years and years of fighting in three different wars there, and despite the brits losing thousands of soldiers there. but the russians, soon the soviets, they would end up having their own drama and trauma with the afghan people and the afghan government. because the afghan government, while it had recognized the post-czarist, soon to be soviet states, they had aligned themselves with someone britain was alarmed about for so many decades, the population of afghanistan didn t necessarily like that. they didn t necessarily like or want afghanistan being run by a communist soviet allied government, and so they started an insurgency against it. after all those wars the british fought in the previous century to try to keep afghanistan on their side, all of which
there was no parade that they won. afghanistan has come to an end. but there is no victory to celebrate, no proud ending to this war, it is simply over over there. it s over despite more than nine years of battling the muslim guerrillas who had supplied soviet regimes. soviet mothers warned their sons, and gorbachev declared the war a bleeding wound. he decided last year to pull out the troops. in moscow today there was relief that the pullout was finally over. translator: i m happy. happiness is all i feel. translator: we all think the withdrawal is a positive move. translator: i think the intervention was a mistake. but the withdrawal is wise, although a somewhat late decision on part of our government. bands played and patriotic speeches were made. but this was a defeat, and now the country will try to heal
which is a notice to pilots worldwide, and it was blunt as all get-out in case it was not clear before. quote, effective immediately hamid karzai international airport is uncontrolled. no air traffic control or airport services are available. aircraft operating into, out of or through kabul should use extreme caution. the taliban now controls the airport. over the past 17 days, the u.s. airlift brought more than 122,000 people out of afghanistan through that single runway airfield, single largest noncombatant evacuation in the history of u.s. military by a lot. president biden tonight said this in a statement ahead of what s expected to be a major speech to the nation on afghanistan tomorrow. he said, quote, i want to thank our commanders and the men and women serving under them for their execution of the dangerous retrograde from afghanistan as scheduled in the early morning hours august 31st kabul time.
hemat karzai international airport at 3:15 eastern time. while it is complete, to ensure citizens and afghans who want to leave continues. i know you re going to hear more about that from the state department shortly. tonight s withdrawal signifes the end of the war with afghanistan. it s a mission that brought osama bin laden to a just end along with his co-conspirators. it was not a cheap mission. the cost was 2,064 service members killed. that includes 13 service members who were killed last week from an isis-k suicide bomber. we honor their sacrifice today
britain at the end of the third british invasion of afghanistan. and it is gravely, gravely oversimplifying to say it this way, but if you did have to boil it down, the reason great britain kept invading afghanistan over and over again is because they really did think afghanistan was too cozy with russia. they wanted to stop that alliance. they wanted afghanistan in their british orbit instead. after the peace treaty in 1919 in which afghanistan formally got its independence after fighting off three different british invasions, well, the afghan government at the time actually did kind of sign themselves up with the russians. they were one of the first countries to recognize the new soviet states after russia had its revolution in 1917. in playground terms, again, in grossly oversimplified termed, that means in the battle for having influence over afghanistan, the russians sort of won and britain lost despite