The Afghanistan Papers: Journalist Craig Whitlock

This week, Washington Post investigative reporter Craig Whitlock joins Major to discuss the situation in Afghanistan and Whitlock's reporting on the Afghanistan Papers, a collection of more than 2,000 pages of documents and interviews with U.S. officials on the truth behind the U.S. presence in the country. The main takeaway from the Afghanistan Papers, Whitlock said, was that government officials from the Bush, Obama and Trump administrations publicly said that U.S. military forces "were making progress, that victory was around the corner,” in the fight against the Taliban, but that those same officials, “were very pessimistic about where things were going”. Whitlock added that the U.S. position now is to seek permission from the Taliban for Americans and other Afghans to safely leave the country they now control. He said the risks of hostage taking or the shoot-down of a departing American-led evacuation flight are real. This episode was recorded on August 19th, 2021.