Afghanistan (Washington Insider Magazine) -The Taliban took over the Afghan capital city of Kabul On Aug. 15 without much resistance although they should’ve been outnumbered by a force at least three its size.
They entered the presidential palace untethered as the Afghan president, Ashraf Ghani, fled the country despite in May telling the U.S.-based Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) in May that he would “die for my country.” Heart-wrenching videos from the Kabul airport show local citizens holding onto the side of a U.S. Air Force plane as it takes off in a desperate attempt to flee the country. Multiple people were shot at the airport as they tried to leave, and at least five people were killed early Aug. 16., two of whom by the U.S. military.
The latest development marked the Taliban’s renewed control over Afghanistan after 20 years of fighting against the U.S. military and its NATO allies. In 2001, the U.S. invaded Afghanistan following the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington.
“Today, I came across a hard choice; if I should stand to face the armed Taliban who wanted to enter the palace, or leave the dear country that I dedicated my life to protecting and caring for the past twenty years,” said exiled Afghan president Ghani in a Facebook post from an undisclosed location. “In order to avoid the flood of bloodshed, I thought it was best to get out.”
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin sent in an additional 1,000 troops to oversee the evacuation of the embassy, redirecting them from their initial destination of Kuwait, bringing the total U.S. troops 6,000 people. The evacuation of the embassy was completed and marked by the taking down of the U.S. flag. Images of a helicopter swooping doing over the embassy lead some analysts to compare this fall with that in Vietnam, during the 1975 fall of Saigon in Vietnam.
In an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken summarized the view shared by the U.S. President Joe Biden that the mission in Afghanistan, as it stood originally, was accomplished.
“We were in Afghanistan for one overriding purpose: to deal with the folks who attacked us on 9/11. […] And over those 20 years, we brought [Osama] bin Ladin to justice, we vastly diminished the threat posed by [terrorist group] al-Qaida in Afghanistan to the United States to the point where it’s not capable of conducting such an attack again from Afghanistan,” he said. “We’re going to keep in place in the region the capacity to see any re-emergence of a terrorist threat and to be able to deal with it. “
In a statement on Aug. 14, President Joe Biden affirmed his reasoning for leaving the country. He noted that he executed a deal he inherited from his predecessor, former President Donald Trump, who engaged in talks with the Taliban. He, in turn, for Biden’s resignation after the Taliban took power.
“One more year, or five more years, of U.S. military presence would not have made a difference if the Afghan military cannot or will not hold its own country,” President Biden said.
He added, “I was the fourth President to preside over an American troop presence in Afghanistan—two Republicans, two Democrats. I would not, and will not, pass this war onto a fifth.”
President Biden is set to address the United States at 3:45PM EST today.
