CLASSIC: The Afghanistan Papers

Stuff They Don't Want You To Know

iHeartPodcasts

Society & Culture

4.3 • 10.7K Ratings

🗓️ 15 April 2025

⏱️ 68 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The United States invaded Afghanistan on October 7th, 2001 and remains embroiled in the conflict almost two decades later, making this the longest war in US history. Leaders from both of the dominant political parties continually argued that this was a winnable war, proposing new strategies, more troops, and more surges. Yet documents obtained by The Washington Post show that the long-running internal conversations painted a different -- and vastly more disturbing -- picture. Tune in to learn more about the Afghanistan Papers in tonight's Classic episode.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to this evening's classic episode. Guys, do you remember Afghanistan?
0:04.9	Oh, yeah. How could I forget? It was a golden time in Afghanistan that we all spent together.
0:09.4	The breaker of empires. The U.S. invaded Afghanistan on October 7th, 2001. And back in 2020, weirdly enough, on New Year's Day, we started looking into this, into this excellent work by the Washington Post.
0:28.3	Oh, yeah, back in 2019, Craig Whitlock of the Washington Post published at war with the truth.
0:36.7	And the world said, uh, what?
0:42.0	That was a really good impression of the world, Matt.
0:44.5	Yeah.
0:45.5	Well, what do you say we jump right into this classic episode?
0:49.2	How could a beautiful young first grade teacher be stabbed 20 times, including in the bat,
0:57.0	allegedly die of suicide? Yes, that was the medical examiner's official ruling. After a
1:04.1	closed-door meeting, he first named it a homicide. Why? What happened to Ellen Greenberg? A huge American miscarriage of justice. For an in-depth, look at the facts. See what happened to Ellen on Amazon. All proceeds to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
1:31.4	The number one hit True Crime podcast, The Girlfriends, is back with something new,
1:37.2	The Girlfriend's Spotlight.
1:39.4	Our first two series introduced you to an incredible gang of women who teamed up to fight injustice,
1:46.4	showing just how powerful sisterly solidarity can be.
1:49.9	We're keeping this mission alive with the girlfriend's spotlight.
1:53.7	Each week, a different woman sits down with me, Anna Sinfield, to share their incredible story of triumph over adversity.
2:01.8	Like Luann, who was raised in a secretive religious community.
2:05.5	Do I want my freedom or do I want my family?
2:08.5	And found a way to escape.
2:10.2	When she said, you know you can leave, right?
2:12.9	It was a light bulb.
	...

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