There are plenty of problems with Afghanistan. But there's one major problem with "The Afghanistan Papers," the investigative project debuted by the Washington Post earlier this week.
The Pentagon Papers, published in 1971, made many Americans question whether they could trust what they heard from their government. In 2019, there are few Americans left who believe that their government doesn't lie to them.
There's sure to be real value in the 2,000+ pages obtained by the Post, which should help make the historical record clearer. But the vast majority of Americans who had been paying attention won't find anything shocking in the reporting. Afghanistan has never been as successful as the US government has publicly argued. It doesn't take a glossy longform project to demonstrate that.
Context matters in cases like this. The Pentagon Papers were published in 1971, before the Watergate scandal and the low ebb of public trust in the government that followed. In 2019, public trust is already low enough. "The Afghanistan Papers" seemed to scarcely move the needle in a news cycle that was more focused on an impeachment trial on the same day the project was published.
There is a chance that the report will help put Afghanistan into greater context in the long term. Ryan Crocker, who served as US ambassador to Afghanistan in 2011-12, penned an op-ed in response this week. He argued against the story's premise and attempted to highlight some of the successes that have come alongside the failures discussed by the Post. That's valuable as well, and the context of Afghanistan may look different in 2029 than in 2019.
The Washington Post is proud of its reporting here, and there is value to be had. But the title and forced parallels to the Pentagon Papers just don't work. More than 18 years after 9/11, it's simply not a new idea to wonder whether the government has lied about progress in Afghanistan.
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