taliban, had taken control of kabul sooner than expected, and isis fighters were on the loose. american helicopters flew nonstop rescue missions to evacuate the embassy downtown and carry diplomats and staff to hamid karzai international airport, the last place in afghanistan still under american control. the taliban s rapid takeover and the americans urgent flight triggered a stampede. afghans believe if they could just get to the airport, they d be safe. thousands managed to break in. they rushed an american c-17,
there were no embassy officials around to help. this woman has no connection to the u.s. or to the u.s. embassy or a company or contractor, but she is just saying out of mercy, her husband died several years ago, and she is afraid the taliban are going to come, and she is afraid they re going do horrible things to women and children. so she is just here hoping that maybe there is a possibility that she can get a visa for her son. reporter: there was a plan for a peaceful transition, a plan for the taliban to enter kabul and then share power with the u.s.-backed government. but there is an old expression in war. no plan survives the first contact with the enemy. as the taliban tightened their noose around kabul, they broke into the main prisons and released thousands of their fighters and thousands of isis extremists.
most everything else, president biden also wanted out of afghanistan. he deposed the troop surge while vice president, and he didn t change a word of trump s deal with the taliban. all he did was push back the date for all u.s. troops to leave from may to august 31st. war in afghanistan was never meant to be a multigenerational undertaking. we were attacked. we went to war with clear goals. we achieved those objectives. bin laden is dead, and al qaeda is degraded in iraq and afghanistan. and it s time to end the forever war. with the deadline looming in kabul, afghans knew they were now in serious danger. especially the hundreds of thousands who had worked for the americans. hiding above a restaurant, a met
rebirth, which the taliban were determined to destroy. musicians from the school were accompanying an ah vaupts guard play, part of a budding theater scene in kabul. the play was a condemnation of suicide bombings. in the audience, sitting just behind the doctor was a suicide bomber. i remember when the explosion happened. it was full of smoke. the room was smelling kebad, the smell of the body. people were running up and down screaming. then i saw that my coat was full of blood, i was heavily bleeding from my head.
a motorcycle and became president. afghan people took democracy by heart. they came out and voted. women came back to the workplace. afghanistan once again became the home for all afghans. so these early days, it sounds like there was a glory period when things were doing well. absolutely a glory period. i came to kabul immediately after the fall of taliban. she was one of the first women elected to the new democratic parliament in kabul. the city was completely destroyed. all these buildings, you could go around kabul, you couldn t see a building that was not destroyed or not damaged. but people were so happy and hopeful. we could breathe, not because there was fresh air, but because there was no oppression, and everybody was hoping for a completely bright and different future for themselves. there was no terrorism.