—Why the U.S. failed so spectacularly in Afghanistan, and why the government lied about it over and over—
The Non-fiction Feature
The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War
Author: Craig Whitlock
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Pages: 382 | 2022
Obama administration officials touted statistics that distorted what was really happening on the ground. The Bush administration had done the same, but Obama staffers in the White House, the Pentagon and the State Department took it to a new level, hyping figures that were misleading, spurious or downright false.
The Memoir Spot
The Strangest of Places
by Gerald Carozza
“General Petraeus has said more than once that in a counterinsurgency, money is ammunition. Like a World War I artillery barrage that laid so many shells into the European countryside that unexploded munitions still surface every spring to this day, the U.S. has bombarded Afghanistan with ammunition of money. And just as with traditional ammunition, there is collateral damage.”
The Product Spot
Clarissa Ward – NPR interview
Clarissa Ward, CNN’s chief international correspondent, was one of the first Western journalists to report on life under the Taliban in Afghanistan, and was present during the evacuation. In an NPR interview, she explains her experiences reporting, and how drastically things will change for the women of Afghanistan.