Although U.S. involvement in Afghanistan ended three years ago, questions linger for many of the estimated 800,000 military Veterans like me who served in the 20-year war effort. What went wrong? What went right? What were the key decisions that drove the outcome? And how can we do better next time? Finding answers to these questions and more is one reason I chose to serve on the Afghanistan War Commission, which is taking a hard look at the entire conflict to draw lessons for policymakers and warfighters in the future.
Congress created the Commission to undertake an independent, objective and rigorous assessment of the war, from the initial U.S. intervention following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to the withdrawal in 2021, and to develop lessons learned and policy recommendations, similar to the landmark 9/11 Commission. I am honored to be one of the 16 commissioners appointed by Congress on a bipartisan basis to lead this historic effort. Our final report is due in 2026.
Recently, we released our first interim report to Congress. It outlines our progress, priorities and plans for our research into wartime decisions. Since launching in August 2023, we’ve held more than 30 plenary meetings and research sessions; hired 35 nonpartisan professional staff; received dozens of briefings and thousands of pages of documentation from government agencies; and held our first public hearing at the Washington, D.C., office of the Veterans of Foreign Wars.
The Commission has also actively engaged with stakeholders, including the military Veteran community. By hosting virtual roundtables with Veterans, participating in Veteran conferences, collaborating with Veteran Service Organizations, and appearing in Veteran-focused media and podcasts, we have gained critical insights and suggestions for research that matter to those who served in uniform in Afghanistan. We also established a dedicated Veterans’ portal on our website inviting Afghanistan War Veterans to share their perspectives and experiences. More than 200 Veterans have responded so far.
The Commission’s research is organized around five thematic teams covering not only military operations and security force assistance, but also policy and diplomacy, development, intelligence and counterterrorism. Our research priorities include:
- U.S. government policy and diplomacy objectives, and efficacy of efforts made to achieve them;
- The manning, training and equipping of the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces and the circumstances leading to their disintegration in 2021;
- Activities of U.S. and Afghan military and intelligence entities aimed at disrupting, degrading and defeating terrorist groups during the Afghanistan War;
- Whether development activities advanced U.S. national security interests in Afghanistan; and
- The efficacy of intelligence assessments pertaining to post-U.S. withdrawal scenarios in Afghanistan.
The Afghanistan War Commission hopes that our research and recommendations will not only help prevent and better prepare us for future conflicts but also provide a semblance of catharsis for all who served and sacrificed during the war. As a commissioner and Veteran, I am grateful to contribute to the solemn goal of learning from the 20-year war, and I encourage all Afghanistan War Veterans and the broader military community to follow, contribute to and support this goal as well.
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This Commission and the PACT ACT is extremely flawed for not covering DOD Contractors and DOD Civilians which supported the missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. We all have severe medical conditions serving our country. Although I am a Veteran my claims have been denied by the VA since I was not on active-duty while working as a Contractor in both countries. I worked as a DOD Contractor in both Countries from 2006 to 2016. Now my illness and lung condition has gotten worse. No one at the VA has no answers and cannot provide any recourses for support.
Regards,
NM
The way we turned tail and ran was a travesty. We left so many people there who gave everything to assist us to die with little or no regard for the development of the country. The problem was that we occupied a region too large for our forces to manage. Forcing us to be on the offensive when we should have been take a small defective position for people seeking our help and shelter. This could have been easily negotiated. OEF x 2.
This commission will be a joke as every other commission has been. The four-star decision makers will play the CYA game to protect their legacies and decision making. I worked for two Chairmen and two Vice Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, served two tours in Afghanistan, and was the Pentagon spokesman for Afghanistan. I personally witnessed decision making by many four stars that kept the war machine going when we should have left. Every death after mid-2002 is on the hands of those four stars. When the special forces teams killed OBL in May 2011, I openly asked why we were still there. Not a single officer in the chain of command could give an answer that justified a single further death. The mission kept changing to keep the continued war profiteering going.
You want to make sure this never happens again?
Repeal the Authority to Use Military Force (AUMF), which is STILL IN PLACE 23 years after the fact.
Create a law that no defense contractor may make a single distribution to shareholders as long as they are accepting DoD funding for a war.
Make a law that every single White House appointee who plays a decision in national defense policy must serve a tour at VA serving war veterans to understand the human impact of sending troops in harm’s way and the decades long financial impact of funding wars through veteran healthcare.
Create a law that members of Congress must donate all income outside of their salary to funding veteran healthcare for as long as the war continues.
When that gets done, we will learn the most valuable lesson of all: the few who raise their right hand are not pawns, easily disposed of for greed of Congress and defense contractors.
Eisenhower warned about the military industrial complex in his last speech and for many years I never understood when he was talking. Now I do. I was in Bagram in 2006 and had many interactions with locals and knew then that when we left they would fall to the Taliban over night. KISS, they love their opioids, they love having women as property, and they enjoy man-love Thursday. Two of the three no respecting country will ever allow, the Taliban do. We did obtain a lot of military warfare experience and I got my combat zone experience that for some reason many feel they need. I’d gladly give the ‘t-shirt’ back.
Exactly. Those won’t make it into the report. We had multiple Afghan commanders “fired” for engaging in bacha baazi, parading around those young boys in makeup before molesting them. That won’t make it into the report. Every single Afghan officer in the special forces unit I was with in 2013 requested to come to the U.S. because they knew the country would fall. The senior U.S. officers kept pushing out the Ktah Khas, buying them equipment and funding U.S. helicopters knowing full well they had zero maintenance capability and would turn and run when we left. That won’t make it in the report. We looked aside while they committed human rights and Geneva Convention violations continuously. That won’t make it in the report.
This commission isn’t seeking the truth. They are supplying a narrative that won’t stop any misuse of U.S. forces in the future.
WELL SAID AND SPOT ON