Escape from Kabul

As "Escape From Kabul" (2022 release; 76 min) opens, then-President Trump announces in February, 2020 that the US will withdraw from Afghanistan. Newly elected President Biden sets a deadline of August 31, 2021. When the Taliban unexpectedly captures Kabul on August 15, 2021, it sets into motion a humanitarian drama and catastrophe, as hundreds of thousands of Afghan citizens descend onto the Kabul airport in a desperate attempt to flee the country and the Taliban. At this point we are less than 10 min into the movie.

Couple of comments: this is the latest documentary from director Jamie Roberts, on the heels of last year's excellent "Four Hours At the Capitol". Here Roberts reconstructs the second half of August, 2021. If you think that you know what went down from remembering a couple of clips of the evening news, you really DON'T know. This documentary unearths never before seen footage from a variety of sources, including from the US Marines, the Taliban and elsewhere. Seeing this harrowing and shocking footage will begin to give you an idea what these 2 weeks in August were: the very essence of a humanitarian catastrophe, driven by sheer desperation and fear. Yes, the Taliban leaders are interviewed, smug about defeating the Americans, but never asking themselves why it is that seemingly a vast majority of the Afghan population would rather flee if given the chance than live under Taliban rule. Last but not least: a sincere kudos to everyone, from the Marines to the US Air Force, who was able to airlift a reported 124,000 people under impossible circumstances, the largest airlift operation in US modern history. Bottom line: this is one of the best movies of 2022, period.

"Escape From Kabul" premiered a few days ago on HBO Max. I found it to be a deeply moving and shocking viewing experience. Frankly it should be required viewing for all HS and college students alike. Of course don't just take my words for it. If you have any interest in US history and geopolitics, I'd readily suggest you check this out, and draw your own conclusion.

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.

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.

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.

After Trump signed 2020 treaty with Taliban, the State Department had more than a year to plan evacuation. Did Trump's decimation of the 'Deep State' affect State Dept & Pentagon plans?

Biden had 7 months to evacuate Americans & Afghan allies too whilst recovering economy from pandemic.

I recently rewatched Ken Burns 'The Vietnam War' evacuation of Saigon. America would stall that evacuation too, wanting to appear strong for Vietnam Republic.. The US Ambassador didn't allow evacuations until last days.

Both corrupt government allies in Vietnam & Afghanistan had part in poor withdrawal.

Yes we are thankful and proud of our volunteer veterans, am sorry for the women and children that will suffer the most under Taliban.

Bush should have been prosecuted for war crimes. How could withdrawal from Kabul be more FUBAR than the 20 yrs of graft in that country, just like Vietnam.