They flee their homes with their suitcases and not much else.

They cling desperately to airliners and military transport at Hamid Karzai International Airport.

Departure is only the beginning of the battle.

Upon arrival in their new lands; they will need shelter and protection, as they carve out a new life.

Who do we blame for what is going on in Afghanistan right now?

Everybody and nobody.

Who misread the geopolitical realities of the region?

Everybody and nobody.

Why do they feel the need to impose a Western democratic model on Afghanistan?

In the presidential election of 2019, fewer than two million Afghans voted, down from eight million five years ago.

Why? Did anyone ever have any intention of reaching a settlement?

Not everybody and not nobody.

We evacuate, not knowing what awaits. Is there a better life that exists for us beyond these borders?

We have had to abandon our world.

Has the world abandoned us?

Commercial flights are either delayed or canceled.

For our ticket out, we had to contend and compete with a deluge of our brothers and brethren.

The military evacuations continued.

Crowds scaled the walls and swarmed the tarmac.

The brothers and sisters we have to leave behind spend the weekend preparing for life under Taliban control.

They wait in snakelike lines to withdraw cash from banks.

Others rush to buy food and supplies.

The iconic imagery of Our Exodus tells the tale of the lost war in Afghanistan.

It started in 2001.

Twenty years have passed.

We are still fighting. We are still fleeing.

The Americans said they had to leave Afghanistan.

The Afghans flocked to leave Afghanistan.

Should we have concluded long ago that we lost the war?

Almost two decades have passed since the war on terror first began.

For us, life is back to square one.

Did the war even happen at all?