Ask The Questions First

As I stood around an impossibly small television set, watching the events of September 11, 2001, unfold, one of my colleagues burst into the room. His face reddened, trembling with rage, he shouted, “We are going to kill every one of those bastards!” At the time, I agreed, and wanted a righteous reckoning for this heinous crime.

Less than a month later, as U.S. bombs began dropping on Al-Qaida and Taliban controlled Afghanistan, there was a collective sigh of satisfaction: Now, the score would be settled. These two decades later, I realize how mistaken this thinking was.

The opaque “War On Terror” remains America’s longest fought conflict. Thousands of servicemen and servicewomen have been killed or wounded, and of the three million veterans of this war, upwards of 25% come home suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Simultaneously, the death toll in Afghanistan and Iraq has been nothing short of apocalyptic…