala Khan declared independence from
British influence. He tried to have introduce some social norms UH,
(14:34):
such as abolishing the practice of product which UH is
the is the idea that women should not be allowed
to be seen or interact in public. So he was
a more forward facing leader in some social regards UH.
He was trying to do that. He was trying to
(14:55):
He ended up fleeing the country in nineteen nine. People
did not really people are not receptive to this change. Next,
Zahir Shah becomes king and for the following four years
Afghanistan is a monarchy. In nineteen fifty three, a guy
named General Mohammed Daoud became Prime minister. He turned to
(15:18):
the Soviets, to the U S. S R. He said,
help me out with the economy, help me out with
military assistance. Also, I want to introduce some social reforms,
including the abolition of p DA. He was forced to
resign in nineteen sixty three, it's a tenure rule there.
But in nineteen seventy three he regained power in a
coup and he said, okay, now we're a republic, and
(15:42):
he said, you know what I get. I get the uh,
the trend of history here. So I'm gonna try to
play these world powers against one another. It doesn't work
the way he wanted it to, because just a few
years later, in nineteen seventy eight, he is murdered or
assassinated in a pro Soviet coup. There's a new governing faction,
(16:04):
the new kids on the block in this situation, and
the People's Democratic Party it come to power, but they
have a lot of infighting in their own, jockeying for
position in the hierarchy. And then of course they are
eternally battling the Mushadeen groups that are backed by Uncle Sam.
That is was at one time seen as controversial. That
is clearly a proven fact. And let's pause for word
(16:28):
from our sponsor, and then we'll get to the modern history.
So the Soviet era, Paul, can we get some kind
of you know, like really authoritarian sounding big but yeah,
that kind of music. There we go. Soviet era yes,
(16:51):
so the U. S. S R. It's uh, it's in
Afghanistan in nineteen seventy nine, and it really is trying
to show were up this newly established regime, right that
we talked about the People's Democratic Party that's running things
over there, and those guys are by the way in
the capital Kabul, And in short order, nearly a hundred
(17:12):
thousand Soviet soldiers took control of a lot of the
major areas, the cities, the highways, the ways, things are
being transported, all by all means. And here's the thing
people didn't really take to that. There was rebellion. It
came quickly. It was all over the place. The Soviets
(17:33):
were dealing harshly with the Mujahadeen rebels and the people,
you know, the families, the the small groups that were
supporting them. They were just taking out entire villages. Again,
it like sounds so familiar of the course of our history,
of the things we've talked about. Um, they're they're trying
to deny any place where or that would be considered
(17:55):
a safe haven for enemy soldiers to be hanging out
and you know, regrouping. And while this is happening, there
are outside foreign supporters who are propping up all of
these diverse groups of rebels that are fighting back against
the Soviet Union, playing the great game once again exactly
that that whole um the proxy the proxy battle thing
(18:15):
is in full effect here. And you know you've got
rebels poorting from Iran, Pakistan, China, the the US even
has some people over their training folks um and having
fighters over there. And there's this brutal nine year conflict
that just goes on and on and on, and an
estimated one million civilians are killed in this conflict, Afghanistan
(18:38):
civilians as well as others UM. And there are also
ninety thousand Mujahadeen fighters, eighteen thousand Afghan troops and four
fourteen thousand, five hundred Soviet soldiers, all of them who
are killed in this But in this these battles, in
this conflict, and the US support varied in in any
(19:00):
different ways over the course of this conflict. That we
do have to remember this is Cold War era stuff, right.
So so originally they had some suits and some agents
from the company uh the right, right, right, and it
starts with it does and uh And by six they
(19:23):
were becoming more um, they were being less subtle Uncle
Sam was UH. They started supplying Stinger missiles to the Mossadin,
which we're a game changer because these Stinger missiles allowed
people on the ground to shoot down Soviet helicopter gunships
in UH four countries, Afghanistan, the USSR, Pakistan, the US
(19:47):
signed peace accords, and the Soviet Union says, okay, we'll
start pulling out troops. The last of the troops leave
the next year in ninety nine, and UH civil war
consumes the country, which should not have surprised anyone. Let's
talk really quickly about some of the landscape there and um,
the mountains, the mountain ranges, the mountains areas, the very hilly,
(20:12):
UH sometimes very stark areas where if you know, as
the Mujahadeen, if you're given something like a Stinger missile
when you're just troops on the ground, it's very difficult
to battle against something like these Soviet gun ships, the
helicopters that can roll through. They can just travel across
these landscapes to wherever they need to be in there,
heavily armed. But you know, if you're on the ground
(20:35):
as just a single person or even a battalion, small
battalion anywhere from a hundred to ten people. Um, fighting
back against the gun ship is very, very difficult. But
if you're given a stinger missile and you can hide
out somewhere within you know that terrain, you can easily
have an upper hand there. And again, these are ripples
(20:56):
throughout time of things that we are going to see
where an explosive in the hands of somebody that understands
the area, that has lived there. Um, you only need
a few people to gain the upper hand on large
military forces. Well, it's one of those things where you
see it. I mean, it's even like sn L sketches
from the time and going back and watching a lot
(21:17):
of Will Ferrell sketches from those days, and there's the
one where he's the old prospector. You know, you've seen this.
It's great, but it's well, Chris Catan is playing the
sargen or whatever, and he keeps making the joke that
it's an unconventional, unconventional war, so I got to use
unconventional methods, which in the sketches having an old prospect
or to lead them through the terrain. But it's true,
that's what they're talking about. That's the thing you've heard
(21:38):
thrown around constantly in the news was what an unconventional
war was and required unconventional tactics. Yeah. And in this case,
and an old prospector, how to forget the premise with
an old prospector who was like a cousin of somebody
who was in command of the military, isn't gonna do
you much good. You need somebody who has lived there
and knows the history and the terrain. Yeah. And also
(22:00):
for the record, Uh, the old Will Ferrell sketches in
general hold up, not saying that because he's technically a
coworker of hours, just saying it, because they do hold
up pickle shoes, sentiment, and gravy. So who comes out
ahead in this next iteration of the power vacuum. That
would be a group known as the Taliban. They seize
(22:23):
control of Kabul by seven they have they have a
solid grip on about two thirds of the country, and
they're starting to be recognized in the international sphere. Pakistan
Saudi Arabia, for instance, both recognize the government until that is,
the US enters the Great Game as a full on combatant.
(22:46):
And it's different because before proxy wars, right, let's call
these people rebels. Yeah, yeah, and uh so fast forward.
As we said at the top, in October of two
thousand one, US led bombing of Afghanistan begins. And this
is right after the attacks on September eleven, two thousand
(23:08):
one on the US soil anti Taliban Northern Alliance forces Intricable,
pretty much right after and this marks the official beginning
of what has become the longest war in US history.
Across the next eighteen years, multiple precedents, three different administrations
from both sides of the US political divide, would continually
(23:34):
escalate the conflict. They would send more troops, they would
proposed what they called surges. They would vow we were
making progress in a war that we knew we could win.
Today's question, what if they were lying? Here's where it
gets crazy. So behind the scenes, everyone knew, all of
(23:56):
the decision makers knew this was a disaster. And Matt,
you recently had a conversation that touched on some of this.
Is that right, Yes, quite a bit. And I spoke
with the gentleman named Steve Hooper that I very much
want to have on the show. We want to have
on this show. Um I I forget his exact titles
within the FBI, but he was a high level person. UM.
(24:21):
I hope he doesn't mind me saying his name. He
has a podcast on the I Heart network that he
uh talks about some of this stuff, so I think
it should be okay. But he was just talking to
me about how the United States was keeping was aware,
very much aware of one Osama bin Laden and uh
(24:41):
Taliban forces and you know, after all of the the
conflicts and help that we've essentially given to that area. Um,
and we know our intelligence agencies know a lot of
the operators, we know a lot of the mechanisms that
that exists out there with some of these forces. They
also knew just from past bombings like the nine attack
(25:04):
on the World Trade Center where a rider truck was
used and thankfully did not destroy the entire building then
in but it was certainly a disaster and a terror
attack and a major, a major warning sign basically that oh,
we need to be paying attention to this. And he
was just telling me that after that attack in ninety three,
(25:26):
the intelligence apparatus is were so aware of it. However,
we went right back to the FBI at least went
right back to focusing on drug gangs and drug cartels
that existed, and we're operating within the US, and they
didn't turn their eyes towards terrorism at that point because
there was a lot of siloing of information and gate keeping. Right, yes,
(25:51):
because again, you think about operating outside of the U
S where intelligence is gathered, operating inside the US a
lot of times it's separated, and there this whole thing,
it kind of became a mess, at least according to
Stephen our conversation, after you create the Department of Homeland
Security and as that giant behemoth of organizations begins trying
(26:13):
to keep tabs on things like that and organize, you know,
who's controlling what, who's looking into what? Um, I say,
a mess, but that's not true. Anyone who's out there
working in any of these organizations, you know that's not
necessarily true. But it was certainly the birth pains of
something bigger. Oh that's poetic. I like that, Yeah, it's
(26:35):
it is. It is unfortunately true that many of the
same people publicly touting progress in this quagmire, we're often
the very same people lamenting the doomed situation, at least
doomed as they saw it behind closed doors. We know
this is not a conspiracy theory. We know this is
(26:55):
indisputably true. Thanks to the fantastic journalistic f and the
of the Washington Post and the recent publication of something
called the Afghanistan Papers. On December nine of this year,
the Washington Post finally won a legal battle that was
three years in the making and like the war in
Afghanistan continues today. But what did they get? What happens
(27:20):
we'll tell you after a word from our sponsor. So,
three year legal battle, Washington Post acquires more than two
thousand pages of quote lessons learned end quote. Uh. And
these are interviews that were connected by the Office of
Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction or cigar give me
(27:45):
I love a good cigar. Um, and uh, it's not
pretty what's uncovered here. There was no internal consensus on
any objective, any reasons for going to war. The country
was spending billions of dollar ours with no idea whatsoever
what any kind of end game looked like. Um. They
(28:06):
literally had no idea how to get out of the war.
There was no excess strategy. Well yeah that if you
guys recalled back. And this was just to date myself
a little bit. This was occurring right around the time
that I was going to be finishing and graduating from
high school. As all of these conflicts are occurring, as
the debates about this stuff is happening, and I remember
(28:29):
for the first time, not for the first time, but
maybe for the first time looking at the news with
a little more understanding of history. After some classes that
I was taking and hearing people discussed this, they would
argue on the news like, well, what what is it? Actually?
What does this conflict? Actually? What does victory mean? What
does it look like? And you have even the president
(28:51):
coming on and kind of giving you a vague you know,
it's a victory, you know it's it's good, We're gonna victory, right,
what does that mean? Yeah? The thing is that there
was not There were some metrics for ideas of success,
(29:11):
but there was nothing that people agreed on with concrete steps.
There was no universal definition. And without a universal definition,
as uh chinuab would say, things fall apart. The post
got hundreds of memos that are really they're almost like
(29:33):
they're almost like YouTuber Reddit comments from Donald H. Rumsfeld.
They were called and this has nothing to do with
the current usage of the word today, but they were
called snow flakes. You know, that's a more of a
right wing um pejorative on the internet today, But in
this case, they were called snowflakes because they would just
(29:56):
sort of be sprinkled on all these communications, brief instructions
or comments that the that Rumsfeldt would tell his employees
during the course of his time working on the war.
And there are things that are so informal, like there's
there's one where it says, I'm not sure who the
enemies are here, like we don't know we're shooting at
(30:21):
someone for sure. So all together, these memos and these
two thousand plus pages revealed by this Freedom of Information Act, uh,
they function as a genuine secret history of what we
know about the war. And some people taking a longer
view of history would say, well, this is just another
(30:44):
act in the ongoing war that has been occurring on
the land of Afghanistan for much much longer than eighteen years.
But here's where we learned the reports. The journalist and
the analyst at the Washingt Post found for common and
disturbing themes running throughout these papers, and they're pretty brutal
(31:07):
to hear, but We looked through them, and they are
well researched and there's not a ton of editorializing. So
every single year covered by these papers, US officials, at
least some of them, purposefully refused to tell the public
the truth about the war. In some way or another,
(31:28):
they would issue these pronouncements, they would say stuff that
they straight up knew wasn't true, and they would hide
unmistakable evidence that for one reason or another, the war
had become unwinnable, which was an odd concept of it
being winnable or unwinnable, because it just didn't seem like
there was one or the other. Right, Chocolate rations have
(31:50):
been increased, right, uh, and now they're going to be
eighty percent less than they were. So they also in
these papers we see that officials who were interviewed and
again this this was all internal documentation, and so they
wanted to tell the truth. They they depicted purposeful, explicit
(32:11):
efforts by the US government to mislead the public. And
then they also it's you could describe it, and maybe
this is a little bit too much editorial voice here,
but you could describe it as a sort of collective
disbelief in the facts, kind of cherry picking the stuff
(32:34):
that would be good, ignoring the stuff that would run
counter to the narrative. So everybody is like, everybody's doing
a thing where they're like, all right, we're going to
all agree that this is fine. Everything's great, We're gonna win,
and stuff is gonna be good afterwards. You know what,
(32:56):
You know what that guy who said the house is
on fire, what he meant was is worm and cozy
in here. Just look at this banner. What does it
say mission accomplished, We're done? Look at that sweet bomber jacket.
I mean, look at that shrut, that confident gait that
the president has. I mean, seriously and again it's it's
funny because people who consider themselves domestic political partisans in
(33:22):
the US, uh, Like someone who would definitely hate the
right side of American politics would be uh would levy
valid inviting criticism of the misleading pr that the Republicans
side was doing when they had a presidential administration, And
(33:43):
then people who hated the left side would levy the
same again valid criticism at the Democrat administrations because they
were doing the same thing. All that changed was the
brand names on the facts. It was still a bucket
of poison pills. They just had different labels. Dude, you're
(34:07):
so right though, And I remember seeing that we're going
to have a surge, right, and a surge will fix
But that's okay. So that's just one deliberate, at the
very least at the most generous, deliberately misleading the public,
who is, by the way, paying billions of dollars for this.
And here's the thing we kind of mentioned of above.
(34:28):
This is number two. By the way, the officials from
you know, the United States and the Coalition of Forces
the Allies that we're going into Afghanistan with us, they
pretty much admitted openly that the mission had really no
discernible strategy, like, we don't know there's there, doesn't seem
to be a strategy. We've got a lot of people there,
(34:49):
there are a lot of troops there and some facilities
that were building. Um, but yeah, we really don't have
great objectives. We were not sure what we're doing there.
Stuff on the on the level of like, well, have
you guys talked to Todd, because Todd put it really well,
like I remember walking out of a meeting and I
was like, this is for sure what we're doing and uh,
(35:11):
I just can't I can recall it right now. He
just seems so confident and everything. You know, that's he's
just he's he's such a he's got such a good haircut.
I mean, I just love the cut of his jacket.
You can tell him man like he goes to a manicure. Absolutely,
his cuticles are impeccable, and you just you can't really
disbelieve a guy like that. So, as far as I
(35:33):
was concerned, if Todd's good, we're good, right, Yeah, you're right. Um,
hopefully hopefully Todd can just keep us keep that morale up,
you know, and the interviewers like Todd, who I think,
Oh that's a great Uh, you got disappeared. There are
a lot of he worked. He worked somewhere in the building.
It may have been the subway. He may have been
(35:55):
a general. I just look at you guys. You'll know
him when you see him. It's true. At first, there
was this pretty solid rationale they were going to we're
aiming to destroy al Gaeda, who was you know, we're
involved in these various terrorist acts, not just being accused
of involvement in the September eleventh attacks, but also being
(36:17):
active in attacks throughout the nineties that you mentioned earlier,
Matt with certain leaders with names that you might know
or people that were purportedly a part of them. Yeah,
but Todd would never do that. Once once al Qaeda
have been you know, largely muzzled, the officials involved said
(36:38):
they had mission creep. The goals got muddy and unclear,
and they began adopting strategies that might contradict the strategies
of other agencies or institutions, and they started having goals
that were unattainable. And people who were running this war,
folks are dying, billions of dollars going down the drain.
(36:58):
The people in charge were saying, I have problems with
basic questions. Who is the enemy here? I am not
being hyperbolic when Donald RUMs held said that who is
the enemy here? Who amidst these various complicated groups? Uh?
And alliances? Can we count on as allies? And also,
(37:19):
you know, I know it's a weird question, drop it
for thirty on a Friday, But how do we know
when we've won? Yeah, there's there's no bell that goes off,
like or specific person you have to defeat or a
king to overthrow, you know, there's no goal post like that. Yeah,
(37:42):
And it turns out that the Third Revelation, years into
the conflict, the United States still had a very poor
understanding of of the country overall. Officials from not just
the US but also from the Afghan government told interviewers
that allow out of the policies and initiatives coming from
Uncle Sam, everything from like training Afghan forces to trying
(38:06):
to I'm going to say it again, trying to whosh whoosh,
trying to stop the opium trade. All of them felt
like they were designed to fail. Whether that's because of incompetence,
because they were based on flawed assumptions, or whether because
there was some sort of ulterior motive, or whether it
was just a country they did not understand, or you know,
(38:31):
I don't want to put my biases on it, but
a country that maybe some of those people in charge
just didn't care about at a certain level. There are
disturbing accounts or allegations and interviews in some of these
papers where an officials say something like we were just
giving consultants tons of money, and you know, somebody would
(38:55):
fly on a plane and they would read the Kite
Runner or something while they were on the plane and
they would out, and I think that they understood everything
about this place that has been a battleground for centuries
and centuries and has been trod upon by one outside
empire after another, the fourth one, which clearly is a
(39:16):
bit of a cheap scape. Myself, I've been having a
hard time not mentioning this. Yet the US flushed billions
and billions and billions of dollars down the geopolitical drain
trying to nation build in Afghanistan. Nation building is a
risky endeavor that can pay great dividends if you get
(39:37):
it off the ground. It was once called colonialism. That's
building a different kind of nation. But that's I mean, yes,
so they wanted to I don't know, they were just
so out of out of touch with what was happening,
so they there's this, there's this great comparison. Or similarly,
(40:01):
in the accounts of the early days here, it was
an economic boom from the military industrial complex, obviously for
the associated energy and defense industries. It was a boom
contractors of course. Uh. And we can just say like
that was immediately affected by these September eleventh attacks and
(40:21):
the public acceptance essentially that yeah, we should probably protect
ourselves more and spend a lot more money than we
were sure, So we'll pay for it. You handle the details.
I want to feel good when I see the news
and feel like I've done my part. So since so
here's the here's the similar. One of the sources says
(40:45):
money is like water. In Afghanistan was like a desert,
and when you pour too much water too quickly, the
land cannot absorb it and it becomes a wash. With
this money, and that that struck me because if it
not only does it feel true, but it has the
(41:07):
unfortunate quality of being true. Since two thousand and two,
the US has allocated more than eighty three billion dollars
in security assistance to Afghanistan that dwarfs the defense budget
the entire defense budget of other developing nations. At two
thousand eleven alone, at the peak of the war, this
(41:31):
country got eleven billion dollars in security aid from Washington.
That's three billion more than what Pakistan, which has nuclear
weapons in a way bigger army, spent on its entire
military that year. That's nuts. They spent eight billion, and
the US gave Afghanistan eleven billion. Now, I do want
to say, it may sound like we're being unfair here,
(41:54):
we have to remember that the military operators people were
for the US government and the contractors involved, they're not
in these rooms. They're not in these uh these board rooms,
in these war rooms and so on. They're being sent
(42:14):
to a place to risk their lives, and they are
they are trying to save people on the ground, you
know what I mean, They're trying to help civilians, they're
trying to prevent these deaths. Yes, But the other side
of that coin is that the almost the feeling of
a goalless occupation like that caused a lot of situations where,
(42:40):
you know, a few a small amount of those contractors
and military personnel felt as though or at least acted
as though there was no rule of law, there were
no rules. Things could happen there. And I think it's
because that top down guidance just didn't exist. Well, we
talked to about how you know, maybe this is hyperbolic,
(43:01):
and I've heard people kind of poop to this idea,
but comparing Afghanistan to Vietnam, in the sense that it
was very difficult terrain, it was an enemy that they
didn't fully understand, uh, and it seemed to have empowered
a lot of military personnel to commit sem atrocities. Right,
we also have to consider I think that is I
(43:22):
don't think that's not based comparison. We also have to
consider that a lot of the horror stories we hear
came from the crimes of private contractors, So people are
working private industry that have been subcontracted out by the U. S.
Government or NATO, or they come from people who were
supposed to be the authorities in in like from Afghanistan.
(43:46):
So you know, there are there are stories which are
true of military service members being brigged uh and in
danger of being dishonorably discharged because they refused to tolerate
the sexual abuse of children which they saw firsthand, not
(44:07):
in not in some like, not in some sketchy part
of town necessarily, but like in the police chiefs compound
in the police station, or having to make nice with
warlords and crack a deal with them because of their
influence over you know, a region of the area. Adjusted
(44:30):
for inflation and for just as they say talking Turkey
for perspective, eleven billion US dollars is more than the
US spent in the entirety of Western Europe with the
Marshall Plan after World War Two. Think about that the entirety.
But after almost two decades of help from Washington, or
(44:52):
attempts to help from Washington, the Afghan army and the
police force are still not probably not going to be
capable of fending off all these insurgents. It's not just
the Taliban, it's it's I asked, the Islamic State and
others without outside assistance, without backup from the U. S. Military. Um,
I just want to jump in there really fast before
(45:13):
we keep going. Just two. We mentioned the Marshall Plan,
which was the program, and we mentioned it was after
World War Two as well. But that was a program
of aid, right that we that we gave to most
of or a lot of Europe just to rebuild after
the battles were fought in that region, just putting up
Yeah exactly, yeah, yeah, and thank you. So back to
(45:35):
the money, which I promise I'll I'll stop harping on
at some point. It's just like it's crazy, Yeah, what
could eleven billion dollars do you know what I mean?
Superpowers could be rocked, there could be brought into life.
There was so much money flowing that bribery, fraud, and corruption.
(45:59):
They became superpowered as as tendencies and trends. One advisor
who was working for the US said that when he
was working in this particular air base, many Afghan people,
mean native Afghan people who are working there regularly rereaked
of jet fuel because they were just smuggling so much
(46:20):
of it out to sell on the black market. And
then we have another point about corruption within the police force,
and this this comes from an interviewee who was comfortable
being named. Yes. And one interviewed Thomas Johnson, who was
a Navy official serving as a counter insurgency advisor in
Kanadahar Province, said that the Afghans viewed the police as
(46:43):
predatory bandits uh. He called them quote the most hated
institution in all of Afghanistan um. And then another interviewee
and unnamed Norwegian official told interviewers that he estimated thirty
of Afghan police recruits deserted with their government issued weapons
so they could quote set up their own private checkpoints
(47:06):
a k A highway robbery, right, literally just extorting people
that were traveling through what they were doing, right, And
the other statements these officials make don't don't sound pretty,
but of course we you know, we have to point
out again that part of this is a maybe a
(47:30):
function of the shifting goal post, right, But to not
know who your enemies are and not know who the
difference from your enemies and your allies is is, that's
tough when, especially in a situation like this. There were
other revelations. It turns out that several senior US officials
believe there was a realistic opportunity to cut a piece
(47:50):
deal with the Taliban back in two thousand two or
two thousand three. Again, we're not saying it's definite. We're
saying that's what they felt was in the cards. Also,
when this stuff came out, you know who else was surprised? Congress,
And with Congress it's tough, like how many is it performative? Right?
I have to be upset at this for my constituents,
(48:12):
so they know that I was definitely upset at this. Right,
And there's bipartisan Uh, there's bipartisan anger at this. At
least if we look at Senators Richard Blumenthal and Josh Howley,
they're both on the Senate Armed Services Committee, and they've
already called for hearings based on these reports. Even former
Afghan President Haman cars I gave an interview to the
(48:35):
AP Associated Press UH recently and he said the Afghanistan
Papers proved the US was at fault for his country's corruption. However,
Craig Whitlock, one of the journalists who brought the story
to light from the Post, said the US was at fault,
but the Afghan government did not prosecute many people for
corruption or fraud, that's for sure, Jess. And this this
(49:02):
is where this is where this leaves us. I know
it's a high level look, but there's so many other
things to report. Well, there will be new revelations, surely, right,
I mean, there's a lot of documents here. I'm glad
you brought that up, because, yeah, as we record today
the Washington Post, we said it was an ongoing war
for them, right. They're still in court fighting for more documents,
(49:22):
and they're pressing Cigar to identify everyone they interviewed for
the Afghanistan Papers, which they haven't yet. Currently, the Trump
administration is holding direct peace talks with the Taliban. A
lot of the experts that The Post spoke with said
that they believe the only way to end this war
is to cut a deal that militarily it is impossible
(49:45):
to entirely defeat the Taliban unless it's something like so
in the Earth with salt a k A nukes, which
no one wants policy. Yeah, please don't do that. Anyone
who's listening to has one of those things. Yeah, and
and this has given these out of civilians. Now, yeah,
costco baby, it's the only thing is you have to
(50:07):
buy three to get the deal. Don't you remember in
that whole declaration happened and we all got nukes that
it was the mutually assured destruction agreement of other have
a giant psychic squid? Those are coming to have Have
you heard the news the good news. Yeah, there's this guy.
(50:27):
He's working on a giant intergalactic squid thing. I don't know.
I don't know the details. I have no comment. Well
are you the guy? I know? Look, let's go to
a different yours. This is another thing about this story
that is still continuing. And this I don't know, this
is just my I want to be too conspiratorial. I
(50:50):
do want to know. It is a fact. Currently Afghanistan
still dominates global opium markets. Last year, according to the
UN Office on drugs and crimes, so tighten right, eight
two per cent of the world's opium supply was produced
in Afghanistan. Some of the biggest problems in the US,
(51:15):
they're drug related, come from opium. Yeah, they're not growing
a ton of it here, are they? Like you know,
the different the different UH pharmaceutical companies that are probably
gonna avoid too many serious consequences of creating the opium crisis.
Nobody's saying conspiracy here, people, We're just we're just going, hey,
(51:39):
look at this and just say we We talked about
this in a previous episode. Just how much security was
devoted to what looks like from the reporting and the
images that were sent back over the course of years
up until very recently, that we are protecting the poppy fields,
I guess from allowing anyone to use them. Right. Well,
(52:03):
it's also tough because you can see interviews with farmers
in the area who say, you know, I'm a subsistence
farmer what like. There there were different plans to uh
institute new crops for cash, but opium makes the most
money to sell and the markeup is huge. The worst
part is those farmers are not making what UH you know,
(52:27):
nobody's going to be buying a mansion doing that. What's
the same way with cocaine and in Colombia and stuff, right,
I mean largely the cartels put the burden of cultivating
it and growing it on these families who look at
it as you know, some sort of subsistence living. But
they're not sharing in the profits of the criminal enterprise. Again,
(52:47):
elephants war and grass. Right, when the elephants make war,
the grass suffers. It's there's a lot of stuff that
we missed, and we've got to emphasize, just on the
ending note, we have to emphasis as the human element,
you know what I mean. People who are soldiers are
not bad. People who are civilians in a country that
(53:10):
is being subjected to a conflict are not bad either.
This is these are all human beings who are trying
to survive. And the horrific thing is that a lot
of decisions upon which lives hinged are made by people
who will never physically travel to the places where they
see their consequences of their decisions made real. I want
(53:34):
to add to that, but I don't need to. Yeah,
I'm right there with you that that is tremendously frustrating
and quite heartbreaking actually, and we know that we have
a lot of survivors of conflicts in our audience today.
We have many military veterans in our audience today as well,
and we are fortunate because we have people who have
(53:58):
a first hand look at what the military we call
the facts on the ground. So, if you are comfortable,
you are by no means obligated, But if you are
comfortable sharing your story with us, we would love to
hear from you. Uh please just let us know if
it's something you're comfortable sharing on air, or if you
(54:19):
would just like to give an anonymous account. You can
find us on Facebook. You can find us on Instagram.
You can find us on Twitter. Were conspiracy stuff on
Twitter and Facebook. We are Conspiracy Stuff show on Instagram.
We also highly recommend our Facebook community page. Here's where
it gets crazy. But wait, as Billy Mays just want
(54:42):
to say, there's more. You can find us on as
individuals on some of those social meds. Yes, I am
Matt Frederick, underscore my heart. I think, Yeah, I thought
you'd thought you'd torched it. No I was, I was,
I was throwing people off my scent. I see your
social scent now back, I'm glad to hear it. I
(55:04):
follow you, and I was worried that I wasn't gonna
get the uh the joy of of of experiencing your
online presence anymore. Well, look at that, I haven't posted
anything in two and a half years or so. Away.
I would say that quality trump's quantity. It does. Indeed,
I try to go for that m O on my
social media account singular where you can find me at
(55:27):
how now Noel Brown exclusively on Instagram is though like
I'm sponsored by them or something. I am. I am
on those uh social media's as well. You can check
me out at Ben Bolan on Instagram uh and Twitter
at Ben Bowling hs W. But hey, you might be saying,
(55:49):
I h I hate social media. I find it abhorrent.
I loathe it and is unclean. But I have a
story to tell you. What of what am I to do? Oh? Well,
I will tell you because there's a number you can call,
and there's some other stuff. But right before we get
to that, I just want to put out here that
we are talking about the Washington Post and some amazing
(56:11):
reporting that they did. But there is a paywall there,
so if you want to go to other sources. I
just wanted to give people a few places they could
find reporting on this. UM. There is one that if
you just google that you will find from The Atlantic
that has a pretty good write up on it. But
the one, the source that I really appreciated was the
(56:32):
uh SIG I think it's Siggy online, c i g
I online, the Center for International Government's Innovation. They have
a really interesting whole series of articles about the Afghanistan Papers. Yeah. Yeah,
And I think the Guardian has done some great work too.
It also like to recommend I don't know if uh
(56:53):
if people are fans or foes of Reddit, but Reddit
has a subreddit called ask Historians, which gives some fantastic
background to some of the deeper dives of Afghan history
that we didn't get into today. Excellent UM. And and
it's not to say that you can't access the Afghanistan papers.
(57:15):
It's called the Afghanistan Papers, a Secret history of the war.
You can find it. There's one called at War with
the Truth UM that's from Craig Woodlock, and you you
can't find that in access that. I just know that
as you're going through navigating you may hit some walls there.
They're just putting that out there. Okay, so let's um,
let's jump to the idea that you can call us
(57:36):
if you wish to. You can call one eight three
three st d W I t K, leave a message,
talk to us, just what Ben said earlier. Anything you
want to tell us that you feel comfortable doing, please
do uh. And if you don't want to do any
of that stuff, you can give us a good old
fashioned email. We are conspiracy at ihart radio dot com.
(58:17):
Stuff they don't want you to know is a production
of I Heart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts
from my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Stuff They Don't Want You To Know News
Hosts And Creators
Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
Show Links
RSSStoreAboutLive ShowsPopular Podcasts
United States of Kennedy
United States of Kennedy is a podcast about our cultural fascination with the Kennedy dynasty. Every week, hosts Lyra Smith and George Civeris go into one aspect of the Kennedy story.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com