In Afghanistan, an Unceremonious End, and a Shrouded Beginning

The last American flight from Afghanistan left behind a host of unfulfilled promises and anxious questions about the country’s fate.

The end of the United States’ longest war was unceremonious — trash blowing across the single airstrip of Kabul’s international airport, Afghans lingering outside the gates, still hoping in vain for evacuation, Taliban firing victoriously into the night sky. In its final days, it was two U.S. Marines shaking hands with Taliban fighters in the dim glow of the domestic terminal. It was lines of starved and dehydrated evacuees boarding gray planes that took them to uncertain futures. It was the Taliban’s leadership dictating their terms, as a generation of Afghans pondered the end of 20 years of some kind of expanded hope. It was highway overpasses and park benches stretched across the United States, named in honor of the war’s dead.