Jeff Lloyd

It’s been almost two years. • For those interested, my thoughts on, not just the withdrawal from Afghanistan but the close to twenty years that preceded it and what amounts to almost zero accountability for senior level military officers, elected representatives, and appointed bureaucrats who failed upward during that time are captured in a blog I wrote on 16 August 2021 titled “Imperial Hubris: The Great Game Revisited” and an article I wrote for TownHall on 23 August 2021 titled “A Time For Bold Adjustment: Fire The Generals.” Both can be found on the blog section of my website. • From the blog: I describe the American experience in Afghanistan as “…a failure that crossed party lines over four separate administrations, two Republican and two Democrat. As we watch the U.S. Embassy evacuation in Kabul and see images of the Taliban taking control of the country, to those of us who fought there it is more than a strategic failure; it’s personal.” “This year, for the first time in U.S. history, one could have joined the military, served for twenty years, and retired while the country is still involved in the same war.” “In what is accurately described as imperial hubris, the United States political-military establishment confused entry and initial resolve with victory. They were wrong; America’s sons and daughters paid the price.” “Simply put, our elected officials and senior level military leaders were trapped by their own intellectual inertia, condemning us to eventual defeat.” “Strategically, our leaders were not held to account for their blunders — in too many cases, blunders of epic proportions. Rather, they were promoted and eventually retired with full pensions to sit on the boards of companies making a killing in the world of government contracts; the military industrial complex is alive and well. As Lt. Col. Paul Yingling pointed out in his 2007 article A Failure in Generalship, ‘As matters stand now, a private who loses a rifle suffers far greater consequences than a general who loses a war.’” • Study the past.