Escape from Kabul: The Inside Story

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So the challenges the Marines had to just get enough of their people in to manage the situation was one of the foremost tasks in the days after August 15. Eventually, two Marine battalions were at the airport in addition to a number of Army soldiers. So their numbers start to swell and they are able to kind of get greater control of the airport. In terms of the State Department, we spoke with the acting ambassador at the time and we looked at the State Department’s story. But, again, I think we were drawn, really, to the three factors of the U.S. Marines, who were right there in the gates, the Taliban, and then the evacuees who got out and the evacuees who tried to get out. I don’t bring this up because it’s anything special. It’s actually very unremarkable. All of these intersections in the service exist. Everybody knows each other. But so often fewer and fewer Americans know us.

Escape from Kabul (2022) - IMDb Escape from Kabul (2022) - IMDb

We’re looking for a lively discussion about the film, about policy a year after Kabul was taken over by the Taliban. We’re going to talk for thirty minutes, as you heard. As the Taliban went door to door to execute 'collaborators', a small international task force set out on a daring mission to evacuate as many Afghans and their families as possible.So the Marines that were sent in to the airport were part of the 24 th Marine Expeditionary Unit. So at any given time the Marine Corps in the United States have two Marine Expeditionary Units. These are regimental size units of about two (thousand) to three thousand deployable Marines that, basically, just float. You could be a student, a female newscaster, a government minister on behalf of women, a family member of someone who assisted the US military, faced with an impossible choice – “we could die trying to leave, or we could be killed”, says Malalai Hussainy, a female student in her first year of university who stood for four days in sewage water, oppressive heat and crushing crowds for one of the 124,000 spots on an aircraft out of Kabul. A handful of Taliban commanders who were also surrounding the airport in the final days of the evacuation have their own justifications; one recalls how US forces slaughtered two of his family members. Others have fought the Americans since they were children.

Escape from Kabul by Levison Wood, Geraint Jones - Waterstones

But, Jamie, I do have one question about the film. We got access to the Taliban, which was fabulous, and it was the in-the-trenches viewpoint, which really gives it a lot of credibility. My hat is off to those Marines that you talked with. So we didn’t expect the Marines to come out like they did and we were really happy that they did because that really gave us a view into the story that we would never have seen otherwise. So we did go. In terms of top level, we approached at the very senior level the U.S. Army, the Marine Corps, and, initially, I mean, we were met with quite a lot of resistance and we were told that was coming from the White House, and we were told that was coming from the White House and the Biden administration didn’t want to share about what happened in Kabul, really, is what we were told, and we were told that quite a few times. So the question becomes: How did that happen? Every war the United States has fought since the Revolution has needed a construct to sustain it. And by construct I mean, really, in terms of two factors—blood, who’s going to fight it, and treasure, how are we going to pay for it. And then you have other people who maybe want their children educated. They might have even sent their daughters over to Pakistan—some of the leaders have—and now they’re kind of having difficulty reconciling these different sides, and you’re seeing factions and fights. I think even in the first days there was a shootout in the palace between some of the different sides about these differences.There’s a lot of—they don’t keep time very well and there’s a lot of messing around. A lot of people wouldn’t talk to us. But, fortunately, some would and I think that, for us, that was really enlightening for the story. So the American Civil War, the construct was, if you look, the blood—the first ever draft in the United States comes out of the American Civil War. The treasure—the first ever income tax that we have is also from the American Civil War.

Escape from Kabul: The Inside Story by Levison Wood - Goodreads Escape from Kabul: The Inside Story by Levison Wood - Goodreads

So I wondered if you can talk about just the process of gathering those cell phone videos and how you went about doing that.So over in Kabul, made lots of links with people, with citizen journalists, and kind of pulling things in that way. Also, with members of the Taliban, who, especially near the end of the film, you’ll see they go into the airport and that was filmed by the Talib special forces member himself. The original departure date, I believe, was September 11. That was then pushed up by about two weeks. Could this have been a more staggered departure process? Would that have reduced the pandemonium? I think Laurel’s point that that was unavoidable with an exit date is persuasive. AMOS: So I want to talk about this. As a viewer you are catapulted into the action. You know, you’re almost immediately taken to August 15 when the Marines say all hell breaks loose and so you don’t have any chance to get used to how rapidly this whole thing is falling apart.

Escape from Kabul by eberhard-muehlan-shelter-now Escape from Kabul by eberhard-muehlan-shelter-now

Have you seen any credible estimate of the number of immediate and extended family members of the Afghan translators and other assistants to the U.S. who wanted to get out? What is the bottom of the iceberg? Because my concern was we were never going to be able to meet the demand in the short time that we’ve had till the end of August. So somewhere there’s a real hierarchical nature, which I’m sure you know, of the Taliban. So if you spend enough time speaking to people, explaining to them why this story is important and treating them with just regular respect, but a lot of green tea, again, passed up the chain of command, you kind of get somewhere that way. There’s different departments that you can kind of work, as it were. AMOS: So—well, I’m going to sneak in one more question—I have two minutes—and that is going forward, you know, we fought—we, the United States, the Americans—fought the Taliban for twenty years. Now we have to recognize them as a sovereign government. You know, the Second World War the construct is war bond drives and a national mobilization. The Vietnam War the construct is a draft that eventually leads to an anti-war movement that finishes that war.

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Drawing on a wide range of first-hand accounts – the politicians and officers who planned the trans-continental rescue, the young soldiers who were faced with the unenviable task of keeping a crowd of thousands of desperate people at bay, former interpreters and soldiers of the Afghan Special Forces who made it out – Escape from Kabul is the harrowing true story of Operation Pitting and the Kabul airlift.