Episode description

In war, truth is the first casualty.

It's a military maxim attributed to Aeschylus, the father of Greek tragedy. In the lead up to the 20th anniversary of 9/11 and ahead of the withdrawal from a war that became the longest in American history, GroundTruth's founder Charlie Sennott returns to Afghanistan and revisits a conflict he has covered on the ground since its first battles and its first casualties.

Two decades later, amid an American departure from Afghanistan that many have compared to the fall of Saigon at the end of the Vietnam War, Sennott examines the two conflicts: the government's lies and deceptions about Vietnam revealed by Daniel Ellsberg’s Pentagon Papers, the lessons left unheeded by American leaders during the Afghan war, and why it took us so long to see the mounting lies of that war.

This episode concludes The Whistleblower, our 10th season of the GroundTruth Podcast, which began with the award-winning series Foreverstan, on-the-ground reporting from Afghanistan examining the first 14 years of the war. Listen to our first season: http://bit.ly/Foreverstan-Podcast

Now we’re going to take a step back and evaluate this podcast and think about our best way forward. How do we keep going and finding new ways to be there on the ground, telling audio stories that matter in under-covered corners of the world?

We’d like to hear your thoughts about the podcast. Call us and leave a voice message with your feedback at ‪(339) 365-3754. We listen to everything you send us and we might even share some of them on this podcast.

The Whistleblower podcast series is part of a wider collaboration with UMass Amherst and GBH, including a two-day conference presented by GroundTruth and UMass Amherst on “Truth, Dissent and the Legacy of Daniel Ellsberg,” featuring a conversation between the Pentagon Papers whistleblower himself and NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. Learn more here: https://bit.ly/UMass-Ellsberg-Archive