The Situation in Afghanistan ‘Is Not Saigon’
US succeeded in its original mission: clear out terrorists after 9/11, secretary of state says
Secretary of State Antony Blinken pushed back against those who have begun labeling the abrupt US pull-out from Afghanistan as President Biden's “Saigon,” referring to the hurried withdrawal of Americans at the end of US involvement in the Vietnam War.
US-backed South Vietnam fell two years later in what has since been seen as one of the most stinging symbols of American loss around the world.
Taliban fighters have overwhelmed Afghan troops in the weeks since US forces have departed Afghanistan, to the point of claiming the capital of Kabul.
US troops have entered Afghanistan in recent days to help safely evacuate Americans who had remained in the country.
Despite the fact that US withdrawal from Afghanistan was initially negotiated under the Trump administration, Republicans and others on the right have been harshly critical of President Biden's moves there.
US troops first entered Afghanistan in 2002, in response to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks because the hardline Taliban government in power at the time was giving safe haven to the al-Qaeda masterminds who plotted the attacks.
“Remember, this is not Saigon. We went to Afghanistan 20 years ago with one mission. And that mission was to deal with the folks who attacked us on 9/11. We have succeeded in that mission,” Blinken said. “The objective that we set bringing those who attacked us to justice, making sure they couldn’t attack us again from Afghanistan, we’ve succeeded in that mission. In fact we succeeded a while ago. At the same time, remaining in Afghanistan for another one, five, 10 years is not in the national interest.”
Furthermore, the status quo was never going to be “sustainable,” Blinken said, because the United States had already negotiated its withdrawal from Afghanistan.
“Again I come back to what we were talking about which is that status quo was not sustainable. Like it or not, there was an agreement that the forces would come out on May 1. Had we not begun that process which is what the president did and the Taliban saw, then we would have been back at war with the Taliban,” he said. “We would have been back at war with tens of thousands of troops having to go in because the 2,500 troops we had there and the air power would not have sufficed to deal with the situation especially as we see the hollowness of the Afghan security forces.
“From the perspective of our strategic competitors around the world there is nothing they would like more than to see us in Afghanistan for another five, 10, 20 years. It is simply not in the national interest,” Blinken added.
US forces have just one primary objective remaining, and that is to evacuate Americans safely, the secretary said.
“That is job number one. That is our number one mission. That is what we’re working on with a whole of government effort led by the State Department right now,” he said. “And so we have our personnel at the embassy. We have some American citizens who are still mostly bi-nationals left in Afghanistan. If they want to leave we have in place the means to do that.
“And beyond that, Jake, we have men and women who have worked for us, worked for the military, worked for the embassy over the years as interpreters and translators. We are doubling down on efforts to get them out if they want to leave and, also, other Afghans at risk who may not qualify for these so-called special immigrant visas the folks who worked directly for us qualify for, to do everything we possibly can for as long as we can, to get them out if that is what they want,” Blinken said.
In the end, Biden was left with a variety of bad options from which to choose by his predecessors, according to Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-Mass).
"One of the scenarios mapped out to this president was a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan. This was conceivable when he made the decision. But he made the tough and high-integrity call to not pass this failed war on to yet another president,” said Auchincloss, a Marine Corps veteran. “He was given a series of bad options from his predecessors and he looked at the situation on the ground and said, 'What do I get for another six months, for another year, another 10, 20 years?'
“The United States will win every battle that we fight with the Taliban and still lose the war, because to bring peace and justice to Afghanistan, we need political statesmanship and leadership, and yet the Afghan leaders were not even able to even provide rations and bullets to their front-line troops at their moment of reckoning,” the congressman added.
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