The new Paramount+ documentary "Bodyguard of Lies" highlights the efforts across four presidential administrations to conceal the challenges the U.S. faced during the Afghanistan

Washington

A new documentary titled 'Bodyguard of Lies,' available on Paramount Plus, investigates the US government's handling of the Afghanistan War. The film presents evidence from confidential documents, insider interviews, and previously unseen footage, showing that officials from both major parties consistently portrayed the war effort as more successful than it was.

John Sopko, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, appears in the documentary and states that the American public was misled for years about the war's progress. The documentary suggests that a culture of promoting positive narratives, driven by career incentives and systemic issues, contributed to ongoing misrepresentation. The film also addresses the lasting impact on both American veterans and Afghan collaborators.

New documentary uncovers gov. deception during Afghanistan War

Welcome back. A new documentary on Paramount Plus highlights efforts running through four different presidential administrations, Republican, Democrat, to hide the difficulties and failures the U.S. faced and dealt with, or didn't deal with, in the war in Afghanistan. Bodyguard of Lies, brought to you by See It Now Studios, relies on confidential documents, testimony from insiders, and never-before-seen footage. Let's take a look. How do you prove that someone's not telling the truth? How's it feel being out here in Afghanistan? Everybody says in public we're winning the war, but over there it's clear we're not winning. At the low level, it's all bad news. By the time it comes out in the top, at the Pentagon or the White House, it's all rosy. We're making good progress. We are seeing significant progress. Okay, everybody smile. It's not that you're lying, but you're gonna paint a pretty good picture on the pig. We are not losing it. Are you saying that you are winning? Everything changed with a tip about an interview that the government didn't want getting out. If we're doing such a great job, why does it feel like we're losing? We found out there were hundreds of other interviews like this. Six months into the war, Donald Rumsfeld saying, Help, how do we get out of here? We're never gonna get out. The narrative was completely at odds with what the public was reporting. So many people said we're losing. I wish some of them had said it. Publicly, the sense of progress among those closest to the fight is palpable. Our strategy is working. The only thing that's classified in this town is bad news. There's an odor of mendacity throughout the Afghanistan issue. John Sopko, appointed by President Obama in 2012 to serve as the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, joins me now. John, it's a pleasure to have you. The ravages of time have made this segment with you and me tighter than I would have preferred. So I'm going to promise you and the audience I'm going to have you back, because this is a deeply important conversation. But in the three minutes or so we have, much less than I would have preferred originally, walk my audience through the essence of this story. Well, it's a pleasure to be here, and I hope we get a chance to talk more about it. The essence of this story is basically, the American people were misled over the last 10, 12 years, 20 years. I was there for 12 years working on this. Everybody came in and said, we're turning the corner. We're winning. And it turned out, if you'd actually been out there, you talked to the people, if you had read any of the 700 reports that my office created, you would realize we were losing, we were losing bad. And it wasn't just the agreement with the Taliban that the Trump administration first did, or Biden's withdrawal. We were going downhill years ago, and everybody knew it. Why, when everyone knew it, did they continue to go out and say things that they couldn't back up? Well, if you want to get a promotion in this town, if you wanted to get a contract, and there are a lot of contracts, you had to say, you had to follow the line. We're winning. We're working. We're working well. The Afghans are doing a great job. Everybody was gilding the lily here. If you wanted to get a promotion, you wouldn't come in and tell Congress or tell your bosses, we're losing. And I think that we built in a system, and that's the problem. And that's why I think people should look at Afghanistan, not because of where the war was, but how the U.S. government does business. We gave our soldiers, we gave our aid officers, we gave our ambassadors and all that a box of broken tools. And one of them is this appropriation cycle where you have to show success. And the other one is the personnel system where people had short rotations. So, I mean, there were many problems that led to this disaster. John, 30 seconds. I know many veterans of Afghanistan who were bitter about this, downstream effects of this failure. Oh, downstream effects is not just the Americans who were suffering, but all of the Afghans that cooperated with us. They basically are left in the lurch now. I mean, that's one of the worst things. I mean, as an American, and knowing many of these people, and I'm not just talking about Afghan troops, I'm talking about the judges, the prosecutors, the reporters, the Afghan reporters who believed in us. They're all stuck. John, I gotta go. I promise you we will redo this conversation in a longer format. You have my word. Thank you very much. You can stream Bodyguard of Lies now on Paramount+.

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