“War! What is it good for? Absolutely nothing!” The chant has been a mainstay at peace protests for decades, and for good reason. The human and monetary cost of wars usually far outweighs any benefits that are supposedly gained, if there are any at all. One new documentary epitomizes the sentiment of that old chant with unflinching and unrelenting insight and critique. Bodyguard of Lies delivers a sharp and intense account of systemic deception as it details the manipulative propaganda fed to the American public regarding the war in Afghanistan.
Directed by Dan Krauss, the film, through a variety of testimonies from journalists and government insiders, attempts to untangle the web of events concerning the 20-year war in Central Asia. What is revealed through candid interviews, declassified government documents, and private audio recordings is rather shocking revelations regarding a war that has cost trillions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of human lives. The question presented in Bodyguard of Lies is whether it was all for nothing, and who truly benefited from all those years of fighting.
A number of experts in the film acknowledge that when it comes to the Afghanistan war, it became an event that almost seemed like background noise to the American public. Something that just was. The war was normalized first by President George W. Bush as a necessary action in the face of terrorism after the attacks of September 11, 2001. Many Americans were convinced that retaliation was the only way to stay “safe.” When it comes to historic wars, WWI, WWII, and Vietnam perhaps get the most coverage and reflection, even though the war in Afghanistan is actually the longest that the U.S. has ever fought. For two full decades, U.S. troops were on the ground in Afghanistan, and Bodyguard of Lies wants you to know that it was a trainwreck from start to finish.
The most compelling aspect of the film is the number of interviews from actual government officials who decided to go on record questioning the validity of the war. This, coupled with interviews from officials during the war speaking to the immense problems of executing it, will no doubt chill viewers and make them look at every press conference during those years with a fresh perspective.
We learn that the Washington Post forced the U.S. government to release selected audio tapes and more than 200 pages of interviews from the Inspector General’s “Lessons Learned” program, where those involved in the war at that time gave raw, unfiltered assessments of it. Viewers are treated to sound clips of honest condemnation of the war contrasted with the sanitized press conferences given by former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. The word “progress” became the vague buzzword used on the American public when talking about the war, despite that so-called progress lacking any evidence to back it up or any clarity about what goals this supposed progress was aimed at achieving.
The actual concrete figures shown throughout the film tell the cost of the war for American taxpayers and the number of soldiers who died in it from 2001 through 2021. Over its 20-year span, the U.S. spent over $2 trillion. According to some studies, this equates to approximately $300 million daily for two decades. Despite the war becoming background noise to many, it had a massive impact on not only the U.S. but even more so on Afghanistan and its people.
For those familiar with history, the fact that the government wasn’t honest about the war may come as no surprise, but the details of the deception that are explained in this documentary will no doubt still shock and dismay even the most well-versed on the topic.
Themes of false rhetoric, corruption, and Western chauvinism are prevalent throughout the documentary, and all contributed to the catastrophe. Viewers are asked to ponder why words like “Taliban” and “Al-Qaeda” became interchangeable when government officials spoke about Afghanistan, despite the groups being different organizations. Or why we were told that the presence of the United States in Afghanistan helped to lengthen life expectancy in the country, although there was no country-wide census to verify such a claim.
As one interviewee in the film put it, “Statistics don’t lie, but liars use statistics.”
The film examines the role that the mainstream media played in helping those in power present a rose-colored view of the war to the American public. We see some clips of journalists daring to ask more probing questions during the various press conferences, but we are treated to plenty more where the room of (usually corporate) journalists laugh along with Rumsfeld, rarely daring to challenge his words.
What the film asserts is that the people who truly benefited from the war were those with weapons contracts. Like much corruption in our society, many roads lead back to capitalism and the drive for profits over people. In this case, it was profits on the graves of the people—both the U.S. soldiers and the people of Afghanistan. As one insider put it, “Reconstruction was not successful in Iraq and Afghanistan, but it was successful in Northern Virginia and Maryland,” referring to weapons manufacturers in those areas. War-profiteering didn’t originate in Afghanistan, but Bodyguard of Lies explains how it grew to astronomical levels during this time.
Another compelling aspect of the doc is how it includes the voices of those who live in Afghanistan. It would be easy to just get the perspective from the U.S. government insiders, along with the American journalists and soldiers. But hearing the perspective of those who had to deal with being occupied by U.S. soldiers for two decades drives home the broader impact and devastation that war brings.
It’s disturbing to think that there was an actual memo drafted by those in charge of the war operation that directly asked, “What are we actually doing in this country?” Or to learn more about the infamous Azizabad airstrike conducted by the U.S. Air Force in August 2008. For those around during this time, you may remember the various news stories with reports that Taliban leaders were targeted and killed in the remote Afghan village of Azizabad. Instead, what we come to know is that the airstrike killed 92 civilians, mostly children, and a number of structures in the village, including homes, were damaged or destroyed. All of which is attributed to the U.S. getting bad intel. Former soldiers give testimony in which they admit that they were constantly asking, “Who is our enemy here?”
Further, the film doesn’t place the blame for this war on any one president. It shows how the war spanned across several presidencies, both Republican and Democratic. And that it wasn’t just one solitary figure like Bush, but rather all those in power under a system in which Western chauvinism—the belief that Western civilization and its culture are superior to all others—made it nearly impossible to accept that their “liberation” efforts in Afghanistan were futile dead ends.
The film acknowledges the systemic issue instead of boiling it down to a few bad apples in history. This is important because it shines a light on the fact that Afghanistan wasn’t an anomaly, but part of a bigger problem of imperialism that constantly threatens the peace of the world.
It’s an interesting balance of testimonials. Most of those interviewed really hammer home just how devastating the war was on both sides, though some seem hesitant to place a good amount of blame on the U.S. foreign policy—especially when speaking to the political corruption that took place under the former Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who served as leader of the country from 2002 to 2014. There is archival footage showing U.S. officials saying that, despite the best efforts by the U.S., corruption was “endemic” to Afghanistan, and some present-day testimonials in the film agree. Some, however, seem to come close to not holding the U.S. government accountable for its complacent encouragement of said corruption.
One interviewee puts it best when speaking to the influence that the U.S. had when it came to the corruption and violence that took hold in Afghanistan: “[We] wanted to teach them the Western culture… and we did. Corruption, money… It’s the Wild Wild West.”
With that said, the documentary does put most of its focus on the Bush administration and later on the first term of Donald Trump, when alluding to some of the shadier dealings in Afghanistan—such as when John Sopko, former Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction under President Barack Obama, criticizes the peace deal Trump struck with the Taliban in 2021 and its lack of transparency.
“The American people don’t know what’s in the peace agreement, but the American people paid for the war,” Sopko asserts.
Bodyguard of Lies presents a pile of evidence showing the futility, wastefulness, and deception of the U.S.’s 20-year war in Afghanistan. Another entire documentary could be made about the money and lives wasted in the 1980s and early ’90s when the CIA was carrying out covert operations across Afghanistan against the progressive government there and the Soviet Army operating in the country, or about the U.S. funds and weapons that were funneled to groups that would later make up Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and others. But for one sitting, there’s plenty to digest in this one film.
Overall, Bodyguard of Lies is both a fascinating and infuriating watch. It showcases how, when the American public is left in the dark, those in power can run amok under the guise of “liberating” the peoples of other countries. It also drives home just how destructive war is, especially under a system driven by profit. The relevancy of such a documentary can’t be understated in a time when threats of war continue to hang over our heads constantly. As one interviewee put it perfectly, “There is no good war. There is no goodness in war.”
Bodyguard of Lies premiered at the 2025 Tribeca Film Festival and is set to stream on Paramount+ in the near future.
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