General Donahue’s eerie night image is symbolic of hasty American pullout from Afghanistan

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Last of America in Afghanistan

That’s General Chris Donahue for you, looking all ghostly in Afghanistan, walking out of the rugged mountain country as the last American soldier on the soil. Carrying his rifle by the side, this commander of the 82nd Airborne Division was the last US Marine to board the final American out of Afghanistan after a relentless 20-year occupation of the country signifying America’s fight against what it perceived as global terrorism.

The ghostly green image of Donahue is reminiscent of America’s two-decade occupation which finally ended in an abrupt pullout with not much achieved and much lost.

President Joe Bidden has been severely criticised for deciding to pullout without making any working arrangement in Afghanistan in the absence of which the country has convulsed and fallen into the hands of the radical Taliban, the very force America was battling all along.

The unthinking American pullout has led to widespread violence, chaos and atrocity against women under the ultra conservative Sharia Law enforced by Taliban. More importantly it has destabilised the entire Asian region with fears of increased terror hits on nearby nations like India and an unmanageable refugee crisis that will accrue for not just Asia but dissenting European nations too.

Last Soviet soldier leaving Afghanistan – general Boris Gromov with his son and the last US soldier (not even close to general) leaving Afghanistan…The first left during the day and the other during the night… standards and circumstances were very different… pic.twitter.com/NLIZ3VTrCA

— Mike Mihajlovic (@MihajlovicMike) August 31, 2021

Meanwhile, the striding Donahue’s image wherein he is briskly walking on the tarmac to board the last American C-17 flight out of Kabul Airport was taken on Monday night and released by the Pentagon to signal the final end of the 20-year American military presence in Afghanistan.

The briskly walking figure of Donahue who was leading the American adventure in a land infamously known as the graveyard of Empires, speaks volumes of how much America won or lost in this alien country thousands of miles away from its actual territory.

Donahue, wearing night vision goggles, dressed in battle gear but largely expressionless is in stark contrast of the moving image of the smiling Russian general Boris Gromov holding a bouquet of lilies and his son in arms, walking across the Friendship Bridge out of Afghanistan and into Uzbekistan in 1984 signalling the pullout of the Russians forces from Afghanistan after a long and destructive misadventure.

Afghanistan today is a cauldron of Taliban occupation, imploding within and exploding for the strategic Asian region as India, China, Pakistan and CIS nations hold their breath to brace for the cascading effect that is bound to follow Biden’s decision to move out without any responsibilities fulfilled!

General Donahue’s image will go down in history as a symbol of that ill-thought American pullout.