Two Years Later, We Know The Deadly Fall Of Kabul Didn’t Have To Happen This Way

[Kamaji]

Two Years Later, We Know The Deadly Fall Of Kabul Didn’t Have To Happen This Way

The Marines first saw a flash of light, then felt the concussion of a blast in their chests. Everyone remained frozen while their brains attempted to process the sensory overload.

BY: JERRY DUNLEAVY AND JAMES HASSON
AUGUST 14, 2023

Abbey Gate, Hamid Karzai International Airport, Kabul, Afghanistan — Aug. 26, 2021

The crowd was packed shoulder to shoulder. Every man, woman, and child shouted and waved pieces of paper — their contents indiscernible — in frantic attempts to gain the attention of the U.S. Marines and Air Force special operators standing on the wall above them. The promise of a new life lay just beyond the Americans guarding the gates.

Sunset was less than an hour away, but the temperature exceeded 90 degrees Fahrenheit, and the air was filled with the stench of sweat and human excrement from the desperate souls who had been waiting outside for days with nowhere else to relieve themselves. There was no respite other than a dry wind periodically blowing from east to west, away from the gate and down the canal full of civilians struggling to shove their way to the front.

Most of the crowd had no reason to be there. They had no connection to the U.S. government and no legitimate claim to U.S. protection. Many had remained on the sidelines during the decades-long fight against the Taliban. But most of them posed no active threat, either. They knew that Afghanistan’s U.S.-backed government was no more and that Sharia law enforced by the Taliban was on the horizon, and they desperately wanted to find a way out. Some had shown up because they had sincerely believed social media posts saying that the Americans would take anyone who wanted to leave.

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The deaths of the 13 American heroes of Abbey Gate — and those of the innocent civilians they were attempting to save — were neither inevitable nor the product of good-faith decisions poorly executed. The same goes for the thousands of Americans and tens of thousands of Afghan allies left behind in Afghanistan on Aug. 30, 2021. Those outcomes were caused solely by the Biden administration’s toxic combination of ignorance and self-assurance.

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Source:  https://thefederalist.com/2023/08/14/the-chaotic-and-deadly-fall-of-kabul-didnt-have-to-happen-this-way/