Kabul falls into Taliban hands: Joe Biden and Donald Trump trade blame amid US ignominy

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. leaders and strategists clashed in a bitter blame game over the weekend as the United States’ world-renowned geopolitical actions ignited following the fall of Kabul to the Taliban. In scenes reminiscent of the ignominious US exit from Saigon in 1975, US officials shredded and burned classified documents at the US Embassy in Kabul before they were loaded onto Chinook military helicopters for evacuation , even as Taliban fighters entered the Afghan capital and the country’s President Ashraf Ghani fled after the Biden administration unplugged its fragile government. Recrimination, anger, and shame ran through US political discourse as President Joe Biden blamed his predecessor Donald Trump for the fiasco, and Trump, in turn, berated Biden and the Democrats for what pundits called one of the greatest US intelligence failures of all time. US military planners had speculated that Kabul would fall in months, if not weeks. But it turned out that it only took a few days and hours for the Afghan capital to fall before the Taliban’s lightning advance as they converged on Kabul from across the country. Biden himself had said on July 8 that there would be “no circumstance where you would see people being lifted off the roof of a United States embassy from Afghanistan … The Taliban invade everything and own the whole country. is highly unlikely “. Yet that is precisely what happens just 24 hours after U.S. intelligence officials suggested Kabul would be able to resist the Taliban advance for 30 to 90 days. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s concert was over as Biden said on Saturday it was up to the Afghan government and its military to stem the advance of the Taliban and US officials said the president was ordering the return of some 5 000 US troops in Kabul to help evacuate US government personnel. , citizens and allies of the United States, not to help Afghan forces fight the advancing Taliban. “When I came to power, I inherited an agreement made by my predecessor which he invited the Taliban to discuss at Camp David on the eve of September 11, 2019 which left the Taliban in the strongest position militarily since 2001 and imposed a May 1, 2021 Shortly before leaving office, he also reduced US forces to a bare minimum of 2,500. Therefore, when I became president, I was faced with a choice follow-up to the agreement, with a brief extension to get our forces and forces allies safe, or to step up our presence and send more US troops to fight again in another country’s civil conflict, ”said Biden in a statement on Saturday, implicitly blaming Trump for the debacle, while explaining that “one more year, or five more years of U.S. military presence wouldn’t have made any difference if the Afghan army couldn’t or could not hold his own country. “I was the fourth president to preside over a presence of American troops in Afghanistan, two Republicans, two Democrats. I would not and will not take this war to a fifth,” he added. Trump and his allies rushed to the fiasco to denounce Biden as weak and vacillating, especially after the US president ordered US troops to return to Kabul after withdrawing them days earlier even before officials and US citizens were completely evacuated. Shrewd analysts have seen the Democratic and Republican administrations responsible for America’s ignominy. “President Biden bears the responsibility for making this decision, but there is no doubt that President Trump, his administration, Secretary Pompeo, they also bear a very important responsibility in this regard. They have taken this route to legitimize the Taliban. “said Liz Cheney, a Republican lawmaker. , and daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney. Some commentators have also blamed Presidents Obama and Bush, lamenting that the United States should have left Afghanistan shortly after killing Osama bin Laden and should never have embarked on nation-building. .

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