This is a real kick in the gut, an echo of the bad old days of the Pentagon Papers, as the Washington Post reports that US officials misled the public about the war in Afghanistan.

They’ve published all the documents online; I haven’t even started looking at it yet, but in a way I already know what they reveal, because this isn’t the first time.

A confidential trove of government documents obtained by The Washington Post reveals that senior U.S. officials failed to tell the truth about the war in Afghanistan throughout the 18-year campaign, making rosy pronouncements they knew to be false and hiding unmistakable evidence the war had become unwinnable.

Eighteen years, a trillion dollars, and 2300 lives, all wasted.