In an interview with CNN on Sunday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken defended President Biden’s decision to pull troops out of Afghanistan as the US is in the process of evacuating from Kabul.
When Biden came into office in January, there were officially 2,500 US troops in Afghanistan. Hawks that were against the withdrawal argued that Biden could keep the small presence since no US troops were dying in combat. Blinken pointed that this was not an option because the only reason US troops weren’t being attacked was due to the US-Taliban peace deal, which was signed in February 2020 and called for all foreign forces to leave by May 1st.
“The idea that the status quo could have been maintained by keeping our forces there I think is simply wrong. The fact of the matter is, had the President decided to keep forces in Afghanistan beyond May 1st, attacks would have resumed on our forces. The Taliban had not been attacking our forces or NATO during the period from which the agreement was reached to May 1st,” Blinken said.
Blinken said the current Taliban offensive was inevitable. “The offensive you’re seeing across the country now to take these provincial capitals would have commenced, and we would have been back at war with the Taliban, and I’d probably be on this program today explaining why we were sending tens of thousands of American forces back into Afghanistan and back to war, something the American people simply don’t support,” he said.
Biden technically broke the US-Taliban deal by pushing back the May 1st withdrawal deadline to August 31st. The Taliban appeared to accept the new withdrawal date and has refrained from attacking foreign troops, although breaking the agreement had its consequences. The Taliban started its major offensive once May 1st passed. The collapse of the Afghan government was inevitable, but if Biden stuck to the original withdrawal deadline, it might not have happened so quickly.
While Blinken recognized the reality of what it would have meant for the US to stay, he rejected the comparison to the Vietnam War and the evacuation of the Saigon embassy. “This is not Saigon. We went to Afghanistan 20 years ago with one mission, and that mission was to deal with the folks who attacked us on 9/11. And we have succeeded in that mission,” he said, ignoring the failed regime change and nation-building project.
The US deployed 6,000 troops to Kabul to help evacuate the US embassy and get diplomatic personnel and Afghan citizens out of the country. The State Department confirmed Sunday that the embassy has been fully evacuated and that its staff is at the Kabul airport, which has been taken over by the US military.
“Proud” moments for Bush and Cheney.
Blinken actually said some truths. Man bites dog.
“The collapse of the Afghan government was inevitable, but if Biden stuck to the original withdrawal deadline, it might not have happened so quickly.”
I see no reason whatsoever to believe that. As soon as the US left, the Taliban were going to take over. If the US had fully withdrawn by May 1, the Taliban would have taken over a few weeks later. No differently, and no more slowly, than what is happening now. Whenever the US forces left, the phony “government” and “army” were doomed, at once. And, unlike our puppet regime in Saigon, the Kabul junta did not have enough support to put up any kind of resistance at all. It took over two years for the Saigan government to fall, after US troops left Vietnam in 1973. Even the pro Soviet regime in Kabul was able to hold out quite a bit longer than the current crowd of clowns, cowards, crooks, and collabos, after the Russians pulled out.
The Ghani regime was simply garbage. And the fact that it fell so quickly not only confirms that judgement, but makes it clear that the sooner it fell, the better, and that nothing short of continued US propping it up would ever have slowed that process down.
And as long as the Taliban didn’t, or doesn’t, open fire on American forces the number of dead might be held to a minimal.
And vice versa!
This a very dangerous situation. With thousands of Americans and collaborators advised by the USA to “shelter in place” but unable to get to the airport. Pressure is mounting on the military to establish “safe corridors” to the airport and to extract Americans and collaborators from their shelters. An Al Jazeera correspondent reported today that the US military has already killed two men believed to be Taliban fighters in “incidents.” Biden is taking a lot of flak for this disaster. He may sucomb to pressure to flex US muscle to save face and gain a short term reprieve from the bipartisan criticism. Whatever Biden’s intentions, it is hard to see how the US can get thousands of citizens and collaborators currently hiding from the Taliban safely to the airport without engaging Taliban forces.
I continue to hope my assessment is wrong. It is too early to say that the US military mission in Afghanistan it is over.