Opinion Today: An Afghan general on the country’s military collapse

"I am exhausted. I am frustrated. And I am angry."

View in browser|nytimes.com Continue reading the main story August 26, 2021 By Cassandra Vinograd Senior Staff Editor, Opinion In early August, I sent a message to a young Afghan National Army commander I'd heard on a radio program and started following on Twitter. At the time a chorus of voices was discussing the United States' upcoming withdrawal from Afghanistan — military logistics, Taliban capabilities, the state of the country. Most of those voices were Western. I wanted to hear an Afghan point of view, and thought Times readers would, too. The young lieutenant general, Sami Sadat, didn't respond. And we all know what happened next: One major city after another fell to the Taliban. The president fled the country. I feared the general had been taken captive, or worse. There was little coverage about the status of Afghan National Army officers and soldiers after Kabul fell to the Taliban. The Taliban's ultimate takeover has been — and will be — the subject of intense debate. The blame game and post-mortem analysis got underway immediately. I again thought of the general and his fellow soldiers while listening to President Biden's remarks on Aug. 16 — wondering how they were reacting to his assertion that the Afghan military had collapsed "sometimes without trying to fight." "We gave them every tool they could need," Biden said. "We gave them every chance to determine their own future. What we could not provide them was the will to fight for that future." Six days later, my phone pinged with a message. Sadat was alive, in an undisclosed location, and writing an essay. When asked why, he responded: "It really pains me to see people blaming the Afghan army, not knowing what we were going through." The guest essay that resulted is Sadat's personal experience as commander of the 215 Maiwand Corps in southwestern Afghanistan. It's not the story of every Afghan soldier or commander, but it offers a rare and cleareyed perspective into how Afghanistan fell to the Taliban, offering lessons for future battles and insight into how this chapter of history might ultimately be written. Read his full essay here. Hoshang Hashimi/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Guest Essay I Commanded Afghan Troops This Year. We Were Betrayed. It pains me to see President Biden and other Western officials blame the Afghan Army for collapsing but not mention why that happened. 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