Are we about to replay, in Kabul, the 30 April 1975 scene in Saigon as desperate South Vietnamese, who had worked for the Americans, attempted to get aboard US military helicopters that would carry them to safety as the city fell to the North Vietnamese?
For those of us who saw that gut-wrenching scene as it played out on our televisions in the safety of our US homes, the pictures are burned in our memories.
The fall of Kabul is proving to be as chaotic and disastrous as the fall of Saigon, despite President Biden’s July 8 assurance that there would be no parallels between the US’s withdrawal and what happened in Vietnam. The Hill noted Biden, in response to a reporter’s question said, “There’s going to be no circumstance where you see people being lifted off the roof of an embassy in the—of the United States from Afghanistan. It is not at all comparable.”
By yesterday, the Taliban had taken over the country, including Kabul and the presidential palace after President Ashraf Ghani fled the country.
Afghan journalists are fearful of being retaliated against by the Taliban.
Meanwhile, the US is scrambling to destroy documents and evacuate the US embassy via helicopter. CNN’s Nick Paton Walsh reported early yesterday, “What is abnormal is the scale of American helicopters circulating around the area of the embassy.”
While all Afghans are being left to their fate, women and girls are finding their universities, schools and workplaces have been shuttered and burqa shops in the provinces reopened.
After 20 years and some 170,000 Afghan deaths, another undeclared American war that never should have been comes to an inglorious end.
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Is Biden about to have his “fall of Saigon” moment in Afghanistan?
Posted on August 16, 2021 by Bev Conover
The fall of Saigon, 30 April 1975
Are we about to replay, in Kabul, the 30 April 1975 scene in Saigon as desperate South Vietnamese, who had worked for the Americans, attempted to get aboard US military helicopters that would carry them to safety as the city fell to the North Vietnamese?
For those of us who saw that gut-wrenching scene as it played out on our televisions in the safety of our US homes, the pictures are burned in our memories.
The fall of Kabul is proving to be as chaotic and disastrous as the fall of Saigon, despite President Biden’s July 8 assurance that there would be no parallels between the US’s withdrawal and what happened in Vietnam. The Hill noted Biden, in response to a reporter’s question said, “There’s going to be no circumstance where you see people being lifted off the roof of an embassy in the—of the United States from Afghanistan. It is not at all comparable.”
By yesterday, the Taliban had taken over the country, including Kabul and the presidential palace after President Ashraf Ghani fled the country.
Afghan journalists are fearful of being retaliated against by the Taliban.
Meanwhile, the US is scrambling to destroy documents and evacuate the US embassy via helicopter. CNN’s Nick Paton Walsh reported early yesterday, “What is abnormal is the scale of American helicopters circulating around the area of the embassy.”
While all Afghans are being left to their fate, women and girls are finding their universities, schools and workplaces have been shuttered and burqa shops in the provinces reopened.
After 20 years and some 170,000 Afghan deaths, another undeclared American war that never should have been comes to an inglorious end.
Bev Conover is the editor and publisher of Intrepid Report. Email her at editor@intrepidreport.com.