By John Ubaldi, “Ubaldi Reports”

Now that the Taliban have taken total control of Afghanistan, the debate is now beginning to take shape as both the political, military and entire national security apparatus seek to push the blame to others for their colossal failure of America’s stunning loss in Afghanistan.

The situation in Afghanistan is eerily similar to the last American foreign policy debacle that had American helicopters removing civilians from the rooftop of the American embassy in Vietnam.

Just like America’s humiliating loss in Vietnam, it had worldwide implications of America’s security guarantee’s, but this will be far graver for America’s national security as this will only further the perception of the decline of the United States and embolden our adversaries such as Russia, but especially China.

This debacle has only embolden Islamic terror organizations especially Al-Qaeda.

The debate on who lost Afghanistan will have both Democrats and Republicans blaming each other for the Afghan debacle when each bares equal responsibility for this failure. The beginning of the failure in Afghanistan began in the Bush administration with its changing strategy that embarked on the hubris that we could remake the nation of Afghanistan into a western system.

This hubris crossed over into multiple administrations as both Republican and Democratic presidents never understood or never wanted to understand the history and region of a tribal system in Afghanistan as they tried to westernize the country.

Far too often Afghanistan has been categorized as the “grave yard of empires” beginning with the Persian, Alexander, the Mongols, the British, Russia, and now finally the United States. However in each case, each empire failed to understand why previous attempts had failed, as each empire tried implementing an alien governmental structure into Afghanistan that was foreign to its people.

One of the pivotal aspect that was missing regarding Afghanistan was honest reporting on the conflict which we now know was never transparent on reality on the ground no matter if it was a Democratic or Republican president occupying the White House.

Military analyst Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies wrote in a report, “Learning from the War: “Who Lost Afghanistan?” versus Learning “Why We Lost” commented that the Quarterly Reports to Congress by the Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction (SIGAR) and the Lead Inspector General (LIG) make all too clear, far too much of the reporting on the Afghan War became the equivalent of a public affairs liar’s contest from 2011 onwards, and especially after major troop cuts began in 2014. Worse, in the case of many of the reports on civil progress – or the lack of it – regularly detailed open source reporting by the State Department and USAID on civil developments simply stopped. As anyone who has served in government knows, lying by omission is not only easier, it is often more effective.

Why didn’t Congress hold Democratic and Republican administrations more accountable on its Afghan strategy over the years? Instead were more focused on partisan witch hunts.

Each administration beginning with Bush commited the U.S. to nation building, but always stating it wasn’t doing so when in fact America was. The real problem is that America’s political, military and national security leaders never understood Afghanistan.

The very basic that every leader learns is the axiom articulated by Sun Tzu, ““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.” Our political, military and entire national security leadership failed to understand what Sun Tzu articulated as they never truly understood the tribal dynamics of Afghanistan, if they had known they would have implemented a far different strategy.

If one only did a cursory research of Afghanistan they would have known that the nation has never known a centralized government centered in Kabul. The closet it came was between the periods of 1928-1973. During this time period Afghanistan had a king who only acted as a mediator between the ethnic and tribal authorities, as the real power was left at the provincial and tribal level.

Afghanistan has over eighteen different ethnic groups, with the Pashtun’s being the most populous and who were outraged when America began centralizing power in Kabul as they felt they would be marginalized in a new Afghan government, with a lesser ethnic minority in charge and one they have warred with for centuries.

The other failure was America never understood the tribal system that was Afghanistan; as everything has always been between the tribes, and loyality only extends inside ones tribal network.

The biggest impediment to any formalized central government in Afghanistan was always had been any meaningful functioning and capable governmental institutions. The country has never had one, and we were delusional in thinking we could replicate one inside a country that is more tribal in structure then any functioning nation state.

One of the biggest failures of American effort in Afghanistan was how to deal with Pakistan.  Pakistan has routinely played a duplicitous role in the fight against terrorism, on one hand they gladly accept billions in U.S. military and economic assistance, stating they are fighting against terrorism, but at the same time aiding terror organizations that reside on its soil such as the Taliban, ISIS, and Al-Qaeda.

The military also has to come to grips with its failure in Afghanistan and not repeat history by solely blaming America’s political establishment for the debacle in Vietnam, the entire political and national security apparatus, to include the military bare responsibility for the Afghan failure.

There have been at least eighteen military commanders who have led U.S. efforts inside Afghanistan, including current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Miley, and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin who was the former commander of U.S. Central Command who had responsibility over the entire Middle East region to include Afghanistan.

At no time did any commander openly voice criticism to Congress who had oversite responsibility over U.S. military operations inside Afghanistan, on how both Democratic and Republican administrations were failing to pursue a winnable comprehensive strategy for Afghanistan.

U.S. military commanders consistently were portraying a conflict in glowing terms when in fact the opposite was the case.

Currently we are witnessing the entire collapse of the Afghan army and we are left scratching our collective heads as to why. Even now we still don’t know why the Afghan army failed to defend against the Taliban.

We failed by training the Afghan army in fighting counter insurgency/counter terrorism tactics that was a model better suited to the U.S. military, not the Afghan army as this was an alien concept to them. The U.S. always tries to train forces to look, and train like we do, instead of training them to a standard they are used to.

It’s understandable like in Iraq in the early stages of ISIS, when the Iraqi army crumbled just as the Afghan army folded in the field against a far smaller force of Taliban insurgents, in both instances the governmental institution that is supposed to provide logistics, pay and other support was corrupt from top to bottom. We never understood this after twenty years!

Daniel L Davis a Senior Fellow for Defense Priorities and a former Lieutenant Colonel in the US army who deployed into combat zones four times, wrote in 2012 how the U.S military was deliberately lying about progress in Afghanistan knowing fully the war was unwinnable.

“Despite overwhelming physical evidence of our failure to succeed on the military front,” I wrote, “senior US and [Nato] leaders inexplicably continue a steady stream of press releases and public statements that imply the exact opposite.” Without a change in strategy, I concluded, “the likelihood of the United States Armed Forces suffering an eventual defeat in Afghanistan is very high.”

Before this report I wrote a paper titled “Another Way in Afghanistan: Overcoming the Current Flawed Strategy” detailing in 2010 how U.S. strategy was flawed.  Both reports were written about a decade ago!

Before the blames game begins, America’s political, military and entire national security apparatus must accept blame for the debacle that is Afghanistan! If we don’t take ownership we will be failing the American people and world will be even less safe after the Afghan debacle.