Bidens allies and critics argue over whether Kabul’s fall is its Saigon moment

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Taliban fighters raise their flags outside the governor’s house of Ghazni province in Ghazni, southeastern Afghanistan, on Sunday, August 15, 2021 (AP Photo / Gulabuddin Amiri)

The departure of U.S. Embassy staff from Afghanistan as the government was overthrown by the Taliban has left President Joe Biden faced with uncomfortable questions about the U.S. legacy in the country, as well as ‘to criticisms of his own management of the last days of the Americas. – make war.

The US-backed Afghan government collapsed completely on Sunday in a devastating moment that appeared to erase decades of hard-fought gains by the US military and its allies, with Taliban officials claiming the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan would take its place.

The lightning quick wins of the Taliban fighters have left serious questions about whether the US efforts over the past two decades in the country have had lasting positive effects.

Biden administration officials and critical Republican presidents have been battling tough metaphors of the situation in recent days as the scale of the US failure to build a truly capable Afghan defense force has emerged. Images and videos emerged of activists freeing prisoners from Bagram Air Base and Kabul prisons and taking their own photos in the palaces of warlords and atop US-made armored vehicles.

Republican MP and minority parliamentary whip Steve Scalise, who still refused in February to admit President Biden won the election, said on Sunday that footage of U.S. Embassy staff fleeing by helicopter and plane since Kabul were the foreseeable consequences of his leadership.

“It is a very serious situation when you see the US Embassy being evacuated. In fact, you just heard President Biden a few days ago say that you would not see helicopters evacuate the Embassy. like Saigon, and yet here we are. It’s President Biden Moment of Saigon and unfortunately it was very predictable, “said Scalise, referring to the evacuation of the South Vietnamese capital at the end of the Vietnam War almost 50 years ago.

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White House officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Independent. Pentagon officials also did not resend an email request.

Others, including many media outlets, pointed out that Bidens had previously declared his confidence in the stability of the Afghan government and expressed shock at the rapid surrender of his army. CNN presenter Fareed Zakaria said the situation was one of the biggest military collapses in human history.

Just a few weeks ago, Mr Biden very publicly refuted a claim by a journalist that his own intelligence officials concluded that the Afghan government would likely fall in the coming weeks, saying: This is not true .

There will be no circumstance where you will see people being lifted off the roof of the US Embassy, ​​Biden said, again referring to the fall of Saigon.

On CNN State of the Union Sunday as Kabul fell to Islamic insurgents, Secretary of State Antony Blinken fought that same image.

It’s not Saigon, he said.

He continued: We did not ask the Taliban for anything. We told the Taliban that if they interfered with our personnel, with our operations as they unfolded with this withdrawal, there would be a swift and decisive response. “

Mr Blinken went on to insist that the early US withdrawal was the result of the May 1 deadline for the withdrawal of most US combat troops initially set by the Trump administration.

He said the United States was faced with the decision to continue with the withdrawal or return to full-scale war with the Taliban as militants captured large swathes of the county.

[W]We would have been at war again with tens of thousands of soldiers, he explained.

Reuters correspondent Idrees Ali responded to Mr Blinkens’ insistence on comparisons to the Vietnam War on Twitter, writing: Secretary Blinken is right. The Saigon airlift only took place two years after a peace accord was signed. The Kabul evacuation occurs with two weeks remaining under Biden’s own schedule for the end of the mission.

The New York Times reported that there were at least 10,000 Americans, including Afghan Americans, and Afghan employees working for the US government to be expelled from the country.

Images from Al Jazeera showed Taliban fighters in the presidential palace on Sunday evening, and reports indicated that President Ashraf Ghani had fled to Tajikistan.

Reports have revealed that a Sunday meeting between Biden officials, including Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, and Congressional leaders, turned into scathing criticism from GOP House Leader Kevin McCarthy, who said to the White House: You say you had this plan. No one would plan for this outcome. The ramifications of this for America will last for decades and it won’t just be in Afghanistan.

“You can’t buy a will and you can’t buy leadership. That’s really what was missing,” Austin said in response, according to CNN.

Former GOP Representative Denver Riggleman, a former Air Force officer, summed up his own feelings on Twitter as footage of Taliban fighters entering Kabul continued.

I was deployed on September 21, 2001. So many lost in the Towers. So many lost brothers and sisters in arms. When I arrived, I researched what the Taliban was doing to women. I informed the troops. Horrific images have etched themselves in my mind: executions, hangings, stoning, he wrote, adding simply: I am struggling today.

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