By John Ubaldi, “Ubaldi Reports”

America just passed the one year anniversary of the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan and just days ago the commemoration of the tragedy of September 11th which propelled the nation into the war on terror, but as we remember both events where is the accountability from our national security leaders on the Afghan debacle?

When the last soldier left Afghanistan, the nation just turned its back on the entire military endeavor despite $trillions spent and thousands killed and wounded.

The only comprehensive assessment was conducted by Republicans on the House of Representative Foreign Relations Committee, but this report only looked at what transpired before, during and after the humiliating withdrawal of all U.S. forces from Afghanistan.

The problem with conducting any comprehensive assessment of U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan the past twenty years, it would only devolve into a partisan witch hunt seeking to blame others and absolve both Republicans and Democrats of their own failures for this historic debacle.

What is needed is for America to follow the example of one of our staunchest allies in the world, Israel who faced a similar situation with their stalemate in the 2006 second Lebanon conflict with Hezbollah. During this conflict various Israeli units went into the conflict not properly trained, utilized an outdated military strategy against a different kind of enemy then they were used to fighting. The end result was a great loss of life with minimal showing for its efforts.

Israel conducted and extensive review by instituting the “Winograd Commission” looked into this engagement with an entire self-criticism of all national security, political and military leaders which left no stone unturned, this even impressed its enemy in Hezbollah.

This commission objectively and extensively examined the entire political, tactical, operational and logistic failures which all played a factor during the conflict and its results better prepared the Israeli national security apparatus for future conflicts.

Their currently is nothing comparable to the “Winograd Commission” in the U.S. to examine our monumental national security failure in Afghanistan.

A book was written by Craig Wittlock of the Washington Post titled, “The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War” chronicles the failures of the national security community of both parties as it relates to Afghanistan. So far no accountability from anyone responsible for this disaster, and now many officials who were responsible for this disaster hold senior level positions in the Biden administration.

Back in 2008, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction was created (SIGAR) has reported that what was being told to the American public by both the national security communities of both political parties was blatantly false.

So far no one in the nation’s national security community has been held accountable for the twenty years of failure in Afghanistan, and even in September 2021 Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley testified before Congress and were pressed on the failure of the Afghan withdrawal, but not one single question on how did America even get to this point!

Instead during the congressional hearings in September 2021, both parties spent the entire time scoring cheap political points on the colossal Afghan withdrawal. Congress should have not only focused on the withdrawal, but on the entire 20 years of mistakes, in a non-partisan and non-political way to insure “Endless Wars” never happen again.

For the past twenty years the American people were told by the national security establishment we were making progress, and then the nation was shocked at the sudden collapse of the Afghan government and military.

Why is it when a soldier loses a rifle they are court-martialed, individuals in the national security community loose a war they are rewarded with a high position in government with no accountability!

Congress also has culpability in this disaster, as Congress never did it’s most basic function of oversite, never questioning assumptions made by the national security apparatus of both Republican and Democratic administrations, instead focused on blaming the other for the twenty years of mistakes.

One can’t ignore the national media who bares the same culpability as Congress for the failure in Afghanistan by not pressing the candidates and later the administration of both parties but recently especially their preferred candidate in Joe Biden on what is Afghan strategy would be.

America has to admit the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal was a complete debacle of monumental proportions, which leave’s America and our allies less safe, only empowers various terror organizations such as Al-Qaeda the original perpetrators of the September 11th terror attack.

Strangely enough America left Afghanistan exactly the same way it was on September 10th 2001, with the Taliban back in power but in a much stronger position. The Taliban is now armed with billion’s in U.S. military equipment, Al-Qaeda now along with every other terror organization is able to operate inside the country with impunity.

Following the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal, many in the U.S. military are demanding accountability from the very leaders who lead them. Their services have been humiliated by a ragtag group of goat herders, and they want to know why. Who botched this entire conflict, which they suffered and bled for? If it was high-ranking national security civilians, what senior military generals refused to go along? Did anyone of them question the political assumptions; did anyone place their stars on the table when they knew a disaster was inevitable?

So far these military commanders have thus offered no answers, because the demand for accountability goes up through the ranks then stops at the general officer grade level.  These senior military commanders need to be held accountable for their past failures during the Afghan conflict.

Every senior military commander has read the philosophy of Sun Tzu which was articulated in the “Art of War,” “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”

To begin a few questions are needed to be addressed;

  • With the known history of Afghanistan of failed empires trying to pacify the country so wildly known, how did our military commanders never understand the complexity of Afghanistan?
  • How after twenty years the military still didn’t understand the enemy we were fighting?
  • With a porous border between Afghanistan & Pakistan why wasn’t this ever addressed?
  • Why did U.S. senior military brass accept the withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Afghanistan while Americans were left on the ground, and our NATO allies were never informed or had the chance to objection?

This left our NATO allies flatfooted and they themselves had to withdraw because they didn’t have the capability to sustain operations, and they had to leave many of their own citizens behind. This enraged our allies!

Where does blame lay, with military commanders, national security leaders or both?

Many times the senior military commanders gave conflicting statements leading up to the collapse in Afghanistan, with Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff Mark Milley repeating in May of 2021that “The Afghans are capable of standing up to the Taliban without the support of the U.S.-coalition.”

Contradicting comments were made by Marine Corps Gen. Kenneth “Frank” McKenzie, commander of U.S. Central Command who testified before Congress in April, “I am concerned about the Afghan military’s ability to hold on after we leave.”

Even Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin stated Afghan military leaders are “committed” and capable of stopping Taliban gains.

Both of these leaders have to have known about the Afghanistan papers published since 2010 by the Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction.

  • Did they or any of the majority of other senior military commanders object or raise any serious objections to any aspect of the Afghan war?
  • Did any senior military commanders or national security leaders testify before any of the congressional and Senate committees or inform any of the leaders on the various oversite committee’s on U.S. national security that they had serious objections to any aspect of Afghan strategy?

Many senior military commanders will fall back on the premise that the President is the commander in chief and they are following his direction per the constitution. History is ripe with senior military commander’s questioning the direction of presidents in conducting military operations or strategy.

Marine Corps Commandant General David Shoup strongly questioned early U.S. involvement in the Vietnam while serving on the Joint Chiefs of Staff. General Matthew Ridgway while serving as Army Chief of Staff often disagreed with President Eisenhower over military force structure .

In 1949, senior Naval admirals openly questioned polices of the Truman administration dubbed the “revolt of the admirals” during testimony before Congress over proposed force structure, and military strategy. This was done before Congress and its constitutional oversite role of the military.

The American people were ill-served by national security bureaucrats, appointed leaders and senior military commanders who testified before Congress to only have them talk in circles and rarely giving forthright testimony.

With this massive debacle there has to be a comprehensive investigation on how military commanders and national security officials made serious strategic mistakes throughout the entire twenty years of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan.

America must conduct the same type of self-assessment of U.S. failure in Afghanistan and put aside this hyper-partisan blame the other side for the mistakes that were made, failure to address this will result in another foreign policy disaster.