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53 pages 1 hour read

Craig Whitlock

The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2021

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Index of Terms

Al Qaeda

Content Warning: This section contains accounts of terrorism and war-related violence, including torture and the killing of civilians.

Meaning “the base” or “the foundation,” Al Qaeda was founded in 1988 by Osama bin Laden, the scion of a wealthy Saudi family, and other Arabs who had traveled to Afghanistan to repel Soviet invaders. After the Soviets withdrew, the group pledged to carry on the struggle in their own home countries, seeking to overthrow rulers they considered oppressive and insufficiently Islamic. Their focus eventually shifted to the United States, which they saw as the ultimate supporter of those regimes, and began launching terrorist attacks to compel the United States to leave the Persian Gulf. After orchestrating the 9/11 attacks, Al Qaeda lost its Afghan sanctuary but continued to direct or encourage terrorist attacks around the world. The killing of bin Laden by US special forces in 2011 began a significant decline in their capabilities, although they still lend their name to many insurgent movements in the Islamic world.

Counterinsurgency (COIN)

This refers to a military strategy whereby an occupying force seeks to establish civil order and put down resistance among the local population. In Afghanistan (as well as in Iraq), this entailed building up local infrastructure, including police and public services, that could win the support of the population and turn them against the insurgents so that US forces could leave without the country relapsing into instability. Shorted to COIN in military jargon, the strategy encountered a number of problems in Afghanistan, including an overly ambitious set of goals with a limited timeframe, an inability to solve the problem of Pakistan, and difficulty in clearly separating the enemy from the civilian population.

Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI)

ISI is Pakistan’s spy service that exercises such considerable power, often independently of civilian oversight, that it is widely considered a state within the state. During the Afghanistan war, the ISI helped the US fight Al Qaeda, which had sponsored assassination attempts against Pakistan’s president Pervez Musharraf. At the same time, however, ISI regarded the Taliban as a strategic asset, especially given the friendly ties between the Karzai government and India, Pakistan’s archnemesis. Consequently, even as Pakistan was formally allied with the US effort and provided crucial logistical support, ISI was also running weapons and money to the Taliban and providing them sanctuary within Afghan territory. This strategy would backfire terribly when a Pakistani faction of the Taliban emerged and carried out horrific terrorist attacks in Pakistani cities.

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)

Originally formed in 1949 as an alliance against the Soviet Union, NATO has endured past its Cold War origins and remains one of the principal facets of US military policy. Since the 1990s, NATO has moved past its original purpose of defending Europe from invasion to engage in humanitarian interventions and other low-intensity conflicts, often working in conjunction with the United Nations Security Council. Article V of the NATO charter pledges that all members must come to the defense of any member that has been attacked, and that provision was invoked by the United States after the September 11 attacks. NATO thus had a major role in the war in Afghanistan, ranging from combat operations to counternarcotics to building up police and other governing institutions. NATO was in the news following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, coordinating much of the aid to Ukrainian forces and adding Finland as a new member in 2023 (with Sweden highly likely to join in 2024).

Taliban

Meaning “the students,” the Taliban is a militant organization that seeks to impose an extremely harsh interpretation of Islamic governance on Afghanistan. It first emerged in the early 1990s, when Afghanistan was in the midst of a devastating civil war. Drawing many of its fighters from Pakistani schools, its strict rule was welcomed by many who chafed under the chaotic reign of feuding warlords. They took over most of the country by 1994 and fatefully provided sanctuary to Osama bin Laden when he returned to Afghanistan in 1996. After the September 11 attacks, US forces toppled the Taliban, but with considerable local support and a safe haven in Pakistan, it was eventually able to reconstitute itself against NATO forces and the new Afghan government. The Trump administration ultimately negotiated a deal for the US to withdraw with the promise that the Taliban would not shelter international terrorists. President Biden implemented this deal, and shortly after the last US forces left in August 2021, the Taliban promptly recaptured most of the country.

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