The failure of the Afghan National Army is stunning and the citizens of the United States, our NATO allies, and every nation that contributed lives and treasure to the rebuilding of Afghanistan deserve answers.

How is it that the United States can spend 20 years recruiting, training, arming, and building a military that collapses in mere days (or hours) when challenged by a bunch of thugs with guns and mortars?

Why was the full capability of US air power not used to slow the Taliban’s advance after they began capturing provincial capitals?

What role did drug abuse play in the lack of preparedness within the Afghan military?

Why were thousands of Taliban prisoners kept in Afghan prisons where they could be so easily liberated?

Why were there so many Taliban prisoners kept alive? Afghanistan’s government executed ordinary men for robbery and rape; so why was murder, terrorism, treason, and rape by Taliban prisoners not punished in the same way?

How was the Taliban able to recruit new fighters so easily given the horrors of their regime from 1995 to 2001?

Did President Biden establishing a timeline for pulling out all US Forces from Afghanistan make the problem worse?

The team here at KTracy.com has several good hypotheses that may explain a lot of this, but answers to these questions and many more should be required by a bi-partisan Congressional Committees of officials in the Department of Defense and State Department. For 20 years, we have invested blood, money, lives, time, sweat, tears, weapons, infrastructure, and knowledge in the success of this country that’s going to be toppled before US forces and diplomats even leave the ground.

To be clear, Kevin Tracy does blame President Biden for how this is playing out at this moment, but not for his desire to leave Afghanistan and not for the failure. 19 years is too long to be involved in a nation building effort. Furthermore, the failure of that nation building effort rests more on the shoulders of Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump than on Joe Biden’s (except for his involvement as Obama’s Vice President).

It’s difficult to imagine anything being bipartisan in Congress these days, and this commission would quickly turn into a blame game. However, understanding the lessons learned from this failure and publishing them for future generations would be an invaluable resource as the United States will inevitably be forced into invading other countries in the future and be expected to create new governments to run them and militaries to defend them.