America’s longest war is over – they chose to walk away but ended up running

Published

4 years ago

August 31, 2021

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In the end, it was the Taliban, with their volleys of gunfire, who announced the Americans had gone – uncomfortably apt really, given they have been calling the shots for the past few weeks.

For days, in Washington, the US administration had refused to say quite when their Afghanistan withdrawal would be complete.

For obvious security reasons they wouldn’t confirm precisely what ’31 August’ meant. Was it as that day began? Was it midnight at the end of that day? US time, or Afghan time?

It turned out to be just before midnight as 30 August became 31 August.

In the darkness, the last American plane pulled up and away from the tarmac of Hamid Karzai International Airport.

It brought to an end two weeks of total chaos, but also a remarkable airlift like no other in history.

Through the day, the planes had left, one after the other, banking sharply to avoid the rocket fire from below.

This is what the end of the chaotic exit looked like; the end of a 20-year-old war. A country and a people left to a future, unknown.

At the Pentagon in Washington, an announcement came eventually to confirm what the Taliban images had already shown us.

“I’m here to announce the completion of our withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the end of the military mission,” Marine Corps General Frank McKenzie, the commander of US Central Command said.

“The last C-17 lifted off from Hamid Karzai International Airport on August 30, this afternoon, at 3:29 pm, East Coast time, and the last manned aircraft is now clearing the airspace above Afghanistan.”

An hour or so later from the State department, America’s top diplomat emerged from a brutal fortnight for American leadership, looking forward, not back.

“Now, US military fights have ended, and our troops have departed Afghanistan. A new chapter of America’s engagement with Afghanistan has begun. It’s one in which we will lead with our diplomacy. The military mission is over. A new diplomatic mission has begun,” Antony Blinken said.

“The main point I want to drive home here today is that America’s work in Afghanistan continues. We have a plan for what’s next. We’re putting it into action,” he continued, concluding, “we’ll honour all those brave men and women in the United States and many other countries who risked or sacrificed their lives as part of this long mission.”

And with that, America’s longest war was over. They chose to walk away, and they ended up running, taking their allies with them. A deadline set by the American president had been met, but at what cost?

The United States has strained key relationships with close allies.

In the UK, the worth of the so-called ‘special relationship’ has become a central debate.

In Brussels, NATO members have had it confirmed, if they didn’t already know, that without America, their alliance is pretty worthless.

In Moscow and Beijing, they received the same message. The masters inside the Kremlin and at Zhongnanhai will see this episode as more evidence that the American president is beholden to a weary and insular American public in ways that Putin and Xi are not. The advantages, for them, are there to seize.

Then there is terrorism. The return this weekend of the bodies of 13 troops killed by ISIS terrorists last week in Kabul was the tragic image that undermined the president’s justification for the withdrawal.

Afghanistan is still a home for terrorists. America is leaving a country broken, not fixed.

“There are probably at least 2,000 hardcore ISIS fighters in Afghanistan now, and of course many of those come from the prisons that were opened a few days ago,” General McKenzie admitted in the same briefing where he declared the mission to be at an end.

“So that number is up and it’s probably as high as it’s ever been in quite a while and that’s going to be a challenge for the Taliban I believe in the days to come,” the General added.

From the White House, the president released only a statement defending the withdrawal and thanking his troops. He will address the nation later today.

For now, the fundamental unanswered questions were left for his spokesperson.

“Is the US more or less safe today than we were before the Taliban took over,” Jen Psaki was asked.

“Well again, we are not going to do anything that’s going to allow terrorists to grow or prosper in Afghanistan,” she said.

Repeatedly the administration have ignored or plainly denied the fact that al Qaeda and the Taliban remain close and the hard line Haqqani Network, whose number include some of America’s most-wanted, now hold key posts in the Taliban.

In New York, a UN Security Council meeting was an attempt to find optimism and some common ground between the Americans, Russia and China.

They hope that the Taliban can prove it is a different entity from the one it once was. The evidence isn’t very encouraging but the UN will hold the mullahs to their word to allow the continued safe passage of Afghans and foreigners out of the country.

As night fell in Washington, an image was released which will define a military endeavour that proved politically impossible and so tragically bloody.

Through the green of a night-vision lens, it showed the last American soldier to leave the battlefield – Major-General Chris Donahue, commander of the 82nd Airbourne Division. Afghanistan behind him.

US

Former Kentucky police officer Brett Hankison sentenced to three years in prison over Breonna Taylor death

Published

5 hours ago

July 22, 2025

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Former Kentucky police officer Brett Hankison sentenced to three years in prison over Breonna Taylor death

A former Kentucky police officer has been sentenced to nearly three years in prison for using excessive force during the botched drugs raid that killed Breonna Taylor.

Brett Hankison’s 10 shots did not hit anyone – but he is the only person at the scene charged over her death in 2020.

The sentence comes despite the US Department of Justice recommending he should not be locked up.

District judge Rebecca Grady Jennings disagreed, arguing that not imprisoning him would minimise the jury’s verdict.

She said she was “startled” people weren’t hurt by his excessive shooting. Hankison’s shots narrowly missed a neighbouring family after they pierced the walls of Ms Taylor’s apartment.

Ms Taylor, 26, was killed in March 2020 when Louisville officers carried out a “no-knock” warrant and broke down her door.

Her boyfriend thought it was someone breaking in and fired a single shot in self-defence, hitting one officer in the leg.

Three officers responded with 32 shots, six of which struck and killed Ms Taylor.

She was hit in her hallway by bullets from two officers, but neither was charged after prosecutors said they were justified in returning fire.

It later emerged police were actually searching for an ex-partner of Ms Taylor – an alleged drug dealer – who did not live at the address.

Her death, along with other killings of black people in 2020 including George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery, sparked protests around the US and the world.

On Monday, Hankison, 49, was sentenced to 33 months with three years of supervised probation.

He won’t be locked up immediately and it will be for the US Bureau of Prisons to decide when and where he will be imprisoned.

A statement from Ms Taylor’s family said: “While today’s sentence is not what we had hoped for – nor does it fully reflect the severity of the harm caused – it is more than what the Department of Justice sought. That, in itself, is a statement.”

Three other former police officers who weren’t at the scene have been charged with crafting a falsified warrant but have not gone to trial.

US

Trump administration releases huge trove of documents about Dr Martin Luther King Jr – as President faces revolt over Epstein files

Published

8 hours ago

July 22, 2025

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A huge trove of documents relating to the assassination of Dr Martin Luther King Jr has been released by the US government.

The disclosure, which was opposed by many of the civil rights hero’s family, includes more than 240,000 pages of records that had been under court seal since 1977.

Dr King’s two living children, Martin III, 67, and Bernice, 62, said their father’s killing has been a “captivating public curiosity for decades”.

But they emphasised the personal nature of their father’s death and urged that the files be “viewed within their full historical context”.

Gunshots ring out in Tennessee

Dr King was shot and killed on 4 April, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee, while headed to dinner with friends.

The night before the assassination, Dr King delivered his famous “Mountaintop” speech on a stormy night.

James Earl Ray was eventually apprehended after a long manhunt and pleaded guilty to the killing, but he later renounced his plea and maintained his innocence until his death in 1998.

Members of Dr King’s family and others have questioned if Ray acted alone or if he was even involved at all.

Keen interest in the files

Historians, journalists and the public have been waiting to study the now-unsealed documents to see what else can be learned about Dr King’s death.

It has long been established that then-FBI Director J Edgar Hoover was intensely interested in Dr King and others he considered radicals.

FBI records previously released show how his bureau wiretapped Dr King’s telephone lines, bugged his hotel rooms and used informants to gather information, including evidence of Dr King’s extramarital affairs.

“He was relentlessly targeted by an invasive, predatory, and deeply disturbing disinformation and surveillance campaign orchestrated by J Edgar Hoover through the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” the King children said in their statement.

The Kings said they “support transparency and historical accountability” but “object to any attacks on our father’s legacy or attempts to weaponise it to spread falsehoods”.

Is it a distraction?

The release of the documents comes at a time when President Trump is facing an increasing revolt from the MAGA faithful over what is seen as his reluctance to release files relating to paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein.

Following the release of documents relating to her father, Bernice King took to Instagram and posted a a black-and-white photo of Dr King, looking annoyed, with the caption: “Now, do the Epstein files.”

US

Malcolm-Jamal Warner, who played The Cosby Show’s Theo, drowns in Costa Rica

Published

17 hours ago

July 22, 2025

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Malcolm-Jamal Warner, who played The Cosby Show's Theo, drowns in Costa Rica

Malcolm-Jamal Warner, who played The Cosby Show character Theo, has drowned in Costa Rica, according to authorities.

The country’s Judicial Investigation Department said the 54-year-old actor drowned on Sunday afternoon off a beach on the Caribbean coast.

It is understood he was swimming at Playa Grande de Cocles in Limon province when he was pulled underwater by a current.

“He was rescued by people on the beach,” according to the department’s early report, but emergency workers from Costa Rica’s Red Cross found him without any signs of life and he was taken to the morgue.

Warner was on holiday with his family at the time, according to US celebrity news site People.

The Cosby Show aired from 1984 to 1992 on NBC in the US and is regarded as a groundbreaking show for its portrayal of a successful black middle-class family. It was also shown on Channel 4 in the UK at around the same time.

Its star, Bill Cosby, played a doctor named Cliff Huxtable, with Warner in the role of Theo, his only son.

The NBC sitcom was the most popular show in America for much of its run between 1984 and 1992.

Warner played the role for eight seasons in all 197 episodes, winning an Emmy nomination for supporting actor in a comedy in 1986.

For many, the lasting image of the character, and of Warner, is of him wearing a badly-botched mock designer shirt sewn by his sister Denise, played by Lisa Bonet.

Warner ‘proud’ of show despite Cosby claims

The legacy of The Cosby Show has been tarnished after Cosby was jailed in 2018 following a conviction for sexual assault.

He was released in 2021 after his conviction was overturned.

Dozens of women had accused Cosby of sexual assault or rape before the trial.

Following his release from prison, Cosby was found liable for sexually assaulting a woman at the Playboy Mansion in 1975 when she was a teenager.

Warner told the Associated Press in 2015: “My biggest concern is when it comes to images of people of colour on television and film… We’ve always had ‘The Cosby Show’ to hold up against that. And the fact that we no longer have that, that’s the thing that saddens me the most because in a few generations the Huxtables will have been just a fairy tale.”

In 2023, Warner told People in an interview: “I know I can speak for all the cast when I say The Cosby Show is something that we are all still very proud of.”

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Warner wins a Grammy

Following his career on The Cosby Show, Warner later appeared on the sitcom Malcolm & Eddie, co-starring with comedian Eddie Griffin in the series on the UPN network from 1996 to 2000.

In the 2010s he starred opposite Tracee Ellis Ross as a family-blending couple for two seasons on the BET sitcom Read Between The Lines.

He also had a role as OJ Simpson’s friend Al Cowlings in American Crime Story and was a series regular on Fox’s The Resident.

Films he has appeared in include the 2008 rom-com Fool’s Gold with Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson.

A poet and a musician, Warner won a Grammy for best traditional R&B performance for the song Jesus Children with Robert Glasper and Lalah Hathaway. He was also nominated for best spoken word poetry album for Hiding In Plain View.

Warner was married with a daughter, but chose to not publicly disclose their names.