The desperate scenes from Kabul International Airport dramatized Afghans’ sense of betrayal at the hands of the US and the world.
It was not just the horrific sight of 19-year-old Zaki Anwari and others falling from an American C-17 cargo plane leaving Afghanistan, or the image of an infant being passed over concertina wire at the airport gates. The suicide bombing that claimed the lives of more than 169 Afghan men, women and children, as well as 13 US servicemen, on 26 August was another horrific blow. It was all the more painful because it is possible that faulty security left these people completely vulnerable, and the ensuing media coverage has focused squarely on the dead Americans, relegating Afghan casualties to an afterthought.
