The collapse of Afghanistan evokes the memory of Vietnam in the United States | The chaotic end of a brutal withdrawal of American troops

From Washington, DC

“There will be no circumstance where you will see people take off from the roof of the US Embassy in Afghanistan,” Joe Biden said. July 8 from the White House. The promise lasted a little over a month. This Sunday, images arriving from Kabul showed a helicopter carrying personnel from the North American country from diplomatic headquarters to the airport. For the United States, the image of a helicopter leak is synonymous with the evacuation of Saigon, in 1975, when the North Vietnamese army captured the city. It is synonymous with military failure.

After twenty years

After 20 years and over two trillion dollars spent, the United States is leaving Afghanistan in a way it never could have predicted. The collapse of the Afghan government and the return of the Taliban, which Biden called “highly unlikely” a month ago, have come in record time. In less than a week, the radical Islamist group had taken province after province to reach the capital.

Abuse and torture

Just a month ago, US troops quietly left Bagram Air Base, a facility that also served as a prison and in which cases of abuse and torture were documented in the early years of the war. This Sunday, the Associated Press listed Bagram among buildings already under Taliban control.

Biden inherited full withdrawal deal from Donald Trump. When he took office, he extended the term to do so and adopted, on August 31, what was originally scheduled to end in May of this year. Although there are still two weeks left before this date, we already know that the return of the troops will not go as planned.

Chaos and criticism

Since the announcement of its intention to continue with the withdrawal, Biden has been criticized by those who have pointed out that there is a danger of the Taliban returning.. Four presidents, two from each of the two major parties in the United States, have been in charge of the war in Afghanistan since 2001. When he took office, Biden was frank: “I’m not going to give this responsibility to a fifth. “

Over the past week, when the radical Islamist group’s comeback became evident, the US government maintained its position. “A year or five more years of US military presence would not have made any difference if the Afghan army could not or did not want to control its own country,” Biden said in a statement. Despite this, authorized the deployment of some 6,000 soldiers into the chaos to ensure “an orderly and safe withdrawal of personnel” from the North American country and its allies.

But if Washington was planning a smooth evacuation of the embassy, ​​that was ruled out as soon as it became clear that Ashraf Ghani’s government would not hold up for long. This Sunday, the diplomatic headquarters suspended consular operations and issued an alert. “The security situation in Kabul is changing rapidly, including at the airport. There are reports that the airport is under fire. Therefore, we call on US citizens to seek refuge wherever they are, ”the advisory reads.

As news from Kabul confirmed the Taliban’s entry into the capital, the White House was virtually silent. Biden spent the weekend at Camp David, a residence outside of Washington where US presidents often rest. His schedule doesn’t show him with a public activity until next Wednesday.

The administration barely showed a photo of the president receiving a report via video conference. The President and Vice President met with their national security team and senior officials to hear information on the withdrawal of our civilian personnel from Afghanistan, the evacuation of those who requested special visas and other allies Afghans, “the official tweet read.

The one who came out to talk was State Secretary Antony Blinken. Its main mission was to try to stop, without success, the comparisons with the end of the Vietnam War. “We entered Afghanistan 20 years ago with a mission and that mission was to confront those who attacked us on September 11th. This mission was a success, ”he insisted. But both the outcome and the extent of the war fuel comparisons.

Endless war

The United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) overthrew the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001, following Republican George W. Bush’s decision to wage war on terrorism and al-Qaeda as a result of the attack on the Twin Towers.

A year later, the president promised “to help rebuild an Afghanistan free from this evil and a better place to live.” Until 2009, the US Congress authorized him $ 38 billion to do so, according to the Council on Foreign Relations. In the middle, the Asian country has sanctioned a constitution, elected president and members of both houses of its parliament.

The arrival of Democrat Barack Obama at the White House in 2009 meant another military dispatch to Afghanistan. During his presidency, US assassinated al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden, in Pakistan, but the troops also remained during his two terms.

In 2013, the Afghan army took over the security of the country. Since, the official narrative of the US-NATO coalition was that it was training the Afghans to hold on. But two years ago, a Washington Post report showed how the United States was hiding evidence that it was in a war it couldn’t win. “If the American people saw the extent of this dysfunction … 2,400 lives lost,” read one of the testimonies collected by the newspaper. The number refers only to the lives of US military personnel. The Associated Press estimates that 66,000 members of the Afghan army and police and 47,245 civilians have been killed. On the Taliban side, the figure is 51,191.

In 2017, Trump took over with the idea of ​​leaving Afghanistan and ending what he saw as eternal wars in which the United States spent a lot while its allies profited. In February 2020, he announced a deal with the Taliban: the United States would withdraw and the Asian country would not be used in terrorist activities. Last November, after the Republicans were defeated in the election, the Defense Ministry said that in January of this year there would be only 2,500 troops in Afghan territory, as the agreement proposed. .

After taking over, Biden kept it. While collapse is possible, no intelligence or security report had told him it was so close.