Escape from Kabul

Greetings again from the darkness. We watched it play out on television, seemingly getting worse and more tragic and more convoluted by the day. It was painful to watch the United States evacuation of Afghanistan, and now, Jamie Roberts documents what actually happened with previously unseen archival footage supplemented with remarkably candid personal interviews.

The war was in its 18th year when, in 2020, President Trump announced we would be ending the war and bringing our folks home. It was President Biden who gave the final deadline for evacuation by August 2021. Of course, most of us doubted it could happen that swiftly, and given what unfolded, maybe it shouldn't have.

Previously unseen footage is remarkable, and certainly provides a true sense of what was happening at the time and how our undermanned military faced numerous obstacles - some dangerous, others humanitarian - and performed admirably given the circumstance. The insight from the Marines who were there is especially impactful, and their recollections cut to the quick. Their mission was to evacuate US citizens and "at risk" Afghans who had been helpful to the cause, but we learn the first couple of days were spent evacuating "VIPs" ... always a sign of political motivation.

It was literally day 2 (August 15) when the Taliban seized control of Kabul, causing desperation and fear and chaos. The footage is vivid in showing what was happening, and how confusion permeated every action. It's stunning to watch as Taliban leaders are interviewed and laugh at the US for such a botched plan after a two-decade war. Interviews with some Afghan citizens who made it out display the emotions of those driven from the homes under extreme stress. And those Marines offer the most direct feedback for the operation and the no-win decisions they faced when deciding who could leave.

We have all seen the newscast images of those desperately clinging the airplanes, but what about the canal of sewage many spent days wading in, hoping for a chance to leave? The "deal" struck with the Taliban to allow evacuations is a bit confusing to us, but even more so to the Marines stationed at the time. Despite 124,000 people being evacuated and most of the military equipment destroyed prior to the last plane filled with Marines, it's still sickening to see the Taliban immediately shift into victory celebration mode. We know where this is headed, and so do those who remained.

An HBO documentary premiering on September 21, 2022.

This movie is not your ordinary Hollywood flick. It has a great and deep message. This movie has a foundation and just kept on being built on from their and that foundation is hope. This was a great movie. The whole writing of the script and story which was almost accurate was very good, the way the documentary was made it was brilliant and I believe the credit goes to everyone involved but specially The Production and The Producers which made so much effort for collecting and analysing the data.

AND Special thanks to *Z. A* this was best mainly because of you, you are the best, Keep it uppp.

Very honest account of how things unfolded when the US left Afghanistan. You can see the desperation of the people trying to flee, many times costing them their life. The conditions outside the gates were horrific. The summit of all that was the blast from a suicide bomber or ied that killed 13 US personnel and 170 afghans that basically ended all entering activities at the gates. A caveat of this documentary is that it falls short because it doesn't show anything about the retaliatory attack from the US government via drone to a NGO vehicle filled with children and water that had nothing to do with ISIS. That should be included too because it was directly related to the incidents shown in this film.

Interesting. Afghanistan is in part of the world that is never at peace. It is sad armies go there to die. But this doesn't touch on is the incredible ineptness of our political leadership. It is almost like they set up our military to fail. They put them in an untenable situation, with limited resources, and effective rules of engagement driven by politics not by war time necessity. And then the dying starts both military and civilian. This gave a lot of latitude the piece of garbage Taliban. Then again it is HBO with a left-leaning business model. Make no mistake, the Taliban and Isis are monsters of evil. That is exactly why all of those people, thousands upon thousands were trying to escape the country. This is a clear example of how these places will remain Third World countries in a time of unprecedented modern technology everywhere. Tough situation. I could care less about the Taliban, but I feel so bad for the Marines who had to deal with this untenable situation. And our politicians stood back and did nothing.

This is an interesting look into the chaos around the US withdrawal from Afghanistan. I did like hearing different perspectives from US soldiers, Afghan civilians, and the Taliban themselves. It's always better to get first hand accounts than whatever gets filtered out in the news media.

However, I just can't give praise to this documentary because they completely overlook the culprit of this whole mess. All of this could have easily been avoided with better planning from the Biden administration. We'll probably never know the number of civilians, including children, who were killed in this sloppy, disorderly evacuation. How many allies and US civilians were left behind on their own to try and make it out alive?

It really shouldn't matter how you feel about politics to see where to place the blame. It is a complex issue involving a lot of different players, but once we decided to leave, it seems there was no forethought put into how to get out safely, and this falls directly to the US government, specifically the Biden administration.