US military out of Afghanistan

For now anyway.

America’s longest war came to an end just before midnight local time in Afghanistan, when the last evacuation flight flew out of Kabul airport.

A C-17 military transport plane took off carrying the US commander who oversaw the evacuation operation, Maj Gen Christopher Donahue of the 82nd Airborne Division, and the acting US ambassador, Ross Wilson, who were the last two Americans to step off the tarmac in Kabul, minutes before the 31 August deadline.

[...]

The US gave up its last toehold in Kabul to the guerrilla group it ousted with initial ease in 2001, marking a defeat on the scale of Vietnam.

There was no fanfare or ceremony, and no handing over of flags to Kabul’s new masters. All remaining armoured vehicles and other military equipment items were destroyed or rendered useless and the Taliban were notified of the last flight.

[...]

US diplomatic operations have now been moved from Kabul to Qatar.

[...]

More than 100 Americans remain in Afghanistan who wanted to leave but were unable to get on the last flights, [US secretary of state Antony Blinken] said, but that the State Department would keep working to get them out.

He reiterated a pledge to hold the Taliban to their commitments to let people leave the country and said it was time to “learn lessons” from the US’s 20-year presence in Afghanistan.

  Guardian

Fat chance.

[...]

The head of US Central Command, Gen Kenneth McKenzie, announced [...] “The cost was 2,461 US service members and civilians killed and more than 20,000 who were injured.”

What about Afghanis? NATO personnel?

Nearly 50,000 Afghan civilians and 70,000 Afghan soldiers and police are estimated to have died in the violence since 2001.

Jesus. Almost as many civilians as fighters. (And perhaps they were undercounted.)

In the last 24 hours of the US presence, about 1,000 Afghans were evacuated who had worked for or with the US, bringing the total civilian evacuation carried out this month to 123,000. Of that total, 79,000 were flown out by the US military, including 6,000 US nationals.

It was the biggest noncombatant evacuation in US military history. McKenzie called it a “monumental achievement”, noting it included three helicopter extractions of 185 stranded Americans and 21 Germans.

On top of that, special forces brought 2,017 vulnerable Afghans, 1,064 American citizens and 127 nationals from third countries to the airport by road.

And 13 killed by ISIS-K (ISKP) doing it.

How long before we get pulled back in? Not long, I'll wager. Trying to get out that last 100 Americans.

There were no evacuees left behind on the tarmac but McKenzie admitted: “There’s a lot of heartbreak associated with this departure. We did not get everybody out that we wanted to get out.” He said that would now be the task of the diplomats.

Good luck with that.

“The Taliban has made commitments on safe passage and the world will hold them to their commitments.”

Read: Military.

The best-equipped military in the history of the world, turned out to be no match for the patience of a brutal, unrelenting Taliban.

“You have the watches,” the Taliban are fond of saying. “We have the time.”

  Guardian

UPDATE: