Afghanistan Wasn't A Mistake; It Was Lies All The Way Down

By Katrina vanden Heuvel, The Nation

They lied. They lied repeatedly, year after year, about America’s longest war—the Afghanistan fiasco now in its 19th year. They—presidents, department heads, generals, civilians, and uniformed military up and down the line—misled the American people, reporting “progress” in a misguided war that they knew was not being won. “At war with the truth” is the stark and inescapable conclusion of the Afghanistan Papers, dubbed this generation’s Pentagon Papers, a trove of documents brought to light by the extraordinary efforts of The Washington Post.