It's basically the Grey's Anatomy of wars.

We all thought it ended years ago,

but somehow, it's still going strong.

And now, with the war in its eighteenth year,

we're learning for the first time

how badly Americans have been played.

Tonight, newly-released documents

raised serious questions

about whether the American people were lied to

about the progress of the war in Afghanistan,

the longest in our history.

MAN: A massive new trove of confidential documents

obtained by the Washington Post reveals

U.S. officials systematically lied to the American public

about the Afghan war,

virtually since the beginning, 18 years ago.

The objective: to conceal widespread fears

that America was losing.

The rosy picture that's been painted

by our political and military leadership, uh,

is not the real picture on the ground.

Yes, for 18 years,

the American government has been painting a rosy picture,

telling Americans everything has been going great in Afghanistan,

when, in reality, it's a total shit show.

It's basically the technique

every failing couple uses on Instagram, you know?

It's just like, "#datenight, #couplegoals. Send."

It's like, "Are you done with your phone now?"

"Well, if you didn't smile so shitty,

I wouldn't have to take so many pictures, you dick. I hate you!"

"I hate you more!"

"Let's do one more in portrait mode! Ah!"

(laughter)

But, yes, we're now learning

from this bombshell Washington Post exposé

that the government manipulated every detail

about the war in Afghanistan.

They used numbers they couldn't back up.

They hyped small successes

when they knew the big picture was getting worse,

and they even tried to spin suicide bombings

as a sign of success, which is confidence, if nothing else.

You know, it's like making a Tinder profile that says,

"You know I'm a catch

"because I have my own room in my mommy's basement.

Swipe right."

Now, it's not unusual

for governments to try and make things seem like

they're going well in a war when they aren't.

But what makes the story even more egregious was

that they lied about even having a plan.

MAN: It says, blunt as can be,

"We didn't know what we were doing."

WOMAN: We didn't know exactly why we were there

or how we could get out,

and not a soul could define victory.

WOMAN 2: Retired General Douglas Lute,

the Afghan war czar, saying in 2015,

"What are we trying to do here?

"We didn't have the foggiest notion

of what we were undertaking."

MAN 2: We didn't have a strategy.

We didn't even know who the enemy was.

Who were we there to fight?

Wow. America sent its troops

to Afghanistan for 18 years,

and they didn't even know who they were going to fight?

That's not how you go to war.

That's-that's a strategy of a group of drunk dudes

who are going out in Boston, you know.

Just like, "Someone's getting (bleep) up tonight, bro."

"Who?" "I don't know. Probably us."

(laughter)

But basically, part of the problem is

that the people in charge didn't know

how to define victory in Afghanistan, right?

Was it beating the Taliban, or beating al-Qaeda,

uh, making the country a democracy?

And if you don't know how to end it,

then you should just wrap it up and get out.

You know, like they did with Game of Thrones.

She's dead, he's gone, the bird kid is king.

Roll the credits. Roll the credits.

Take the money, let's go.

But these people stretched it out,

and this report shows

that America's government had little success

and not much of a strategy going in.

But there was one thing they had plenty of-- money.

The problem is, as any rapper will tell you,

more money, more unnecessary expenditures.

Aid workers in the field, military officers, diplomats--

they all said this was more money

than they could possibly spend.

That they were ordered by Congress

and officials back in Washington

to spend, spend, spend as quickly as they could,

as much as they could.

Nearly a billion dollars

on helicopters and planes for the Afghans.

Trouble is, there is serious doubt

that the Afghans can fly them.

MAN 2: A half million of your dollars wasted

on a building that melted four months after it was built.

$34 million went to a soybean-growing project,

and soybeans don't grow in Afghanistan,

and people in Afghanistan don't eat soybeans.

MAN 3: The Pentagon wasted millions

on uniforms for the Afghan army.

It was to buy a forest camouflage pattern.

Forests cover only two percent of Afghanistan.

Okay, that is just insane.

$28 million for forest camouflage

in a country that's all desert.

The only way that could have been a bigger waste

is if it was for Forest Whitaker camouflage.

Yeah. At least that would have confused the people.

"Makhmoud! We're being invaded by the guy from Wakanda!

"Don't shoot! Don't shoot! I want his autograph!

The strength of the Black Panther!"

So America spent nearly $2 trillion

on the war in Afghanistan

with basically nothing to show for it.

And maybe that's how you get the U.S. Government

to put money into things like health care or teachers, right?

That's what Americans should do.

Just tell them the Taliban is there.

Yeah. Then Congress will be like,

"The Taliban is attacking schools and hospitals?

"Give them more money! Give them as much money as they need!

"And send in three Forest Whitakers just in case!

-(cheering, applause) -Do it!"

Now... you might be thinking,

"Who did this to us, Trevor?

"Who can we be mad at? Is it Trump?

"Is it Bush? Is it Obama?

"'Cause I didn't want to say anything,

(whispers): but I think he's black."

Well, actually, the answer is...

all of the above.

U.S. officials have misled the American people

about the conflict across three administrations,

with decades of upbeat presidential pronouncements

about the war.

Our progress is a tribute to the spirit of the Afghan people...

and to the might of the United States military.

Here, in the predawn darkness of Afghanistan,

we can see the light of a new day on the horizon.

Great progress is being made.

The spirit-- and I'm hearing it from everybody.

Everybody that goes over comes back and say...

said, really, it's like a different place.

Yeah. It turns out that Bush, Obama and Trump

all did their part to exaggerate America's success

in Afghanistan.

And I guess that's the silver lining in this story.

In a country increasingly divided every day,

it's nice to learn that there's one issue

that brings America's leaders together:

lying about war.