Late. I’m out. Sleep well.

I dare anyone to tell me how the air evacuation, when the airport was the only facility that was completely controlled by Americans, could have been done any better.

Did the Taliban set up their 20 mm machine guns at both ends of the active runways and shoot down C-130s and C-17s as they took off full of staff and refugees?

No.

Did any of our or coalition aircraft, carrying around 300 passengers each, get shot down?

No.

Did a huge chunk of American citizens and dependents get left behind in Kabul?

Apparently not, the numbers are certainly less than 300, and the Taliban have said they will be protected.

What about the folks that helped the coalition?

This is the sad part of the story. We started to tell Afghans who helped and US citizens and Afghans with green cards to get out if they could in April. And May, and June and July.

The Tornado Warning Siren was screaming across the country. And people made plans or they didn’t. The worst part of the story is the generation of women and girls who’d had a sniff of freedom and are about to become chattel after twenty years of self-determination.

But that’s not our fault, really. We upset the ancient status quo for twenty years and gave the society enough room to grow to educate girls and women. It just didn’t work. It never took hold. The Taliban is just the culture’s default status quo ante.