The Dutch are putting the Afghanistan mission under a microscope — critics say Canada should do the same

Twenty years of involvement in a lost war and a botched military evacuation from Afghanistan last summer have prompted a political and institutional reckoning in the Netherlands — the likes of which may never happen in Canada.

It's a soul-searching exercise that the commander of Dutch forces said he fully supports because he believes his country has something to learn from the experience.

"Will this have an impact on our future missions? I hope so, because we have to have our lessons identified and our lessons learned on Afghanistan towards the future," Gen. Onno Eichelsheim, a veteran of his country's military campaign in Afghanistan, told CBC News in an exclusive interview.

In fact, the Netherlands is conducting three separate investigations of how the country handled different aspects of the Afghanistan mission. The first examines last summer's troubled evacuation. The second takes a broader look at the country's two decades of involvement in the ruined south Asian nation.

And the final review — which promises to be the most politically charged of the three — explores what the Dutch government knew about U.S. evacuation plans and when it knew it.

The Netherlands' approach to the Afghanistan mission's aftermath stands in stark contrast to that of its ally Canada.

This country has conducted no major, all-encompassing assessment of its two decades of military, political and development efforts in Afghanistan. No plans have been announced to publicly examine the evacuation of 3,700 people from the country. Most of those evacuated in the chaotic aftermath of the Taliban takeover were Canadian citizens and military interpreters.

Fury over the apparent mishandling of the Dutch military evacuation at the end of August saw some politicians' heads roll. The Dutch defence minister Ank Bijleveld and the foreign minister Sigrid Kaag both resigned after they were censured over the evacuation by the Dutch Parliament in September.

Specifically, the ministers were criticized for failing to prepare safe passage for thousands of Afghans who could have been eligible for asylum in the Netherlands after the Taliban took over — but never made it out.

Eichelsheim — who served in Afghanistan twice, first as a helicopter attack pilot and later as an air detachment commander — said the Taliban takeover was painful for him and his soldiers to watch. The Netherlands lost 25 soldiers to the mission in Afghanistan.

"It would be strange if we do not learn from it," Eichelsheim said. "And we will see what the outcome will be from these investigations."

Former Canadian major-general Denis Thompson has been involved in his fellow Canadian veterans' efforts to evacuate former military translators. He called for an investigation into the federal government's handling of the airlift out of Kabul and the aftermath.

"There should be a whole-of-government review, there's no doubt in my mind," he said. "However, for us, it's not over, right?"

On Wednesday, Global Affairs Canada said efforts to evacuate vulnerable Afghans and bring as many as 40,000 Afghan refugees to this country are continuing. More than three dozen Canadian citizens and other individuals made their way out of Afghanistan in the past month, the department said in a media statement.