Afghanistan: Debts and Obligations
By Mike Barry, Skytop Contributor / May 24th, 2022
Mike Barry served as the senior U.S. Intelligence officer in South Asia from 2016 to 2017 and again from 2018 to 2019. He also served as Special Assistant for Intelligence Programs at the U.S. National Security Council. Mike was a career operations officer with the Central Intelligence Agency’s Directorate of Operations and has served in senior leadership roles in a variety of countries around the world over the course of his career.
Mike retired from the Senior Intelligence Service with the CIA in 2021 and currently works for Culmen International, LLC, a privately held government services corporation based in Alexandria, Virginia.
Go Back for a Moment
Imagine a United States of America that turned its back on her military heroes after ridding the world of Saddam Hussein in those lightning 100 hours. Imagine an America turning its back on the United States Navy SEALS and intelligence personnel who rid the world of the leader of al-Qaeda. The evil that killed nearly 3,000 innocent Americans on September 11th. Imagine Americans turning their backs on the hundreds of thousands of U.S. combat veterans, men and women who answered their nation’s call in its darkest hour, serving day after day in war for the sake of our freedom.
You Can’t!
This is because such a betrayal of our sense of debt and our abiding sense of obligation to those who kept and continue to keep us safe is abhorrent to our national sense of honor, gratitude, and America’s solemn duty to take care of those who preserve our freedom. It’s built into our DNA. Petty differences become irrelevant when we see our sons and daughters come home from war.
Americans are blessed with the luxury of knowing that with all our problems political, social, economic, structural, and otherwise, when American veterans return from war, that same imperfect political and social structure steps up and puts disagreement aside and we repay our debt to those men and woman because, to paraphrase George Orwell or Richard Grenier, as the quote’s authorship is an open question, “They gave us the luxury to sleep peacefully in our beds at night because rough men and women stood ready to do violence on our behalf to those who wish us harm…” In return, we give our veterans the GI Bill, medical care, job preference and, above all, respect.
Now imagine another group of men and women who risked their all for not just one nation but two, only to be abandoned by their own countrymen; hunted by their enemies; left without the benefit of pensions; medical care, or even the basic subsistence to exist at the poverty level. We see a level of assistance that many nations, including our own, provide to the growing number of political and economic refugees from around the world streaming into our country every day,but this assistance is not afforded to the Afghan men and women I am about to highlight.
They Can!
You don’t have to imagine this nightmare scenario if you are an Afghan commando who served side by side with US personnel since 2001. This is your reality every day! This is the day-to-day slog of your new life in America, a reality that several thousand Afghan special operations forces and their families, who fought with and for the U.S. against al-Qaeda, ISIS, the Taliban and more than 20 other terrorist groups on the ground in Afghanistan for nearly twenty years, face in their adopted home.
About the Men and Women of Afghanistan
An overused punch line often heard is: “Afghan soldiers don’t fight….” These Afghan commandos would strongly disagree, and they wear the scars and carried their dead to prove it.
These men and women are the Afghans who stayed in Kabul to that very last day in August of 2021 to ensure that American diplomats, American citizens, third country diplomatic personnel and the scores of civilian aid workers on the ground could escape the Taliban as they seized hold of the country and turned the clock back to the repression of the 1990s. Afghan commando personnel once again put their lives on the line to ensure that Americans reached safety. They did not have to stay. They owed no American this last effort. They did it because they believed in an enduring U.S./Afghan partnership.
While Afghan political and economic elites from the highest levels fled to the safety of private villas in various Gulf States, and the Afghan Army and Afghan National Police folded without a shot, these Afghan commandos remained in the fight to rescue abandoned Americans and secured the Hamid Karzai International Airport so others could escape Afghanistan’s dark future. Many of these Afghan commandos took off their uniforms and posed as the average Afghan mixing among the crowds of future exiles. Their purpose was far different than seeking a seat on some U.S. Air Force C-17 to freedom.
Afghan commando personnel risked their lives without weapons or body armor, setting up rescue and exfiltration operations to ensure that American expatriates and others made it safely to the airport and out of the country. Afghan military and police retreated in fear, but these Afghan patriots, with loyalty to two nations, ran to the sound of gunfire to save the lives of hundreds of Americans they had never met nor would ever meet again.
When the country ultimately collapsed to the Taliban, these Afghan commandos waited until the 11th hour and then reluctantly departed for refugee camps in the Middle East and later the United States under a special but tenuous parole status. Today they languish in hotels after departing transient housing at U.S. military bases, waiting to rebuild their lives.
Like that line from the opening of “Casablanca.” “They wait and wait and wait…”
Who are these Afghans now living in the U.S. and waiting for us to live up to our obligations? Waiting for us to pay our debt to them? Waiting for America to fulfill their promise?
The Afghan Commandos
In the early days of the U.S. response to Osama bin Laden’s attack on America, the U.S. Government recruited a talented pool of several thousand dedicated Afghan men and women to work side by side with U.S. military personnel to take the fight to the enemies of the United States. They became Afghan commando units which were in key parts of the country from Kabul to Qandahar to Khost and provincial capitals in between.
These Afghan Commandos created islands of security in every provincial capital they operated, and they had one of the highest if not “The” highest success rate of capturing or, when necessary, eliminating high value terrorist targets wanted by the U.S. Led Coalition. The Afghan commandos were so effective that the Taliban and al-Qaeda mounted a robust propaganda campaign to turn Afghan and international opinion against them.
Many around the world swallowed this propaganda whole without question.
These Afghan commandos faced opposition even in Washington from time to time, based on false or grossly exaggerated claims of human rights abuses. The reality was far different. Over the years many of these Afghan commandos were killed in action or suffered traumatic wounds protecting innocent lives. There are more than a few examples of these personnel placing themselves in the line of fire protecting the families of enemy personnel rather than indiscriminately using overwhelming firepower to “get their man…”.
As in every war, mistakes happened, and excesses were at times found, but these were exceptions with these Afghan commandos. The number of times Afghan commando personnel saved the lives of U.S. military personnel are too many to count but well known and documented in the halls of Washington.
One little known but critical fact about the Afghan commando personnel now living in the U.S. is that while “Green-on-Blue” attacks (Afghan soldiers attacking and killing their American and Allied colleagues) were all too common over the last twenty years among conventional Afghan Army and Afghan National Police units, among these personnel such attacks were virtually non-existent. Ask any U.S. soldier who they wanted armed and watching their back when in harm’s way and the answer was always “the commandos…”
Yes, these men and women were Afghans wearing Afghan uniforms with an Afghan Unit patch on their shoulders, but make no mistake, they were, in fact, trained, enabled, and led by the U.S. military.
These Afghans went out into the night, every night for nearly twenty years, to interdict U.S. enemies at U.S. direction. Those operations, the most successful Afghan commando operations seen on the ground during America’s involvement in the Afghan war, were planned, directed, led, and enabled by the U.S. Military. But the tip of the spear for these operations were all Afghans.
An Uncertain Future
Many of the Afghan commando rank and file along with their family members are now living in the United States under a humanitarian parole, but this is where U.S. assistance has ground to a halt.
The Afghan war is “over” and like most wars, we Americans wish to put in the past such experiences or focus on better futures or shortsightedly, the next headline. The devolving humanitarian tragedy in Ukraine and Putin’s unprovoked invasion has given Americans a new outrage to focus on. We should focus on the nightmare that is Ukraine and give the brave Ukrainians fighting Putin’s war of choice assistance for Ukraine to liberate themselves.
Once the shooting stops, will we also help Ukrainian patriots recover and rebuild?
I am betting America, that most generous of people, will extend their hands to help. But what of our Afghan commando brothers and sisters who answered two nation’s call to fight, and placed their faith in American resolve? Now that the headlines have faded, we appear to have forgotten the sacrifices made by these Afghans for the United States of America. We need to be reminded and make good on our debt of honor that we owe the Afghan commandos and their families.
We need to forget the Afghan unit patch on their shoulders and see them as American commandos.
These are combat veterans who served in war 365 days a year for twenty years. They never got to go home for R&R or muster out. Their war was always present even when given a short respite to visit family, as the number of murdered Afghan commando members killed by Taliban or al-Qeada assassins demonstrate. These patriots need America to help them start a real and productive life in this country.
Our Honor and Uniquely American DNA Demand Action
The merits or lack thereof regarding the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan are not a subject of this piece. Focusing on this aspect does no good for the Afghan men and women who fought side by side with America. It’s now time to focus on their future.
The men and women of these Afghan commando units and their families need direct financial, medical, academic, and logistical support to become the successful Americans they are now encouraged to be. We owe them this assistance as payment for their 20-years of sacrifice for America.
These Afghan commandos stood with America and went out into that dark night to visit justice upon those who did us as a nation, harm. America now owes them a debt to visit aid and comfort upon them in the cold light of day.
It’s our duty to do what’s right.