Maj. Gen. Chris Donahue, Commander of the U.S. Army 82nd Airborne Division, boards a C-17 as the last American service member to leave Afghanistan. (U.S. Army MSgt. Alex Burnett)
by Daria Sommers
The U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, a human tragedy that came to an end at the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul on August 30, 2021 at 11:59 pm Kabul time, actually began over ten years earlier.
On May 2, 2011, after a decade of war in Afghanistan, President Obama announced that Navy Seals had finally located and killed Osama Bin Laden, mastermind of the 9/11 attacks and leader of al-Qaeda. The event marked a psychological turning point in public’s support for the war. Weary from the ongoing loss of life and billions of taxpayer dollars spent, Americans were anxious for our longest war to come to an end. Planning for a U.S. withdrawal began.
A month later, Obama projected that by 2014, the Afghan Army and Afghan National Police would be able to take over the country’s security. It was Afghanistan’s version of “Vietnamization.” Thanks to the 2009 surge, which sent 30,000 additional combat troops into southern Afghanistan, official reports indicated that al-Qaeda had been routed and the Taliban degraded.
The optimism was short-lived. Although the U.S. officially ended combat operations in 2014, a combination of the Taliban’s resurgence, the Afghan Army’s weaknesses, and Pakistan’s ongoing support of terrorists made a full American withdrawal all but impossible. Obama ended his final year in office with close to 10,000 American troops in Afghanistan conducting counter-terrorism operations and training Afghan forces.
When President Trump took office in 2017, the war was at a stalemate. To break it, he sent over 4,000 more troops. A year later, with little tangible progress, Trump approved direct negotiations with the Taliban. A deal was signed in February of 2020 that heavily favored the Taliban, sidelined the Afghan government and scheduled a full withdrawal of all U.S. and coalition troops in 14 months. In violation of the settlement, the Taliban continued their attacks, leading some experts to warn of a “Fall of Saigon situation.”
After taking office, President Biden confirmed his intention to complete a full withdrawal. On July 8, 2021, speaking from the White House, he announced that the U.S. would be out of Afghanistan by the end of August and assured Americans that a Taliban takeover was not inevitable.
A month later, the Taliban controlled most of Afghanistan and on August 15, they entered Kabul. What came next was hauntingly familiar to those who remembered April 30, 1975.
