The stories we’ve all seen from Afghanistan are heart-wrenching. For those of us who have spoken out for decades against the bipartisan war that has cost $2 trillion and hundreds of thousands of lives, it also feels devastating because we knew it didn’t have to happen this way. We have watched our government feed us lies for decades, while publishing warnings that proved all too true.

For an issue drawing so much attention, all the discussion about the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan continues to overlook several key points that many of us have raised for years.

First, we have all been fed a diet of lies for decades.

Just last week, the Pentagon revised its previous estimate that the U.S.-backed government could hold on to power for six months after our long overdue withdrawal, admitting that it could fall within just three months.

We all know now that it fell in a matter of days, suggesting that the 20 years of lies we’ve been told by the Pentagon are unfortunately continuing.

In 2001, George W Bush said, "The Taliban's days of harboring terrorists and dealing in heroin and brutalizing women are drawing to a close. And when that regime is gone, the people of Afghanistan will say with the rest of the world, "Good riddance."

In fact, heroin production increased dramatically after the U.S. invasion. Observing that, as well as the role of corporate agricultural subsidies, weapons contracts, and textile tariffs inadvertently fueling violent extremism, I explained 12 years ago in Huffington Post why a smarter counter-terror strategy would include legalizing the international opium trade to cut off the funding stream on which violent extremists rely.

We who got it right were ignored at the time.

But we can still help the future.

Lies about heroin production are not the only ones that we’ve been told. A decade ago, President Obama acknowledged that “we tortured some folks” at sites including Bagram Air Force Base, just an hour outside of Kabul.

No one has ever been held accountable for the human rights violations that happened there, including the outright murder of several detainees while in custody.

The refusal of the United States to allow accountability for human rights violations played a key role in eroding the legitimacy of the U.S.-backed Afghan government, which fell within a matter of days.

Outrageously, the current head of the CIA previously destroyed evidence of the Agency’s criminal trail. That had been Gina Haspel’s most prolific “contribution” to the corruption that passes for national security in Washington.

Can you join us to help champion human rights not only from the grassroots, as I have for 20 years, but also from within the halls of Congress?

Finally, many voices have noted concerns about the potential dangers facing women and girls under whatever future regime emerges Afghanistan. Given the history of the Taliban‘s rule during the 1990s, those concerns are certainly well grounded.

They are, however, at best, under inclusive. The numbers of women and girls who died as “collateral damage” from U.S. drone strikes have not been tallied, as far as we know. We do know, however, that the U.S. military whistleblower who revealed that 90% of the deaths from drone strikes are unintended was recently sentenced to years in federal prison.

We share the concerns about opportunities for women and girls in Afghanistan going forward. We note, at the same time, that they have shared the brunt of the arbitrary violence to which the country has been subjected over the two decades of the U.S. war there.

Want a voice in Congress who stands up for the rights of women even against the Pentagon?

Too many questions go unasked in Washington. We remain eager to ask the tough questions that others have been unwilling to raise, and appreciate your help forcing these long overdue discussions into the public.

Your voice,

Shahid