August in Kabul

America’s last days in Afghanistan

Andrew Quilty
Published by Melbourne University Press
RRP $34.99 in paperback
ISBN 9780522878769

One thing that strikes me about this book is Andrew Quilty’s naivety at the beginning of his Afghanistan journey. It is, however, a naivety that did not survive being an eyewitness to the American withdrawal from Afghanistan and the rapid takeover by the brutal Taliban regime.

On 15 August 2021, the Taliban entered Kabul, capital of Afghanistan, ending a 20-year conflict with the United States, its allies and a proxy Afghan government.

For the US, this was yet another misguided foreign military disaster. As cities and towns fell to the Taliban in rapid succession, Western military personnel and embassy staff scrambled to flee the country. To the world, Kabul in August looked like a rerun of Saigon in 1975. 

Quilty, one of a handful of Western journalists who stayed in Kabul as the city fell, recounts the story of how America’s longest military mission came to an abrupt and humiliating end.

It’s a story told through the eyes of Afghans whose lives have been turned upside down: a young woman who harbours dreams of a university education; a presidential staffer who works desperately to hold things together as the government collapses around him; a prisoner in the notorious Bagram Prison who suddenly finds himself free when prison guards abandon their post.

This first-hand account of those dramatic final days makes for compelling reading. The sobering aftermath is that the promises made by the Taliban turned out to be, as more seasoned observers expected, worthless and as many predicted, the lives of women and girls have become increasingly constrained and hopeless. It is a heartbreaking outcome for the country.