Escape From Kabul

If you have HBO or HBO MAX, I highly recommend watching Escape From Kabul, the documentary that chronicles the evacuation of Afghanis at the end of the war In Afghanistan. But I issue that recommendation with a warning: it is very graphic and extremely disturbing.

There is probably nothing more traumatic than an endless conflict and its messy aftermath. And anything you think you may know about the war in Afghanistan and the evacuation at the end of it is sorely lacking— the scale of this tragedy is seemingly insurmountable.

I’m not here to give a review or an opinion on the show, and I feel that espousing my personal politics undermines the deeper message of the program. But there are moments that stand out among everything else for me: the interviews with Taliban fighters who recollect how they were radicalized to fight when they were kids, watching American forces invade and destroy their land, their families, their resources. The traumatic cycle repeats itself over and over… who among the survivors, from the ranks of both those who escaped and those who were left behind, will perpetuate these atrocities in the years to come, when they come of age? Who among them will stand up for what’s good and decent? Will any of them ever move on and build a positive future from the rubble of this war?

There is going to be a brand new generation of Afghani refugees growing up in this country, and their perspectives will be very important in processing and understanding what happened in Kabul. 

Likewise, the collateral damage done to our soldiers who had to witness the carnage and instability of the conflict and the attendant rescue mission that was Sisyphean at best… these are memories that won’t be forgotten any time soon, if ever.

It’s an engrossing documentary on a subject that none of us really got the scoop on while it was happening. As with most events on an international scale such as this, the real story takes time to tell and eventually reveals itself as the years pass. The lessons learned from such events, however, are hard to discern, mainly because it seems like humanity never seems to learn from the mistakes of the past. Our reactions, instead, are the only things that change: compare the evacuation with the plight of Ukrainian refugees shortly after Russia invaded. There was a markedly different response to what was occurring overseas. And I’m sure that when the dust settles on that war, the documentarians will put the pieces together and we will see something closer to the truth emerge from the wreckage.

But how long will that take? And how many more traumas have to be inflicted while we wait for that time?