Kabul evacuations: Echoes of 1975 US exit from Vietnam’s Saigon?
Al JazeeraBack in June, as Taliban built momentum, Biden himself addressed Saigon parallels and dismissed them out of hand. Thousands of US soldiers being sent to Afghanistan to evacuate embassy staff from Kabul as the Taliban pushes towards the city has revived memories of the fall of Saigon. “The latest news of a further drawdown at our embassy and a hasty deployment of military forces seem like preparations for the fall of Kabul,” leading Republican legislator Mitch McConnell said. “President Biden’s decisions have us hurtling toward an even worse sequel to the humiliating fall of Saigon in 1975.” Back in June, as the Taliban advance built momentum, Biden himself addressed the Saigon parallels and dismissed them out of hand. “There’s going to be no circumstance where you’ll see people being lifted off the roof of an embassy of the United States from Afghanistan,” he said.
History of this topic
Letters to the Editor: I escaped Saigon in 1975. Here’s my message to refugees and Afghanistan veterans
LA Times
Biden’s allies and critics battle over whether fall of Kabul is his ‘Saigon moment’
The Independent
Afghanistan “fall of Saigon” comparison: Why the right really wants to link Kabul to Vietnam.
Slate
‘Taliban is not the North Vietnamese army’: Biden comment resurfaces as US evacuates citizens from Afghanistan
The Independent)
Vietnam then, Afghanistan now: Tense Kabul evacuation rekindles memories of another US retreat
Firstpost
‘This is not Saigon’: Blinken defends US evacuations from Kabul
Al JazeeraDiscover Related
I escaped from Beirut 40 years ago – today’s carnage is an echo of the same brutal conflict
The Telegraph
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