"Retrograde" is a 2022 documentary about the US withdrawal from Afghanistan. It follows U.S. Army Green Berets advising 215th Afghan Army Corps troops under General Sami Sadat before they are given orders to complete "retrograde" operations in the wake of President Biden's policy speech, on April 14, 2021, announcing that a final drawdown of U.S. troops from Afghanistan is to begin on May 1. If unsure about the meaning of the word "retrograde," in military parlance it is "... a process for the movement of equipment and materiel from a deployed theater to a Reset (replace, recapitalize, or repair) program or to another theater of operations." In other words, it was the pulling of the plug on operations in Afghanistan.
After Biden's policy speech, the Green Berets are seen holding shura with their Afghan counterpart officers, having to explain to them that they didn't know this was coming and held back no information from them. The Afghan side is not too surprised by the developments but already visibly depressed. Collegiality remains, and, as the Green Berets leave, taking a lot of equipment with them, smiles and hugs are exchanged. That's in spite of the absurd order received by the Green Berets not to hand over their ammunition to the Afghan forces, hearing which at least one U.S. soldier is heard cursing, with the others' silent agreement.
From thereon, the documentary stays with Gen. Sami Sadat's forces in Helmand Province. They are generally well-trained but lack ammunition from the beginning to the end — an end that they managed to stretch out so much that provincial capital Lashkar Gah, in the middle of Taliban heartland, fell eventually only two days before Kabul's fall. The last part of the documentary shows us pictures from Kabul Airport as masses of people tried to make it onboard one of the departing aircraft.
Looking back at this now, almost two years later, I am still shaken by the sight of parents who tried to get their children out even if they themselves didn't have a chance to leave. Almost 1500 children made it to the US without their parents as part of the evacuation; some had relatives awaiting them there, while others, a sizeable fraction, didn't. The collapse was shockingly quick — desperation was the normal reaction.
I have to admit that I am at a loss trying to formulate what would have _sustainably_ worked better for Afghans as "Afghanistan policy," even as I could always suggest a thousand things that might have been done differently, one way or another. But leaving Afghan allied forces without decent supplies of ammunition was certainly no honourable way to leave. It fed the process of the collapse, leaving no chances to adapt for a lot of people, and this is there to be faced in this documentary.
