London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Tuesday, Sep 09, 2025

Why the Washington Post's Afghanistan investigation is such a big deal

Why the Washington Post's Afghanistan investigation is such a big deal

The Washington Post's publication of US government papers about the 18-year-long Afghan war is being compared to the Vietnam-era Pentagon Papers. And the man responsible for leaking the Pentagon Papers, Daniel Ellsberg, agrees with the analogy.

In both wars, "The presidents and the generals had a pretty realistic view of what they were up against, which they did not want to admit to the American people." Ellsberg said in a phone interview Monday, hours after the Post's Afghan war investigation was published.

Ellsberg had worked on the secret RAND study of the Vietnam War and came to the conclusion that the public needed to see it. He leaked the papers, first to the New York Times and then to the Washington Post, in 1971.

He plans to read all of the raw material that the Post has published online.

"A couple thousand pages? I'll read them all, even though it means reliving the terrible experience of Vietnam," he said.

Ellsberg, an anti-war activist, has been outspoken about his opposition to the war in Afghanistan. He said the Washington Post's report affirms his warnings that the war was similar to Vietnam.

"Eighteen years ago, I was saying, when we got into Afghanistan, that Afghanistan is Vietnam," Ellsberg said. "In fact, I said that when the Russians went in more than twenty years earlier - that it was going to be their Vietnam."


How the stories were written

There are even some similarities between the lead paragraphs of the stories about Vietnam and Afghanistan.

On June 13, 1971, the Times began its first story about the Pentagon Papers like this:

"A massive study of how the United States went to war in Indochina, conducted by the Pentagon three years ago, demonstrates that four administrations progressively developed a sense of commitment to a non-Communist Vietnam, a readiness to fight the North to protect the South, and an ultimate frustration with this effort - to a much greater extent than their public statements acknowledged at the time."

And this is the lead of the Post's main story about the Afghanistan Papers Monday:

"A confidential trove of government documents obtained by The Washington Post reveals that senior US officials failed to tell the truth about the war in Afghanistan throughout the 18-year campaign, making rosy pronouncements they knew to be false and hiding unmistakable evidence the war had become unwinnable."


A three-year investigation

Monday morning's release of the Afghanistan Papers was more than three years in the making. Through Freedom of Information Act requests and lawsuits in federal court, the paper obtained notes, transcripts and audio recordings of government officials being interviewed by the Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, or SIGAR.
The inspector general's reports were written in "dense bureaucratic prose" and leave out the interviews' most biting criticisms, reporter Craig Whitlock explained in his story. So obtaining the interview records and some other materials, including confidential memos from Defense Department leadership, was a real public service.

"The American people have constantly been lied to" about the Afghan war, SIGAR chief John Sopko told Whitlock in an interview.


The investigation continues

The Post is working to obtain additional documents.

"The war in Afghanistan has gone on for 18 years at an enormous cost in lives, injuries and money, and the public is entitled to know whether officials were straight with them about the war effort," Post editor Marty Baron said in an email. "Through three years of persistence by Craig Whitlock and our lawyers, the public now knows that truth was a casualty of the war from the very beginning."

Baron noted dozens of newsroom staffers worked on the project.

"We're immensely proud of what they accomplished in presenting the truth to the public," he added. "We will continue our legal fight to obtain information that is still being withheld by the government."

Ellsberg said he is glad that so many officials involved in the Afghan war spoke frankly to SIGAR, but asserted they should have been just as forthright in public.


"Ask yourself, would it have made a difference if we had those statements ten years ago? Five years ago?"

Ellsberg expressed his regret about not speaking out sooner during Vietnam. And he said he hopes the Post investigation will "factor into people saying, we really don't have a right to be killing more Afghans from the air, from the ground."

"Let Trump get out of Afghanistan, which he seems to want to do," Ellsberg said. "Let him take the responsibility for that. Better yet, let Congress take the responsibility."

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
France Faces New Political Crisis, again, as Prime Minister Bayrou Pushed Out
Murdoch Family Finalises $3.3 Billion Succession Pact, Ensuring Eldest Son’s Leadership
Big Oil Slashes Jobs and Investments Amid Prolonged Low Crude Prices
Court Staff Cover Up Banksy Image of Judge Beating a Protester
Social Media Access Curtailed in Turkey After CHP Calls for Rallies Following Police Blockade of Istanbul Headquarters
Nayib Bukele Points Out Belgian Hypocrisy as Brussels Considers Sending Army into the Streets
Elon Musk Poised to Become First Trillionaire Under Ambitious Tesla Pay Plan
France, at an Impasse, Heads Toward Another Government Collapse
Burning the Minister’s House Helped Protesters to Win Justice: Prabowo Fires Finance Minister in Wake of Indonesia Protests
Brazil Braces for Fallout from Bolsonaro Trial by corrupted judge
The Country That Got Too Rich? Public Spending Dominates Norway Election
Nearly 40 Years Later: Nike Changes the Legendary Slogan Just Do It
Generations Born After 1939 Unlikely to Reach Age One Hundred, New Study Finds
End to a four-year manhunt in New Zealand: the father who abducted his children to the forests was killed, the three siblings were found
Germany Suspends Debt Rules, Funnels €500 Billion Toward Military and Proxy War Strategy
EU Prepares for War
BMW Eyes Growth in China with New All‑Electric Neue Klasse Lineup
Trump Threatens Retaliatory Tariffs After EU Imposes €2.95 Billion Fine on Google
Tesla Board Proposes Unprecedented One-Trillion-Dollar Performance Package for Elon Musk
US Justice Department Launches Criminal Mortgage-Fraud Probe into Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook
Escalating Drug Trafficking and Violence in Latin America: A Growing Crisis
US and Taiwanese Defence Officials Held Secret Talks in Alaska
Report: Secret SEAL Team 6 Mission in North Korea Ordered by Trump in 2019 Ended in Failure
Gold Could Reach Nearly $5,000 if Fed Independence Is Undermined, Goldman Sachs Warns
Uruguay, Colombia and Paraguay Secure Places at 2026 World Cup
Florida Murder Case: The Adelson Family, the Killing of Dan Markel, and the Trial of Donna Adelson
Trump Administration Advances Plans to Rebrand Pentagon as Department of War Instead of the Fake Term Department of Defense
Big Tech Executives Laud Trump at White House Dinner, Unveil Massive U.S. Investments
Tether Expands into Gold Sector with Profit-Driven Diversification
‘Looks Like a Wig’: Online Users Express Concern Over Kate Middleton
Brand-New $1 Million Yacht Sinks Just Fifteen Minutes After Maiden Launch in Turkey
Here’s What the FBI Seized in John Bolton Raid — and the Legal Risks He Faces
Florida’s Vaccine Revolution: DeSantis Declares War on Mandates
Trump’s New War – and the ‘Drug Tyrant’ Fearing Invasion: ‘1,200 Missiles Aimed at Us’
"The Situation Has Never Been This Bad": The Fall of PepsiCo
At the Parade in China: Laser Weapons, 'Eagle Strike,' and a Missile Capable of 'Striking Anywhere in the World'
The Fashion Designer Who Became an Italian Symbol: Giorgio Armani Has Died at 91
Putin Celebrates ‘Unprecedentedly High’ Ties with China as Gazprom Seals Power of Siberia-2 Deal
China Unveils New Weapons in Grand Military Parade as Xi Hosts Putin and Kim
Queen Camilla’s Teenage Courage: Fended Off Attempted Assault on London Train, New Biography Reveals
Scottish Brothers Set Record in Historic Pacific Row
Rapper Cardi B Cleared of Liability in Los Angeles Civil Assault Trial
Google Avoids Break-Up in U.S. Antitrust Case as Stocks Rise
Couple celebrates 80th wedding anniversary at assisted living facility in Lancaster
Information Warfare in the Age of AI: How Language Models Become Targets and Tools
The White House on LinkedIn Has Changed Their Profile Picture to Donald Trump
"Insulted the Prophet Muhammad": Woman Burned Alive by Angry Mob in Niger State, Nigeria
Trump Responds to Death Rumors – Announces 'Missile City'
Court of Appeal Allows Asylum Seekers to Remain at Essex Hotel Amid Local Tax Boycott Threats
Germany in Turmoil: Ukrainian Teenage Girl Pushed to Death by Illegal Iraqi Migrant
×