History repeats itself. The incessant flight of Chinook and Black Hawk helicopters over the roofs of the US Embassy in Kabul has accelerated the evacuation of legation personnel this Sunday, as in a carbon copy of the Saigon rout in 1975. Two exits marked by the feeling of urgency and the tacit assumption of defeat, although the White House insists on its decision to leave the Central Asian country due to impotence in the face of the inability of the Afghan leaders to assume their own destiny, the generalized corruption and the demoralization and hardship of the local Army. Twenty years of combat mission, 83,000 million dollars invested in the training of the 300,000 troops of the Afghan armed forces, vanish on the threshold of a new Islamic Emirate - the name used by the Taliban-,when the world had barely managed to forget the atrocities of the so-called ISIS Caliphate in Syria and Iraq.
More information
Classrooms banned for university students in the 'new' Herat
Taliban enter Kabul after president's departure
“The [Afghan] armed forces have not been able to defend the country, and that has happened much faster than we anticipated.
But this is not Saigon ”, stressed this Sunday the Secretary of State, Antony Blinken.
Speaking to two television channels, the head of US diplomacy defended the withdrawal, convinced that the Taliban would have launched the offensive even if the US troops remained in Afghanistan.
"The idea that the
status quo
could have been maintained
by continuing our military presence there is simply wrong, "Blinken said in response to criticism of the departure despite the rapid deterioration of the situation. Because in addition, the objectives that the US set itself in 2001 have been met, Blinken stressed: to end Osama bin Laden and "juggle the operational capacity of Al Qaeda," the author of the 9/11 attacks in the US.
With the transfer of a small group of diplomats, those who were to remain as a checkpoint after the final withdrawal of the troops, to a compound at the Kabul international airport for an indefinite period, in addition to the closure of the mission and the destruction of documents and material sensitive, Washington has released the moorings of its longest war in the face of the Taliban's military walk, which this Sunday began to enter Kabul, after an offensive launched in May, when the withdrawal of the international coalition troops began. The Taliban advance has assumed a galloping character this past week, during which they have conquered all major cities except Kabul.
Officials of the Biden Administration tried to confirm early in the day if the radicals were still at the gates of the capital or some groups of militiamen have formed an outpost in the urban area, as advanced by a Taliban spokesman, "to guarantee order." in areas abandoned by regular forces. It was also impossible to know whether the chargé d'affaires, Ross Wilson, and his small team will remain at the airport or will be evacuated along with other fellow citizens, the most likely eventuality. In fact, Wilson, head of the legation, would have already left the country according to Reuters. Completing the departure from the diplomatic mission will take days, even weeks, a period during which Washington hopes the Taliban will not force their way into Kabul.The special envoy for Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, on Saturday asked the insurgents to postpone their entry into Kabul until the end of the US evacuation. A total of 5,000 soldiers - 2,000 more than initially planned - will guarantee the exit.
Under the supervision of the Central Command from its base in Qatar, the Pentagon closely follows the movements of the insurgents, who this Sunday took the Bagram air base, a symbol of the US military presence and whose command was handed over to the Afghan forces in July. Headquarters of the United States during the last 20 years, the discreet Bagram march, where 10,000 people were concentrated,
de facto
represented
the end of the American intervention in Afghanistan, much longer than that of the British Empire in the 19th century or the decade of Soviet presence in the eighties. Even more worrying than Bagram's fall is the nearby Parwan prison, which housed thousands of inmates, including al Qaeda militants.
Join EL PAÍS now to follow all the news and read without limits
Subscribe here
The succession of miscalculations that a growing chorus of voices attribute to the Biden Administration has been compounded by the lack of a contingency plan for an orderly exit, according to critics. "An unmitigated disaster," Republican Senator Ben Sasse has described the rapidly deteriorating situation on the ground. A member of the House Intelligence committee, Sasse blamed Biden and his predecessor, Donald Trump, on Sunday for a withdrawal that has precipitated the collapse. “History must make this clear: American troops have not lost this war. It was Donald Trump and Joe Biden who deliberately decided to lose her, ”Sasse said in a statement. “America is going to regret it.The imminent defeat [of the Afghan authorities] is going to seriously damage US intelligence and provide the jihadists with a safe haven in Afghanistan again, "he concluded, shortly before the news of President Ashraf Ghani's escape. Numerous Sasse co-religionists, such as Congressman Michael McCaul, have joined in the criticism. "We are going to go back to the situation before 9/11, [Afghanistan] as a breeding ground for terrorists," the latter told CNN.
More information
Latest News from Afghanistan |
The militia advances in Kabul after the departure of the Afghan president from the country
The withdrawal agreement signed by Republican Donald Trump with the Taliban in February 2020, which established May 1 as the exit deadline, has tied the hands of President Joe Biden, according to the White House version. The Democratic leader criticized this Saturday the pact of his predecessor, whom he blamed in part for the disaster, "for allowing the [insurgent] group to consolidate its strongest military position since 2001." Through a statement published hours after the fall of Mazar-i-Sharif - but before the capture of Jalalabad, in the early hours of this Sunday - President Biden defended his withdrawal plans. “I had to choose: either follow the [Trump] agreement, with a brief extension to get our forces and those of the allies safely out,or increase our presence and send more troops to fight once again in another country's civil conflict ”. This brief extension ends on August 31, with a further extension until September 11, for the final evacuation of the country.
But when it comes to attributing responsibilities, many in Washington remember the recommendation of a group of congressional experts that earlier this year urged Biden to skip the May 1 date and slow down the withdrawal of troops, given that a strict application of the Trump's deal could lead Afghanistan straight into civil war. Pentagon officials seconded that proposal, but Biden has not wavered in his decision, only allowing the additional deployment of 5,000 soldiers to facilitate the evacuation of diplomats and officials from the legation, as well as the Afghans who have worked. for the USA
Amid the laments and reproaches to the White House for the hasty exit from Afghanistan, Biden's prophetic statements about the hypothetical fall of Afghanistan into the hands of the Taliban resound today with a thunderclap. “No, it is not inevitable, because there are 300,000 [Afghan] troops well equipped, as well as the armed forces of any country in the world, and an Air Force, compared to some 75,000 Taliban. It is not inevitable ”. He said it on July 8. "It is not true that the Afghan government is going to collapse," he reiterated. "Zero coincidences with Vietnam", he added that day, a month before the disbandment of the Black Hawks and the Chinooks over the Kabul sky.