How the U.S. Sold Its Longest War with a Bodyguard of Lies

Lasting 20 years, the war in Afghanistan was not only the longest conflict in American history—it was a near total failure.

Today's guest is Dan Krauss, whose documentary Bodyguard of Lies is an unflinching look at the Afghan war and the lessons the public desperately needs to learn from it. Krauss shows how officials such as former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld admitted they weren't going to be honest with the American people. He reminds us that within six months of the 9/11 attacks, the United States had essentially destroyed Al Qaeda's capacity to attack us—but instead of leaving, Washington chose two more decades of occupation, nation-building, strategic confusion, and widespread corruption. And he tells how Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama kept doubling down, how trillions of dollars and thousands of lives were wasted, and how a compliant press and Congress let it all happen.

https://reason.com/podcast/2025/09/24/gillespie-krauss/
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0:00—Introduction
1:14—Donald Rumsfeld and the "bodyguard of lies"
4:59—The Afghanistan War in 2002
7:35—The shifting objectives of the war
18:20—Government corruption in Afghanistan
21:08—Vietnam parallels
29:57—Obama and the Afghanistan War
33:42—The military-industrial complex and tracking the money
36:53—Gen. David McKiernan
43:47—What lessons have Americans learned?
50:30—Did the Afghanistan War make us safer?
1:01:28—What is the message of Bodyguard of Lies?

Producer: Paul Alexander
Audio Mixer: Ian Keyser