“When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan’s plains, and the women come out to cut up what remains, jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains and go to your gawd like a soldier.”

Rudyard Kipling
The Young British Soldier

August 15 2021 — The US embassy in Kabul warned all Americans to get out on the first available flight. The Embassy has instructed its personnel to destroy sensitive materials. “Please also include items with embassy or agency logos, American flags, or items which could be misused in propaganda efforts.” Follow us on Twitter: @INTEL_TODAY

RELATED POST: The CIA Book of Honor — Star 79 : Johnny Micheal Spann (March 1, 1969 – November 25, 2001) [First CIA STAR Post 9/11]

RELATED POST: Ten Years Ago — Remembering CIA Jennifer Matthews (December 6 1964 – December 30 2009 )

RELATED POST: On This Day — Remembering CIA Elizabeth Hanson (February 14 1979 – December 30 2009 )

RELATED POST: The Afghanistan Papers — The Origin of the Opioid Epidemic [Remember Mike Flynn?]

RELATED POST: Breaking News — Ex-US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld dies at 88

“America has been fighting in Afghanistan for 20 years. It has spent more than $2trn on the war. It has lost thousands of its own troops and seen the death of tens of thousands of Afghans— soldiers and civilians alike. Now America is calling an end to the whole sorry adventure, with almost nothing to show for it.”

The Economist
(Aug. 2021)

“There is widespread criticism was that those whose deaths are recorded in this book died for naught, that their missions were failures and therefore their lives were wasted. It is true that in some cases these lives might have been saved and that in others the missions accomplished little. (…) If the wisdom of their missions was suspect — as often it was — then it casts a shadow not upon the individual but upon the institution that dispatched them.”

Ted Gup
(January 2001)

UPDATE (August 15, 2026) — Much has been written about the comparison between the fall of Saigon and the humiliating evacuation of Kabul.

There is little to add. The imagery speaks more powerfully than words ever could. But I would like to point out an extraordinary synchronicity.

The last star added to the CIA Memorial Wall before 9/11 belongs to Tucker Gougelmann (78th star), who died in Vietnam in 1976.

The next CIA officer to be killed in combat was Mike Spann, a member of the CIA’s ALPHA Team. On November 25, 2001, Spann was killed while fighting an uprising at Qala-i-Jangi prison near Mazar-e-Sharif, Afghanistan.

Today, 141 stars are chiseled into the Memorial Wall. According to my research, 27 of them lost their lives in Southeast Asia:

James “Pete” McCarthy, Stephen Kasarda, David W. Bevan, Darrell A. Eubanks, John S. Lewis, Unknown, Barbara Robbins, Edward Johnson, Louis O’Jibway, Michael M. Deuel, Michael A. Maloney, Billy J. Johnson, Robert Walker Hubbard, Robert Wilson Brown Jr., Jack W. Weeks, Wayne J. McNulty, Richard M. Sisk, Jon Price Evans, Paul C. Davis, David L. Konzelman, Wilbur M. Greene, Raymond L. Seaborg, John Peterson, John W. Kearns, William E. Bennett, James A. Rawlings, and Tucker Gougelmann.

The full list of those who died in Afghanistan remains unknown, as many identities are still classified. But it includes:

Johnny Micheal “Mike” Spann, Nathan Chapman, Helge P. Boes, Christopher Glenn Mueller, William “Chief” Carlson, Donald A. Barger, Harold Brown, Elizabeth Hanson, Jennifer Matthews, Darren LaBonte, Dane Paresi, Scott Roberson, Jeremy Wise, Jay Henigan, Dario N. Lorenzetti, Ranya Abdelsayed, Keith Allen Butler, Brian R. Hoke, Nathaniel P. Delemarre, and George A. Whitney.

The verdict is bitter. What did they die for? Five years ago today, Johnny Spann, father of CIA officer Mike Spann, put it bluntly:

“How can America save face with this when we made promises that we don’t keep. By leaving Afghanistan, we’ve been defeated. We’re just handing it over to the Taliban.”

Wars end. Governments leave. Promises fade. The stars will remain… Forever.

END of UPDATE

August 15 2021 — Just last week, a U.S. intelligence estimate claimed that Kabul could hold out for at least three months.

This morning,Taliban insurgents have entered the Afghanistan capital while the United States has evacuated the diplomats from its embassy by helicopter.

“This is an unfair thing about war: victory is claimed by all, failure to one alone.”

Roman historian Tacitus 
Agricola 27:1 (98 AD)

The only thing that we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history. Absolutely nothing…

This crushing defeat is not just the beginning of a humanitarian nightmare. This debacle will have far-reaching consequences for the global fight against Islamist terrorism. 

“The history of military conflict in Afghanistan has been one of initial success followed by long years of floundering and ultimate failure. We are not going to repeat that mistake.” — President George W. Bush (April 17 2002)

“America has been fighting in Afghanistan for 20 years. It has spent more than $2trn on the war. It has lost thousands of its own troops and seen the death of tens of thousands of Afghans—soldiers and civilians alike. Now America is calling an end to the whole sorry adventure, with almost nothing to show for it.” — The Economist (Aug. 2021)

People like to say that success has many fathers while failure is an orphan. Maybe… But before the blame game begins, let me say this.

This failure has many fathers, including all these leaders who deluded themselves into believing that the Taliban would agree to negotiate a political settlement with Kabul.

This insane expectation was the final fuck-up in a 20-years long series of fuck-ups.

“Johnny Micheal Spann led one of our teams into Afghanistan, then under the sway of a dictatorship aligned with global murder. There, he tracked the authors and allies of terror. There, while fighting for the future of the American people, he fought to bring a better future to the Afghan people. And it was there, one evening, that he said he would gladly risk his life if he could help make the world a safer place for his wife and children. As we know, those were much more than words. Our battle with terrorism will be long and difficult. But those who have taken Mike from us cannot prevail. And they will not. Not while a single decent person—who not only loves liberty, but is ready to protect it—stands against them.”
Director of Central Intelligence George J. Tenet (May 31 2002)

Zbigniew Brzezinski to the Mujahideen:

“Your cause is right and God is on your side!”

“This will require a review of our policy toward Pakistan, more guarantees to it, and, alas, a decision that our security policy toward Pakistan cannot be dictated by our nonproliferation policy.”

Zbigniew Brzezinski — Letter to US President Jimmy Carter (December 26, 1979)

Dying of the Light (2014) – “I Resign!” Scene

“You fucked this up like you fucked up everything else. You fucked up Iran-Contra, fucked up Ames, 9/11, WMD, Afghanistan, Iraq, Benghazi…

Not, you yourself of course!

You are just the latest in a long line of fuck-ups who turned this agency into a cesspool of politics and special interests on behalf of weapons makers and the surveillance industry who get rich while we get weaker.”

“There have been only two kinds of CIA secret operations: the ones that are widely known to have failed—usually because of almost unbelievably crude errors—and the ones that are not yet widely known to have failed.”
Edward Luttwak

REFERENCES

America’s war in Afghanistan is ending in crushing defeat — The Economist

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Afghanistan — America’s war ends in humiliating debacle

One Year Ago — Afghanistan : America’s war ends in humiliating debacle