The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War

In August 2017, Donald Trump seemed more willing than his predecessors to acknowledge public fatigue with the war in Afghanistan and was more forthright in calling out Pakistan’s role in sheltering the Taliban while nonetheless promising to win the war. Despite having called an end to the war as a presidential candidate, Trump decided that lack of progress was due mainly to incompetence and lack of will among the generals, whom he called “a bunch of dopes and babies” (243). The generals accordingly crafted their pitch for more time, resources, and troops as an alternative approach to Obama and his timetable. The Trump administration would also bury the war in layers of secrecy so that the public would not know what was going on and therefore not hold the administration accountable for any setbacks. As long as the generals gave Trump credit for any successes, he would keep the war going regardless of actual conditions on the ground. Airstrikes doubled in 2017 from the previous year, which also doubled the number of average civilian casualties (246), but Trump was undeterred by the publicity that came from dropping large bombs on seemingly hapless targets.

In 2017, the US also started concealing the number of casualties suffered by Afghan security forces and how much territory the government controlled relative to the Taliban.