The Afghanistan Papers are a set of interviews relating to the war in Afghanistan undertaken by the United States military prepared by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) that was published by The Washington Post in 2019 following a Freedom of Information Act request. [1] [2] [3] The documents reveal that high-ranking officials generally held the opinion that the war was unwinnable while keeping this view hidden from the public. [1] [4] [5] [6] Due to the difficulty of creating objective metrics to demonstrate success, information was manipulated for the duration of the conflict. [7] NPR host Lulu Garcia-Navarro, comparing the documents with the Pentagon Papers, noted the revelation of what constituted "explicit and sustained efforts... to deliberately mislead the public." [4]
The initial article derived from these papers, titled "At War With the Truth," was published by The Washington Post reporter Craig Whitlock on December 9, 2019. [8] Shortly thereafter, numerous publications built on Whitlock's writing.
In one of the interviews, which were conducted through the agency's Lessons Learned Program, an official estimated that 40% of U.S. aid to Afghanistan since 2001 ended up in the pockets of corrupt officials, warlords, criminals and insurgents. [9] Ryan Crocker, former ambassador to Afghanistan and Iraq, told the investigators in a 2016 interview, "You just cannot put those amounts of money into a very fragile state and society, and not have it fuel corruption." [10]
Due to the nature of the content within the Afghanistan Papers, numerous public officials commented on their content in the days following Whitlock's initial article. The following is a sampling of select politicians:
Senator Rand Paul (R–KY): "I think our young men and women that we send to war, our best and our brightest, they deserve better. They deserve an open airing of what is the mission. I've been saying for several years now that I can't meet a general anywhere who can tell me really what is the mission we're trying to accomplish in Afghanistan." [11]
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D–NY): "We all read today, the striking reporting by The Washington Post, suggesting that administration officials, potentially including military officials, have misled the American public about the war in Afghanistan. I am writing to request hearings to address these deeply concerning revelations about the Afghan war.” [12]
Representative Tulsi Gabbard (D–HI) said she had introduced legislation for a Congressional inquiry into "the lying and wasting of taxpayer dollars" and lives of US service members. She accused the military–industrial complex, contractors and consultancy companies of profiting from "a scam that ripped the US taxpayers off over a trillion dollars since 9/11 in Afghanistan alone." Gabbard reiterated her request to bring US troops home from Afghanistan. [13] [14]
Former Vice President (and later President) Joe Biden distanced himself from Barack Obama's Afghan war policy, saying: "I’m the guy from the beginning who argued that it was a big, big mistake to surge forces to Afghanistan." [15]
The papers were brought back into discussion after the 2021 Summer Offensive of the Taliban and the fall of Kabul. Debates around the efficiency of U.S. state-building efforts were brought into question, with contrast in what the U.S. forces originally revealed and thought versus what actually occurred. U.S. officials and leaders such as President Joe Biden were heavily criticised for their actions during the withdraw and the public narrative that was being told throughout August and September 2021.
Excerpts from the papers were later edited into a narrative framework by Craig Whitlock in a book called The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War, by Simon & Schuster. [16]
Daniel Ellsberg was an American political activist, economist, and United States military analyst. While employed by the RAND Corporation, he precipitated a national political controversy in 1971 when he released the Pentagon Papers, a top-secret Pentagon study of U.S. government decision-making in relation to the Vietnam War, to The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other newspapers.
The Pentagon Papers, officially titled The History of U.S. Decision-Making in Vietnam, 1945–1968, is a United States Department of Defense history of the United States' political and military involvement in Vietnam from 1945 to 1968. Released by Daniel Ellsberg, who had worked on the study, they were first brought to the attention of the public on the front page of The New York Times in 1971. A 1996 article in The New York Times said that the Pentagon Papers had demonstrated, among other things, that Lyndon B. Johnson's administration had "systematically lied, not only to the public but also to Congress."
The National Security Archive is a 501(c)(3) non-governmental, non-profit research and archival institution located on the campus of the George Washington University in Washington, D.C. Founded in 1985 to check rising government secrecy. The National Security Archive is an investigative journalism center, open government advocate, international affairs research institute, and the largest repository of declassified U.S. documents outside the federal government. The National Security Archive has spurred the declassification of more than 15 million pages of government documents by being the leading non-profit user of the U.S. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), filing a total of more than 70,000 FOIA and declassification requests in its over 35+ years of history.
Craig Michael Whitlock is an American journalist working for The Washington Post, where he is responsible for covering the Pentagon and national security.
Tulsi Gabbard is an American politician, United States Army Reserve officer and conservative political commentator who was the U.S. representative for Hawaii's 2nd congressional district from 2013 to 2021. Gabbard was the first Hindu member of Congress and also the first Samoan-American voting member of Congress. She was a candidate for the Democratic nomination in the 2020 United States presidential election, before announcing in October 2022 that she had left the Democratic Party and became an independent.
The Afghan War documents leak, also called the Afghan War Diary, is the disclosure of a collection of internal U.S. military logs of the War in Afghanistan, which were published by WikiLeaks on 25 July 2010. The logs consist of over 91,000 Afghan War documents, covering the period between January 2004 and December 2009. Most of the documents are classified secret. As of 28 July 2010, only 75,000 of the documents have been released to the public, a move which WikiLeaks says is "part of a harm minimization process demanded by [the] source". Prior to releasing the initial 75,000 documents, WikiLeaks made the logs available to The Guardian, The New York Times and Der Spiegel in its German and English online edition, which published reports in line with an agreement made earlier the same day, 25 July 2010.
The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) is the U.S. government's leading oversight authority on Afghanistan reconstruction. Congress created the Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction to provide independent and objective oversight of the Afghanistan Reconstruction funds. Under the authority of Section 1229 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008, SIGAR conducts audit, inspections, and investigations to promote efficiency and effectiveness of reconstruction programs, and to detect and prevent waste, fraud, and abuse of taxpayer dollars. SIGAR also has a hotline that allows individuals to report suspected fraud.
The 2012 United States House of Representatives elections in Hawaii were held on Tuesday, November 6, 2012 to elect the two U.S. representatives from the state, one from each of the state's two congressional districts. The elections coincided with the elections of other federal and state offices, including a quadrennial presidential election and an election for the United States Senate. Primary elections were held on August 11, 2012.
The 2020 presidential campaign of Tulsi Gabbard, the U.S. representative for Hawaii's 2nd congressional district, began on January 11, 2019. In January 2020, she was polling at about 1 to 2 percent. Had she won, she would have become the first female, Hindu, and Samoan president in American history, and the youngest person to ever hold the office. She made reducing military activity abroad a central message of her campaign.
This page describes the stances held by Democratic candidates in the 2020 United States presidential election on a variety of policy issues. Only candidates still in the race during the 2020 Iowa caucuses are included.
During Tulsi Gabbard's tenure as a congresswoman and presidential candidate, she placed much emphasis on her foreign policy views and regarded them as inseparable from her domestic policy views. She criticizes what she terms the "neoliberal/neoconservative war machine", which pushes for US involvement in "wasteful foreign wars". She has said that the money spent on war should be redirected to serve health care, infrastructure, and other domestic priorities. Nevertheless, she describes herself as both a hawk and a dove: "When it comes to the war against terrorists, I'm a hawk", but "when it comes to counterproductive wars of regime change, I'm a dove".
This is a list of endorsements for declared candidates in the Democratic primaries for the 2020 United States presidential election.
The 2020 California Democratic presidential primary took place on March 3, 2020, as one of 15 contests scheduled on Super Tuesday in the Democratic Party primaries for the 2020 presidential election, following the South Carolina primary the weekend before. The California primary formed an unusual part of Super Tuesday as it had historically departed from its typical June date. It was a semi-closed primary, with the state awarding 494 delegates towards the 2020 Democratic National Convention, of which 415 were pledged delegates allocated on the basis of the results of the primary.
The 2020 Alabama Democratic presidential primary took place on March 3, 2020, as one of 15 contests scheduled on Super Tuesday in the Democratic Party primaries for the 2020 presidential election. The open primary allocated 52 pledged delegates towards the 2020 Democratic National Convention, distributed in proportion to the results of the primary, statewide and within each congressional district. The state was also given an additional 8 unpledged delegates (superdelegates), whose votes at the convention were not bound to the result of the primary.
The 2020 Massachusetts Democratic presidential primary took place on March 3, as one of 15 contests scheduled on Super Tuesday in the Democratic Party primaries for the 2020 presidential election, following the South Carolina primary the weekend before. The Massachusetts primary was a semi-closed primary, with the state awarding 114 delegates towards the 2020 Democratic National Convention, of which 91 were pledged delegates allocated on the basis of the results of the primary.
The 2020 Michigan Democratic presidential primary took place on March 10, 2020, as one of several states voting the week after Super Tuesday in the Democratic Party primaries for the 2020 presidential election. The Michigan primary was an open primary, with the state awarding 147 delegates towards the 2020 Democratic National Convention, of which 125 were pledged delegates allocated on the basis of the results of the primary.
The 2020 Florida Democratic presidential primary took place on March 17, 2020, the third primary Tuesday of the month, as one of three states voting on the same day in the Democratic Party primaries for the 2020 presidential election, while the contest in Ohio had been postponed for roughly a month. The Florida primary was a closed primary, with the state awarding the fourth-largest amount of delegates towards the 2020 Democratic National Convention and the third-largest amount up to that point: 249 delegates, of which 219 were pledged delegates allocated on the basis of the results of the primary.
The 2020 Wisconsin Democratic presidential primary took place on April 7, 2020, in the midst of the global COVID-19 pandemic, along with the Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice election, as part of the Democratic Party primaries for the 2020 presidential election. The Wisconsin primary was an open primary, with the state awarding 97 delegates to the 2020 Democratic National Convention, of which 84 were pledged delegates allocated on the basis of the results of the primary. Although all forms of voting had to take place on or until April 7, full results were not allowed to be released before April 13, in accordance with a district court ruling.
The 2020 Pennsylvania Democratic presidential primary took place on June 2, 2020, after being postponed due to concerns about the COVID-19 pandemic, as one of eight delayed and regular primaries on the same day in the Democratic primaries for the 2020 presidential election. It was originally planned to take place on April 28, 2020, as one of several northeastern states in the "Acela primary". The Pennsylvania primary was a closed primary, with the state awarding 210 delegates, of whom 186 were pledged delegates allocated on the basis of the primary results.
In March 2022, during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russian officials falsely claimed that public health facilities in Ukraine were "secret U.S.-funded biolabs" purportedly developing biological weapons, which was debunked as disinformation by multiple media outlets, scientific groups, and international bodies. The claim was amplified by China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Chinese state media, and was also promoted by followers of the QAnon conspiracy theory and subsequently supported by other far-right groups in the United States.
