By Peter Maass

Yingling’s 2007 article was titled “A Failure of Generalship” and included a now-famous line: “As matters stand now, a private who loses a rifle suffers far greater consequences than a general who loses a war.” A few years later, a similar critique came from Lt. Col. Daniel Davis, whose article in Armed Forces Journal, headlined “Purge the Generals,” suggested that “a substantial chunk” of military leaders should be fired. In 2012, the journalist Thomas Ricks, who had spent much of his life covering and studying the U.S. military, wrote a slashing article that described the history of American generals after 9/11 as “a tale of ineptitude exacerbated by a wholesale lack of accountability.” Ricks went on: “Ironically, our generals have grown worse as they have been lionized more and more by a society now reflexively deferential to the military.”

By Isaac Stanley-Becker

Now that the war’s failures have been laid bare, the leadership capabilities of those who perpetuated it should be reevaluated, said Daniel L. Davis, a retired Army lieutenant colonel who served two tours in Afghanistan. Military strategies used in Afghanistan will not aid U.S. businesses or governments, he argued.

“For years it’s been payday for the generals while the war itself has been a complete disaster,” said Davis, a senior fellow at Defense Priorities, a think tank urging military restraint. “At what point do we hold anyone accountable?”

By Jeremy Barr

Richard Hanania, president of the Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology, said there is value in hosting former officials who have firsthand experience with the challenges and intricacies of maintaining a presence in a foreign country. But he said interviewers need to hold these guests accountable.

“There’s a perspective you need to a hear, but it needs to be put in the proper context,” he said. “These people, in almost every case, have a paper trail. If you’re not digging into their record and being a little adversarial, you don’t get much from the perspective.”

By David Smith

Daniel DePetris, a fellow at the Defense Priorities thinktank, said: “The scenes from the airport in Kabul are heart-wrenching. While the US evacuation process has been less than ideal, the case for withdrawing all US troops from Afghanistan is just as strong today as it was over a decade ago. There are no longer any vital US interests at stake.”

By Tracy Wilkinson

“There’s a dark irony here,” said Benjamin Friedman, policy director with Defense Priorities, a Washington group that supports U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. Despite the tragic and lethal messiness of the last days, he said, Afghanistan may be more at peace soon than in a long time — although widespread repression of minorities, women, dissidents and others will undoubtedly be reimposed. But the military, civilian officials and experts will have to be held accountable, he said, “for how they got it so wrong.”

“You could not imagine a more stunning rebuke for the U.S. nation-building project,” he said. “We were building a failed state, not fixing a failed state.”

A state, he added, that was overly reliant on foreign aid and shaped by a history of armed faction and competing tribal power centers.