As Afghanistan continues to fall apart at the seams, the Taliban invasion of Kabul appears imminent, and the odds of the Ghani government handling that attack are not good. This has the US considering what to do about its embassy there.
Early in the day, officials talked openly about the idea that the embassy would be relocated to the Kabul Airport, to make it easier to evacuate outright if the security situation gets any worse. The situation getting worse seems inevitable.
Indeed, the Biden Administration is sending some 3,000 troops to Kabul to facilitate the evacuation, and is planning to remove all but the core staff . The troops are scheduled to arrive within 48 hours.
Even that may not be enough, however, and negotiator Zalmay Khalilzad is turning to the Taliban to try to prevail upon them to spare the US Embassy from attack if and when Kabul gets hit.
The exchange here is that the Taliban would promise not to attack the embassy, and that the US would keep open the possibility of giving foreign aid to the Taliban government in the future. The US, of course, did provide aid to the Taliban before the invasion and occupation.
That this is publicly being put on the table at all is interesting, as US officials talking about the possible evacuation earlier in the day were insisting that if the Taliban took over Afghanistan “with guns” they’d never be eligible for US aid.
That’s not a total shock, as the US historically throws aid around to almost everyone for the sake of influence. Still, holding it out publicly to the Taliban mid-takeover underscores how cynically they view the fall of Afghanistan for the sake of aid. US law would frown upon sending aid to the Taliban militants after the takeover, but as has been the case after recent coups in places like Egypt, what the law says doesn’t always impact policy.
Anyone got a spare Huey we could land on the Embassy roof to make it a perfect reenactment of Saigon?
And we’ll probably abandon all the Afghanis who cooperated with us too!
The who?..
It’s an open question if this is going to resemble Saigon ’75 or Tehran ’79… Or maybe an entirely new hell altogether.
No fan of the Amerikkkan-created Taliban by any means, but I do hope the Amerikkkan Embassy is blown to smithereens…give Amerikkka a taste of what our tax dollars do to the Palestinians.
Kill them all!
Kill all of whom? The Amerikkkan politicians who created each and every mess in the Middle East?
Yes and the generals too. And the troops
The Taliban were not created by Amerikastan. They were created to fight the Mujahideen warlord child sex slavers created by Amerikastan.
Jihadi: the Taliban had its roots in the Mujahadeen, created to combat the Soviet Occupation.
Only in that some of the original Taliban were ex Mujahideen, for instance Mullah Omar.
It were a fitting end. All that mountain of lies, destruction and slaughter on a helpless population, all the generals and colonels who made their careers, foreign service types and think-tankers, and merchants of death, all finally comes down to this; and from a state that can’t even provide the basics -education, health care, housing, clean environment- the basics of healthy community to its own sustaining population.
“Falling apart at the seams”?
Try “falling under a single unifying authority for the first time since 1979.”
Actually, the Soviets under General Gromov had pretty much turned the tide by 1988 or so.
Poor poor pitiful US.
I am embarrassed by the rank ignorance and cowardice of my fellow US citizens. The ones I talk to stand up for Earth and are proud of their representatives, Senators and military.
Really?!
Oh, People I bump into by chance at the store would be plenty brave and save someone from drowning,
as if uncle sam would abandon the opium production
The Taliban have friends in neighboring countries. The US embassy in Kabul will be abandoned within two days.
The US is back to offering a carpet of gold, the carpet of bombs having failed. But I think the Taliban have better offers.
Is US begging…?!
If this story doesn’t tell it all regarding the moral bankruptcy of the U.S. foreign policy I don’t know what would.
To Asians your word still means something and saving face is important to them. When I was in Korea and the locals duked it out it was the guy who got stomped that had to be held back by his friends from going back for more. We had a deal, a set date and we reneged on that deal. I doubt the 3000 troops we are sending in to “hold” Kabul will be making it out. And “Charles” wasn’t loaded down with Stingers to take out evac Hueys, the Taliban is.