The end, at least for the Americans and their Western allies, came on a Monday after the thousands of US troops defending Hamid Karzai International Airport flew out in waves, one lumbering transport plane after another until none were left, in the final hours of the lost war
Taliban fighters wave their flag outside the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Sunday, Aug. 22, 2021. The last American flight from Afghanistan on Aug. 30, 2021 left behind a host of unfulfilled promises and anxious questions about the country’s fate. (Victor J. Blue/The New York Times)
The end of the United States’ longest war was unceremonious — trash blowing across the single airstrip of Kabul’s international airport, Afghans lingering outside the gates, still hoping in vain for evacuation, Taliban firing victoriously into the night sky.
In its final days, it was two U.S. Marines shaking hands with Taliban fighters in the dim glow of the domestic terminal. It was lines of starved and dehydrated evacuees boarding gray planes that took them to uncertain futures. It was the Taliban’s leadership dictating their terms, as a generation of Afghans pondered the end of 20 years of some kind of expanded hope.
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