Escape from Kabul: The Inside Story

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I mean, any kind of help that the United States provides to support the Afghan people and to restore, you know, even a minimum level of economic activity is going to have some indirect propping up effect for the Taliban regime and there’s just no way around that. So I think that—you know, that’s an indictment that the mentality just wasn’t even there for the types of contingencies that could have changed the reality on the ground, and I would just encourage people to watch Jamie’s film because it shows in really visceral terms what happens when those types of worst case scenarios are not planned for. 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. AMOS: But, Jamie, this was supposed to be Taliban 2.0. You know, they agreed to certain things when the Trump administration was negotiating with them and, you know, when you look at those guys they’re not their fathers. You know, this is a new generation. They were not in Kabul twenty years ago. They weren’t old enough.

BBC iPlayer - Escape from Kabul Airport BBC iPlayer - Escape from Kabul Airport

ROBERTS: Well, this—I wanted to actually say it was actually HBO were by far the lead partner in this and we make films at the—Amos Pictures, the production company I work out with HBO a lot, and HBO are very willing to do deep dives into difficult subjects like this like nobody else. So we’re very appreciative of that.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.

Escape From Kabul’ Review: Evacuation in Recap - The New ‘Escape From Kabul’ Review: Evacuation in Recap - The New

Jamie Roberts, Director of Escape From Kabul Airport, says: “When the images of the chaotic Kabul airlift flashed across the news I immediately wanted to know more about what this historic moment looked and felt like on the ground, through the eyes of the people who were there. While they were kept in conditions that were far below the standards of prisons in their own countries, they were not beaten like many of the locals, but were subjected to occasional mind games. You know, they won the war on this kind of hardline rhetoric and now they have peace. They’re in control of the place. So you’ve got the hardliners want to remain as they were and they think, you know, that’s why they fought jihad. That’s why they won the war. That’s how they got control. Yeah. I mean, we had—I was out there for two months solid and, really, it was every day I was—we’d be speaking to different types of people and, obviously, keeping them very separate. So we were very interested in people who were trapped, who were trying to get out. We thought that was probably the most important voice, which is why we give it to the end of the film. But also Talibs. We really want to hear, you know, how this event looked through their eyes. And, really, it was sustained different approaches. 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.

CFR President Michael Froman leads a town hall discussion with CFR Fellows and members on the current crisis in the Middle East. The conundrum is how does the United States and others in the international community provide support in ways that lead to no benefit for the Taliban. That’s really impossible. At the same time, I think it’s kind of well-known that there’s a schism in the high level of the Taliban and actually within the whole Taliban as a structure. AMOS: Can I ask you, Jamie, a question? Did the BBC—were they aware that this would come out around 9/11? Was that the point? 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: Levison Wood

While few are likely to mourn one of China's most colorless leaders, his death could be used as a way to criticize his former boss, Xi Jinping. But the images in the film of just the chaos outside the gate, just people waiting for days, the families being torn apart, and then the number of deaths that happened, it’s just—and the stories from the Marines on the ground were, really, just very scary and disappointing. We saw the collapse of a whole number of cities early in August with the eventual collapse in Kabul. So, you know, we can look at the—you know, the equipment the Afghan military had, the numbers that they had. But in the end, it was not an evacuation, you know, specifically and exclusively of people who worked for the U.S. and NATO. I think there—you know, there is an ongoing effort to continue to get people out. My understanding is that does continue to be a high priority of the U.S. government. But it is more difficult.

What I most enjoyed about this account was the insight we got into the lives of the Afghan people that these aid workers met during their capture and time at various prisons. Without a doubt, the Afghans experienced horrors on a whole other level. Yet, what I’ve taken away the most from this book is the camaraderie between the aid workers and the other prisoners–the little ways they would help each other out, be it through moral support or something else. Whilst this book is understandably focused on the aid workers because it is their story, I think it’s important in this current climate that the book doesn’t shy away from emphasising the innate goodness and kindness that the aid workers received from the Afghan people they met along the way, particularly from those much less fortunate than themselves.

Escape from Kabul by Levison Wood | Hachette UK Escape from Kabul by Levison Wood | Hachette UK

Q: Well, first of all, I missed the first couple minutes of your presentation. I apologize. I want to thank all of you for your attention to an incredibly important topic. So it might not have made the film but it allowed us to actually make sense of it because especially for the first few days after the Taliban rolled into the city there weren’t really many journalists down at the airport. It was just a huge mass of people and then, obviously, journalists start to arrive. So any material that allows us to really make sense of what was happening amongst the chaos was really valuable. AMOS: Thank you very much. I would like to welcome you to the Council on Foreign Relations, a screening I hope all of you had the chance to watch and today’s discussion of the HBO film documentary Escape From Kabul. I do hope you had a chance to watch it over the weekend because it is a remarkable documentary. It’s so compelling that I watched a second time. Our all-volunteer military will fight this war and we will pay through it through our national deficit. About—between a quarter and a third of our national deficit right now comes out of the wars on terror and there’s never been a war tax. Unless you know someone who’s served in uniform or served yourself you’ve, basically, been—you’ve been insulated from these wars.So I—you know, I thought contingency planning for rapid collapse was, certainly, warranted, given the plausibility but, you know, unpredictable likelihood of that scenario. MILLER: I mean, just to jump in. You know, I don’t have the specific answer to your question of how—you cut out a little bit. I think you were asking about how many are still there, and I think that’s—I don’t know if anyone has the real answer to that question. 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. And then, lastly, if you’ll allow me, you know, I think the last point it’s very important not to lose sight of, particularly as we’re, you know, one year out from these events and we have other events that are begging for our attention like Ukraine and otherwise, is, you know, we have about eighty thousand Afghans who we’ve brought to the United States and they are currently here on a humanitarian parole. AMOS: And do you think there’s long-term effect on those people? Do they feel like they were thrown to the wolves out there?