US President Joe Biden, who did not rule out Taliban reign in Afghanistan on July 17, announcing the end of his country’s military presence on the eve of the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, did not expect Kabul to become another Saigon for his country on August 15. And the government will challenge him seriously.
The Taliban took control of Afghanistan much faster than US officials expected, and the takeover became so heavy and expensive for Washington that when a CNN reporter called it another pawn for the United States, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken compared Afghanistan to Vietnam. But he rejected the fact that Afghanistan has become even worse for Vietnam than Washington.
Blinken told CNN about the early and hasty departure of his embassy staff in Kabul that Afghanistan could not be compared to Saigon.
While avoiding answering the question of why things were going so fast, the US Secretary of State did not want to accept the defeat of the Biden administration in Afghanistan as the defeat of US forces in the Vietnam War.
He blamed the current crisis in Afghanistan on the training of US officials and himself, talking about the training and equipment of 300,000 Afghan troops, and said the reality was that the Afghan Armed Forces were the culprits. They could not defend the country and it happened faster than we expected.
“Remember, we only went to Afghanistan on a mission, and that mission was to take revenge on the 9/11 agents, and we were successful in that operation,” he said.
“Staying in Afghanistan for more than 5 years and 10 years is not in our national interest,” Blinken said. The Russians were in Afghanistan for a long time in the twentieth century. We were twice as many as the Russians in Afghanistan, and was that for our national interests? I do not think so.
Unable to question how the Taliban would take control of Afghanistan after two decades and at the expense of US and US officials, Biden warned the Taliban of international support and the end of sanctions only in It is possible that the basic rights of Afghans, especially women, are respected and that the country does not again become a safe haven for terrorists.
The rapid development of Afghanistan is more than Biden and his government imagined.
In fact, developments in Afghanistan went much faster than Biden government officials had imagined, with Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, acknowledging after the Taliban take control of Afghanistan. The country is surprised, but despite all these developments, Biden is committed to its decision to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan.
“On the day the Taliban took control of the Afghan capital, CIA Director Bill Burns was in the Middle East and North Africa on a week-long trip to meet with his regional counterparts and was in Egypt,” Axius News reported.
Burns’ foreign trip reflects the fact that the CIA did not expect an immediate crash.
Other US leaders, most recently Gen. Mark Millie, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have acknowledged that Biden and the US military have shared this view.
“There were different scenarios for the collapse, but I or others did not see any evidence of the collapse of this army or government (Afghanistan) in 11 days,” Milli told a news conference.
In his first reaction since the fall of Ashraf Ghani, US President Joe Biden said that the situation in Afghanistan had deteriorated sooner than we had anticipated.
“We have spent more than $ 1 trillion there over the last 20 years,” the president said four days before the fall of Ashraf Ghani’s government. We have trained more than 300,000 Afghan troops and equipped them with modern equipment.
“We have lost thousands of American troops,” he said, stressing that Afghanistan’s leaders must unite and come together. They must fight for themselves and their nation.
In an interview with ABC News presenter George Stephanopoulos, four days after the fall of Ashraf Ghani’s government and the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan, Biden said in an interview with ABC News host George Stephanopoulos: There was no way out of the chaos, but I do not know how.
The ABC presenter challenged him over his July 7 statement that the Taliban’s dominance in Afghanistan was inevitable, and asked if security information about the situation in Afghanistan was incorrect and when he underestimated such information.
Biden replied: “I think if we go back and look at the intelligence reports, we will see that there is no consensus. These reports said that such a scenario is more likely to happen at the end of the year.”
The ABC News presenter told Biden that he did not mention the time period at that time. Biden simply replied: Yes.
The US president once again blamed the Afghan government and military for the failure and Taliban domination.
He also said that Washington is committed to expelling all Americans from Afghanistan, even if the operation ends after the deadline for leaving Afghanistan (August 31).
Earlier, Fox News quoted Biden as saying that US officials had warned Biden that his expectations of a full withdrawal from Afghanistan by August 31 were not possible.
US officials say it would be “challenging” to meet the Biden deadline for a full withdrawal from Afghanistan by August 31, as US troops continue to enter Afghanistan to facilitate the evacuation, and how could a complete evacuation date occur.
“I am now the fourth US president to lead the war in Afghanistan,” Biden said. I will not delegate this responsibility to the fifth president. I know that my decision to leave Afghanistan will be criticized a lot, but I prefer to live with all these criticisms to pass the decision (to leave Afghanistan) to another president.
