The Afghanistan Papers is a book written by Craig Whitelock who is an investigative reporter for ‘The Washington Post’. He has covered global war on terrorism from 2001 as a Pentagon reporter and won George Polk award for Military reporting for the coverage of Afghanistan war.
This book is all about the failure of US and how they misguided Americans about this failure and how that led to worse failures and so on for 20 years. On September 11,2001 American airlines exploded into World Trade center and killed 2977 people , and Al Qaida took the responsibility of it. US invasion in Afghanistan had straightforward goals which were to defeat Al Qaida and prevent the repeat of 9/11. Bush's government sent troops with heavy weapons and tried to remove Al Qaida and Taliban.They tried to create a democratic government in Afghanistan and Hamid Karzai, a Pashtun tribal leader was chosen as an interim leader By 2002, Al Qaida followers remained in Afghanistan. Hundreds had been killed and captured,while the rest fled to Pakistan,Iran and other countries. The other threat to US was Taliban which were large in number and were mostly tribals. The longest war might have been shortest if the US been willing to talk to Taliban in December 2001. After that, Bush told that they would never do nation building in Afghanistan and so as his successor said which was a biggest falsehood to Americans. Between 2001 to 2020, US spend $143 billion dollars on nation building for reconstruction,aid programs and afghan security forces. Afghanistan issue became afterthought when US invaded into Iraq in 2003. They deployed 120,000 US troops in Iraq. They did a great distraction in Iraq and the process went slowed down in Afghanistan.
A military training center was established in Kabul in 2003.United States now doing it's best efforts for the rebuilding of Afghanistan infrastructure main concerns were roads on which US army was roaming and facing problems.U.S main focus was to raise an army of Afghanistan to defend the country in interior issues and against Al Qaida. They recruited there best soldiers to train the tribal people who doesn't even know how to write and read and were deprived from basic education.They also spend millions of dollars to train 352,000 security forces in which 227,000 enlisted in army and 125,000 belonging to police. All of the Afghans were Muslims but that did not necessarily mean they were deeply devout. Taliban and Al Qaida were taking refugee in the areas which were close to Pak Afghan border. General Musharraf was playing both sides with Washington, on one side he permitted US troops to use Pakistan seaports and airspace to reach Afghanistan and in return getting a huge money as reward, But on the other hand giving refugee to Al Qaida means he is helping them attacking on US troops just as Pakistan helped Afghanistan against Soviet war.
Taliban strongly came back in 2006 when number of suicide attacks increased fivefold and US troops were loosing there grip in Afghanistan but Bush administration was applauding there improvements such as establishment of democracy, free press and schools for girls and making there public fool. There was an incoherent war strategy between US troops which were mainly focused on Iraq issue and there attention was a little less fighting against Taliban and on the other hand, NATO allies working in Afghanistan were even not making progress with their strategies. Then the US made relations with many warlords which have enormous armies behind them and were ruthless, corrupt and fearless such as Abdul Rashid Dostum, Ahmad Wali Karzai, Gull Agha Sherazi and Sher Muhammad Akhundaza Dubbed SMA.US funded many millions to these warlords to keep Taliban away from Afghanistan and also welcomed these People's into the government. Mullah Muhammad Omar imposed strong sanctions on opium production and opium was rare in Afghanistan in Taliban era. But when Taliban were overthrown by US, opium started grown enormously and were powering Afghanistan's entire economic output and supplying the 80 to 90 percent of the world's opium. Then it became a biggest problem for US to eradicate opium crops and tried many ways to do so, but failed. The only way to eradicate opium was the rule of Taliban but that was not possible at that time and opium continued to supply all over the world.
After the complete failure of Bush's government in Afghanistan and with the start of Obama's government, his main strategy was to strengthen afghan government and economy. Billions of dollars spended on the projects which the Afghan people even don't know how to use and what they were. Much of the money wasted in Obama's administration on such projects even the project of washing hands, knowing that Afghan people wash hands five times a day for prayers.Main goal of doing so was to win the hearts of afghan people's. So it was becoming a nation building task for US instead of Taliban's removal. When Karzai was elected as President for the second time courtesy of the fraudulent reelections in 2009, he changed his strategy towards Americans.Taliban mocked him as an American stooge and he was also aware of the brutalities like night raids on civilian houses and civilian casualties by US and NATO troops.So he changed his tone and threatened US that he will join with Taliban if they didn't stop pressuring on him. By the time in 2010, the biggest threat arose was corruption. US tolerated corrupt mafia because they were the allies of them. 2.78 billion dollars money laundering exposed from New Ansari Money exchange in 2010. Kabul bank whose owner was a poker player and gambler Sherkhan Farnood looted millions of dollars of afghans people from the bank and deprived off the people from their livelihood.
Ashraf Ghani successor of Karzai from an investigation found that $633 million loans still hadn't been repaid. On the morning May 1,2011_ Leon Panetta CIA director after the approval from President Musharraf kicked off an operation to kill Osama bin Laden who was residing in Abbottabad. He sent two dozens operation forces and they found tha target and killed him and 'mission accomplished'. After that the Obama's government was making false statements about the progress that the policies in Afghanistan are really working or not instead of the mission to eliminate Al Qaida. They were depleting the money and were making no progress to make strong Afghanistan forces and fulfilling other policies instead they were killing civilians which calculated 3701 from 2009 to 2014 which was very discouraging sign. In return the Afghan police was there hidden enemy during the 2012 when they murdered many troops. They were trained to protect the country and maintain law and order but they came against the US troops and created problems. After that the grand illusion was that US was trying it's best to strengthen the Afghanistan security forces but on the other hand Taliban emerged strongly and captured the Kunduz city and proved threat. Al Qaida members also seen after five years. In 2017, Obama left the office and Trump became the president of America. But in his times there was a total stalemate in Afghanistan. No progress appeared after many efforts like sending more troops to Afghanistan. Taliban were becoming strong. Trump dropped the biggest bomb used in war in Nangahar province but he can't back footed the Taliban.
When they realized that it is difficult to deal with Taliban, they started willingness of Taliban to engage in peace talks. But Taliban's increasingly confidence in there position,showed less interest. Afghanistan has became a narcotic state in which 80% of there economy was supported by the opium and heroin. US did there best to eradicate opium fields but wasted there own money in doing so as they bombed on fields with spray which burn the opium fields but this was costly for them and only eradicated 2% of opium. In Trump's administration opium has thrived instead of decreasing and supported Taliban with money. US officials came to know that the only way to settle the issue is to make healthy relations between Afghanistan government and Taliban. Taliban showed less interest unless the terms suited them. For building relations with Taliban, Ashraf Ghani in 2018 showed willingness to declare Taliban as political party. Afghan-American diplomat Zalmay Khalilzad tried his best to tie relationships between government and Taliban but failed. Taliban promised to begin direct relationships with Ghani regime and gave assurance that they will never launch attacks on US if Trump withdraw his troops and release 5000 Taliban prisoners and it was approved. After Trump, Biden became president in January 2021 and he also assured that on 20th anniversary of 9/11 he will withdraw all his troops. He did not declared it victory instead he said they've achieved there main objective which was to destroy Al Qaida. But overall it was a complete failure of three governments of US and wastage of Billions of dollars and also 20 years struggle and the lives of American troops. Afghanistan mission proved nightmare for America.