Official Trailer for Bodyguard of Lies on Paramount+

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Bodyguard of Lies is the first unvarnished documentary on the Afghanistan War, exposing the falsehoods told to Americans and the secrets kept. It reveals the staggering cost of deception—thousands of lives lost, trillions spent, and a truth buried for decades. A new Paramount+ Original documentary, streaming September 23, 2025 on Paramount+.

Transcript

00:00We know the history of military conflict in Afghanistan.

00:06Hurry up, hurry up.

00:07Long years of floundering and ultimate failure.

00:11Hit him!

00:12We're not going to repeat that mistake.

00:162002, Donald Rumsfeld dictates out a memo saying,

00:19how are we going to get out of Afghanistan?

00:21And he ends it with one word, help!

00:25Completely at odds with what the public had been told.

00:29Privately, people were saying this war was a total disaster.

00:34This is off the record.

00:36But we offered anonymity to people who couldn't speak the truth publicly.

00:41We were never going to succeed.

00:43This isn't going to work.

00:45The White House says we're winning the war,

00:47but these interviews, it's clear we're not winning.

00:49We are winning, winning, winning this war.

00:52What bullsh**?

00:55Officials were under pressure to report only good news.

00:58This goal is achievable.

01:00But people knew the war could not be won.

01:02Every measurable activity is failing.

01:06We're spending $300 million a day for 20 years.

01:1025% is being stolen,

01:11and it's ending up in the hands of the insurgents.

01:15Corruption, bribery, stealing.

01:17And the embassy said, oh, don't go down that road.

01:19Don't go down that road?

01:21How about fixing the problem?

01:22There was this exaggeration after exaggeration of what we accomplished,

01:29and it went all the way up to the present.

01:31We have liberated village after village.

01:34We broke the Taliban's momentum.

01:36We are winning responsibly, deliberately, and safely.

01:39They're lying to you.

01:41They didn't care about what the reality of this war was.

01:44They cared about whether or not their narrative

01:45was going to be upset by somebody speaking to the press.

01:50Sometimes the truth is so precious,

01:52it must be accompanied by a bodyguard of lies.

01:54I don't want to be quoted on this.

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