The WSJ comments 'Saigon on Steroids': The Desperate Rush to Flee Afghanistan

"It's crazy. It is out of control now," said Shoaib, an Afghan interpreter who had talked his way through several checkpoints.

The chaos at Kabul airport was the dizzying final act of a lightning Taliban offensive that saw the militants seize the last of the remaining cities under government control, culminating with the country's capital.

Intelligence Failure

Anatol Lieven, a Politico writer who has covered the wars in Afghanistan, Chechnya and the southern Caucasus explains Why Afghan Forces So Quickly Laid Down Their Arms.

In the winter of 1989, as a journalist for the Times of London, I accompanied a group of mujahedeen fighters in Afghanistan's Ghazni province. At one point, a fortified military post became visible on the other side of a valley. As we got closer, the flag flying above it also became visible — the flag of the Afghan Communist state, which the mujahedeen were fighting to overthrow.