After the 11 September 2001 atrocities America identified Afghanistan as the culprit. Then defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld promised that American forces would bomb Afghanistan “back to the Stone Age”.

Two decades later America and its allies fled Afghanistan in disarray in August 2021. Since then the country has managed to take itself back to the Stone Age. That is the impression one gets after viewing the documentary Hollywoodgate.

Hollywoodgate was the name of the CIA headquarters in the capital Kabul. 

The documentary, made by a brave director named Ibrahim Nash’at, reveals that when they fled the Americans left behind USD 7.12 billion of equipment.

The film follows a Taliban commander in charge of the country’s Air Force. He spends much of the film encouraging his staff to repair a collection of old helicopters and prop-driven aircraft the Americans abandoned. This is Afghanistan’s Air Force. Most of the time we watch mechanics tinkering with technology they do not understand. One of the most amusing scenes shows the country’s pilots learning to fly by staring at a piece of cardboard that represents an aircraft dashboard.

The incompetent Taliban leader, who reminds me of a bearded Captain Mainwaring from Dad’s Army, is married to a doctor. He insists that she cannot practise because she is a woman.

We never see a woman during the two hours of this documentary. What kind of country ignores the potential of half its population? 

What we do see is how intellectually slow most of the Taliban appear to be. The camera captures them failing to manage even the most basic of calculations. What is 67 times 100 asks a teacher to a student pilot. The student, aged about 35, replies: 100,000.

Another student says “maybe 2,000”.

This is a society struggling to evolve. The men prefer to fire automatic weapons into the sky and make grunting noises. Indeed, men carry automatic rifles in every scene.

We see constant traffic jams and we know from various media reports that the country cannot feed its people. Yet our pompous Captain Mainwaring wears a new hat and outfit for every scene.

I left this film feeling depressed and angry. Enraged that America was so derelict in fleeing Afghanistan so quickly, and leaving so much material behind. Not to mention the people it betrayed. And sad that the Taliban are so ignorant that they could not take advantage of what the Americans left behind.

Enough medical supplies to support several hospitals were left in Hollywoodgate. But Taliban leaders ignored those supplies for almost a year. By the time someone got around to inspecting the warehouse the supplies were out of date.

Hollywoodgate was released on 16 August 2024, three years after the Americans fled. The director, Ibrahim Nash’at, deserves an award for his bravery in going to Afghanistan.

The film is a significant achievement in portraying the demoralising and sad decline of a once magnificent nation. I’m talking about the United States., When Trump tried to bully Zelenskyy in the Oval Office on 1 March 2025 it was an example of a deranged president aligning himself with an evil dictator, Putin, and ignoring the role the US has played in maintaining peace for decades.