"Hollywoodgate": A Haunting Look at Afghanistan’s Turmoil After U.S. Withdrawal

[Social Media]

 

What happened to the military hardware left behind when the United States pulled out of Afghanistan? In 2021, just days after the last American soldiers departed, Egyptian documentarian Ibrahim Nash’at arrived in Afghanistan to find out. Granted exclusive permission to film the Taliban, Nash’at captured a chilling glimpse of the aftermath in his film, “Hollywoodgate,” named after the stenciled door of a deserted American military base that was once believed to be a CIA facility.

 

Nash’at’s film chronicles the year he spent in Afghanistan, revealing what he witnessed between his vision as a filmmaker and the Taliban’s agenda. In a restrained opening narration, Nash’at sets modest expectations, admitting, “I thought the Taliban would find and fix a couple of rifles.” What he discovered, however, was far beyond what he imagined.

 

“Hollywoodgate” unfolds like a slow-burning thriller, devoid of interviews, limited voice-over, and sparse action. The film follows Nash’at as he shadows his main subjects, Air Force Commander Mawlawi Mansour and Lieutenant M.J. Mukhtar. As the Taliban comb through the abandoned military site, they uncover a shocking array of items left behind: perfectly functional gym equipment, crates of medicine, unopened alcohol, and trashed computers purposely destroyed to protect sensitive information. However, the most startling discovery is revealed in the final 15 minutes of the film—an estimated $7.12 billion worth of disabled military equipment, including Black Hawk helicopters, fighter jets, transport planes, armored vehicles, fuel, ammunition, and spare parts.

 

The film’s climax occurs during the first anniversary celebration of the Taliban’s return to power. Mansour parades the recovered military hardware before Afghanistan’s prime minister and dignitaries from Russia, Pakistan, Iran, and other allied nations, reminiscent of military pageants seen in regimes like Nazi Germany and North Korea. The display of firepower is both surreal and terrifying, underscoring the dangerous potential of what was left behind.

 

Throughout the film, we see glimpses of the Taliban retraining pilots from the previous regime, watched closely by armed guards, and hear Mukhtar express his chilling aspirations of martyrdom, stating his desire to kill Americans before he dies. The movie concludes with a tense phone call recorded between Mansour and the defense minister of Tajikistan, whom Mansour accuses of harboring anti-Taliban insurgents.

 

Nash’at’s mission was perilous. Restricted from filming ordinary Afghans, he faced constant scrutiny from his Taliban handlers. “If his intentions are bad, he will die soon,” Mansour warns ominously at one point, while other soldiers eye the filmmaker with suspicion, some referring to him as “that devil.” Despite the Taliban’s micromanagement, Nash’at captures fleeting, candid moments that hint at the underlying struggles of the regime’s leadership. Mansour, for instance, questions the legitimacy of a new law requiring women to cover their faces, exposing his uncertainty about its conformity to sharia law. He also reveals that his wife, a doctor, was forbidden from practicing medicine after their engagement.

 

Mukhtar’s views are equally disturbing, comparing women to “unwrapped chocolates” in an allegory that reduces them to objects needing protection from the world’s impurities. These moments provide insight into the minds of men whose extreme ideologies now shape the lives of millions in Afghanistan.

 

“Hollywoodgate” is an oblique yet gripping portrait of a nation trapped in extremism. Nash’at’s closing words capture the haunting essence of his experience: “What I tried to show is what I saw. Because I held this camera, I was kept away from the daily suffering of the Afghans. Yet I feel it everywhere I go. Inside all the gates I went through, one thing I cannot move past is the obscene power of those who worship war, and the pain that it causes for generations.” His film stands as a stark reminder of the enduring consequences of conflict and the human cost of power in the wrong hands.

 

 

Credit: W.P. 2024-09-02

 

 

 

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[Tug]

What did you expect when the previous administration released all 5000 terriosts without engaging the government in charge allowing time for them to organize .if that equipment is still in one place it should be destroyed .

[thaipo7]

56 minutes ago, Tug said:

What did you expect when the previous administration released all 5000 terriosts without engaging the government in charge allowing time for them to organize .if that equipment is still in one place it should be destroyed .

Your remark does not pass the smell test.  From what I recall the 5,000 were released after the great Biden left Bagram AB in the middle of the night, not notifying his counterpart in Afghanistan.  With no US presence the 5,000 prisoners were released.  Nothing you print passes the smell test.  THIS IS WHAT I FOUND AND I STAND BY IT:   Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby said on Friday that "thousands" of ISIS-K terrorists have been released from the prison at the Bagram Air Base since President Joe Biden's administration abandoned it on July 1.   Trump was not in office with Biden.  GET YOUR FACTS STRAIGHT!!!

[MicroB]

19 minutes ago, thaipo7 said:

Your remark does not pass the smell test.  From what I recall the 5,000 were released after the great Biden left Bagram AB in the middle of the night, not notifying his counterpart in Afghanistan.  With no US presence the 5,000 prisoners were released.  Nothing you print passes the smell test.  THIS IS WHAT I FOUND AND I STAND BY IT:   Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby said on Friday that "thousands" of ISIS-K terrorists have been released from the prison at the Bagram Air Base since President Joe Biden's administration abandoned it on July 1.   Trump was not in office with Biden.  GET YOUR FACTS STRAIGHT!!!

 

Get your own facts right. You are confused ISIS-K prisoners with the 5000 Taliban terrorists that Trump got released, including thoses on death row.

 

Trump agreed with the Taliban to release 5000 Taliban prisoners. The Afghan President complained, but pressure brought on him saw 1500 released, in 100 tranches. with 5000 released by the end of 2020, following an acceleration in November 2020 (ie. once he lost the election, Trump made siure more murderers were released, to potentially attack Americans. He must have really hated people who didn't vote for him). Trump negotiated to get thousands terrorists released without telling the Afghan government, with zero checks.

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-53775035

 

Quote

 

Afghanistan's government has started releasing the last 400 Taliban prisoners, paving the way for long-delayed peace talks.

Eighty prisoners were set free on Thursday, officials said, some whose crimes include attacks on Afghans and foreigners.

The release was a condition to begin negotiations to end 19 years of conflict in the country.

Peace talks are expected to start in Qatar within days of the full release........

......

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani warned on Thursday that their release was a "danger" to the world, reported AFP.

"Until this issue, there was a consensus on the desirability of peace but not on the cost of it," Mr Ghani said.

The Taliban were removed from power in Afghanistan by a US-led invasion in 2001.

The group has gradually regained its strength to control more territory than at any point since that time.

Earlier this year, the US and the Taliban agreed on a peace deal to end the 19-year-long conflict in Afghanistan.

The deal was meant to pave the way for talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban, which had previously only agreed to talk to the US.

Negotiations for the US and Taliban had agreed that 5,000 Taliban prisoners would be released before they entered talks with the Afghan government.

Thousands were freed - however, 400 remained in prison. About 150 of them are on death row, according to AFP.

 

 

 

 

The 5000 released were Taliban, not ISIS-K

 

The full quote you selectively quoted to confer a false impression:

 

Quote

 

Q: And in terms of ISIS-K, how many ISIS-K prisoners were left at Bagram and are believed to have been released from the prison there? And why weren't they removed before the U.S. pulled out, to some place like Gitmo?

MR. KIRBY: Well -- well, I -- I don't know the exact number. Clearly, it's in the thousands, when you -- when you -- when you consider both prisons, cause both of them were taken over by the Taliban and emptied, but I -- I couldn't give you a precise figure.

And as for emptying out, remember -- I mean, we were turning things over to Afghan National Security Forces. That was part of the retrograde process, was to turn over these responsibilities. And so they did have responsibility for those prisons and the bases at which those prisons were located.

 

 

ISIS_K was a common enemy of the ANA and taliban, and not part of the the Trump Surrender Agreement (that's what it was; the US negotiated with the taliban terrorists a conditional withdrawal, pretty much a surrender. As much a betrayal of the Afghans as Nixon's betrayal of the South Vietnamese. During the whole of 2020, the Taliban harried the US forces and their allies. I think Kirby didn't have any notion of the strength of ISIS-K; It peaked at 3000, but 1500 were eliminated by 2021, so there was never 5000 ISIS-K at Bagram. Contempary news sources, citing a regional counter terrorism source, from the period, estimate that Bagram, along with the Pul-e-Charkhi prison housed a few hundred ISIS-K, along with a few thousand ordinary criminals. That seems inline with the vast majority of estimates for the total peak size of this group.

[MicroB]

1 hour ago, Tug said:

What did you expect when the previous administration released all 5000 terriosts without engaging the government in charge allowing time for them to organize .if that equipment is still in one place it should be destroyed .

 

I was an observer to UK preperations to pull equipment out of Afghanistan. There was a different approach compared to the Seppos. The UK wanted its kit back. The process took years. The Seppos did try and set up in theatre scrapyards; materiel not brought back was to be scrapped in situ, and the scrap sold on the local market.

 

Demiliterisation though is not a simple process. The Brits related the case of a UK MRAP that was badly damaged, and which could not be recovered. The patrol commander lobbed a couple of grenades inside The vehicle survived. He got one of his ANA colleagues to try a RPG. Didn't work. So in the end, they needed to get a RE team in to set charges.

 

The equipment can't simply be destroyed. There was all different kinds of pieces of equipment, each requiring a difference verified process to be developed, units trained, and verifications carried out,

 

The US withdrawal was in the expectation that the Afghan Government would take over its own security. Your idea would have stripped them of all ability to defend themselves. And let it be said, there were some ANA units, particularly around Kandahar, who put up a brave and noble resistance. You would have denied them that honour

[spidermike007]

Such hubris was involved in both the Afghan and Iraqi wars. So many mistakes. Such astonishing ignorance. History never served the fools who made these decisions, and got hundreds of thousands killed, broke so many promises and ended up abandoning the people who put their lives on the line. 

 

And the US continues to abandon its injured soldiers, on a daily basis, with the horrific VA failures.

 

The neocons should have been charged and imprisoned, or put to death. 

[JonnyF]

Just another Biden failure. One of many. The guy couldn't run a bath let alone a country. 

[BKKKevin]

3 minutes ago, JonnyF said:

Just another Biden failure. One of many. The guy couldn't run a bath let alone a country. 

The Afghan failure started with George W Bush… 

[metisdead]

An off topic deflection post about the Vietnam war has been removed.

[luckymitchell]

53 minutes ago, spidermike007 said:

Such hubris was involved in both the Afghan and Iraqi wars. So many mistakes. Such astonishing ignorance. History never served the fools who made these decisions, and got hundreds of thousands killed, broke so many promises and ended up abandoning the people who put their lives on the line. 

 

And the US continues to abandon its injured soldiers, on a daily basis, with the horrific VA failures.

 

The neocons should have been charged and imprisoned, or put to death. 

They should have been yes, where were the ICC arrest warrants back then?

Now they are all applauded by the us congress

[Tug]

2 hours ago, thaipo7 said:

Your remark does not pass the smell test.  From what I recall the 5,000 were released after the great Biden left Bagram AB in the middle of the night, not notifying his counterpart in Afghanistan.  With no US presence the 5,000 prisoners were released.  Nothing you print passes the smell test.  THIS IS WHAT I FOUND AND I STAND BY IT:   Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby said on Friday that "thousands" of ISIS-K terrorists have been released from the prison at the Bagram Air Base since President Joe Biden's administration abandoned it on July 1.   Trump was not in office with Biden.  GET YOUR FACTS STRAIGHT!!!

You get your facts straight,refer to micro b s post he’s better at computers than I you are mistaken your trump poisoned the whole withdrawal he’s an ugly vindictive nasty little New York City trust fund baby he is what he is….wake up!!

[Eric Loh]

4 hours ago, Tug said:

What did you expect when the previous administration released all 5000 terriosts without engaging the government in charge allowing time for them to organize .if that equipment is still in one place it should be destroyed .

You touched on an important aspect regarding the abandoning of military assets. Trump's administration was responsible to identify and provide the full details of the military inventory including the locations where they were kept and stored. They didn't complete the audit and it made the task of retrieving and destruction of the equipment in such a short time arduous. 

[thaibeachlovers]

2 hours ago, spidermike007 said:

The neocons should have been charged and imprisoned, or put to death. 

Seems we don't disagree on everything.

 

However, if you think they ain't in charge, I think you are misinformed.

[thaibeachlovers]

3 hours ago, MicroB said:

The equipment can't simply be destroyed. There was all different kinds of pieces of equipment, each requiring a difference verified process to be developed, units trained, and verifications carried out,

I'm interested by that. Seems you are saying that the equipment was left intact for the Taliban because of military bureaucracy. Say it isn't so!

 

Equipment can always be destroyed, all it takes is a basic training course in use of explosives and sufficient explosives of the correct sort for demolition. I myself passed a demolition course and am able to render almost any machinery unusable given the appropriate means. The entire thing does not have to be destroyed to render it useless.

[scorecard]

3 hours ago, JonnyF said:

Just another Biden failure. One of many. The guy couldn't run a bath let alone a country. 

And you deliberately ignore the mess that trump created, passed down to biden and with little/zero chance any withdrawal would be smooth with limited casualties/deaths all round.

[JonnyF]

8 minutes ago, scorecard said:

And you deliberately ignore the mess that trump created, passed down to biden and with little/zero chance any withdrawal would be smooth with limited casualties/deaths all round.

 

Amusing how Dems have been in power for 12 of the last 16 years yet all of Americas problems before and after Trump are Trump's fault. 😃

[Chomper Higgot]

3 minutes ago, JonnyF said:

 

Amusing how Dems have been in power for 12 of the last 16 years yet all of Americas problems before and after Trump are Trump's fault. 😃

It’s just the mismanagement during those 4 years in between you’d prefer were not examined.