Ex-Official Who Resigned Over Afghan War Says U.S. Mistakes Helped Taliban Gain Power

“The only thing more tragic than what’s happened to the Afghan people is that in a few days America will have forgotten Afghanistan again,” says Matthew Hoh, a disabled combat veteran and former State Department official stationed in Afghanistan’s Zabul province who resigned in 2009 to protest the Obama administration’s escalation of the war in Afghanistan. He says much of the U.S. media coverage has been filled with “complete lies and fabrications,” despite decades of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan. “You see the same people who’ve been wrong about this war trotted out over and over again,” says Hoh, a senior fellow with the Center for International Policy.