US evacuates its staff from Kabul, refuses to be likened to the Saigon incident

WASHINGTON – Chinook helicopter United States of America (USA) flew over the country’s embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan , on a Sunday when diplomatic personnel were being transported to the airport. This happened after the group Taliban occupy the presidential palace in Kabul.

The scene of the helicopter evacuation was similar to the end of the Vietnam War, where American helicopters also evacuated diplomatic staff from the roof of the embassy in Saigon. However, Washington refuses to compare the incident in Kabul to the incident in Saigon decades ago.

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A comparative rejection of the incident was conveyed by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

In a series of US media interviews on Sunday, Blinken again defended President Joe Biden’s decision to pull US troops out of Afghanistan until it peaked in late August. The Biden government has shrugged off criticism that the rapid withdrawal of US troops is contributing to Afghanistan’s deteriorating security situation.

“Remember, this is not Saigon,” Blinken told CNN, referring to the fall of Saigon in 1975 by North Vietnamese forces at the end of the Vietnam War.

“We went to Afghanistan 20 years ago with one mission, and that mission was to deal with the people who attacked us on [serangan] 9/11, and we have succeeded in that mission.”

A photo immortalizing the US defeat in Vietnam, showing refugees boarding helicopters on the roof of a building, quickly spread on social networks after Washington said it recently sent some 3,000 US troops to help its embassy staff leave Afghanistan.

That troop deployment has increased, with Biden announcing on Saturday that he had allowed a total of about 5,000 troops to assist with the withdrawal of diplomatic personnel.

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