Episode · Stuff They Don't Want You To Know · 2025-04-15
Books mentioned on CLASSIC: The Afghanistan Papers
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.
Mentioned: The Afghanistan Papers by Craig Whitlock, Kim by Rudyard Kipling, and The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini.
Books mentioned, in the order they came up
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The Afghanistan Papers
The Afghanistan Papers by Craig Whitlock is a critical non-fiction investigation that exposes classified military histories and internal institutional failures during the twenty-year war in Afghanistan.
Discussed“Back in 2019, uh Craig Whitlock of the Washington Post published At War with the Truth, and the world said, "Uh, what?"”
Where to get it
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Kim
Kim by Rudyard Kipling is a classic novel that follows an orphaned street boy who becomes involved in the espionage and political intrigue of the Great Game in colonial India.
Discussed“Afghanistan became uh once again as you mentioned Matt a very uh fertile battleground right you can see uh you can see some excellent fiction based on this period of time a work by Richard Kipling it's intensely problematic author but I would I would say a talented poet uh he wrote a novel called Kim which is about a”
Where to get it
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The Kite Runner
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini is a deeply emotional novel following the complex friendship of two boys in Kabul against the backdrop of decades of Afghan turmoil.
Discussed“There are disturbing accounts or allegations in interviews in in some of these papers where an official say something like we were just giving consultants tons of money and you know somebody would fly on a plane and they would read the kiterunner or something while they were on the plane and they would hop out and think that they”
Where to get it
