Afghanistan Falls to the Taliban
Aug. 17th, 2021 09:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
canyonwalkerThe Taliban has effectively toppled the official government in Afghanistan. It now controls dozens of provincial capitals as well as the capital city, Kabul. Government leaders have fled the country.
The resurgence of the Taliban is not a huge surprise as it has been building for months ahead of a planned U.S. military withdrawal. What has been a surprise is how fast the government and its military force crumpled. No one believed it would collapse in a space of two weeks. ...Well maybe not no one. More on that later.
Classic photo of Americans evacuating from Saigon by helicopter on a rooftop in 1975On July 8 President Biden insisted, "There's going to be no circumstance where you see people being lifted off the roof of a embassy"— contrasting the situation in Afghanistan to the US's ignominious exit from Vietnam in 1975.
Just days ago, though, there were helicopters evacuating American staff from the embassy. There was no climbing-the-rooftop scene captured on camera... though that was largely because the helicopters came a few days before Kabul fell. The US moved its embassy personnel to the airport. At the airport, however....
Recent photos of people chasing and clinging to planes at Kabul Airport in Afghanistan
At Kabul's airport in the past few days pictures and video show people on the tarmac, chasing aircraft trying to get aboard, and clinging to the fuselages, doors, wings, and landing gear.
The 1975 rooftop photo has, for better or worse, become the enduring collective memory of the US war in Vietnam. Likely images such as these will be how American remember our 20 year involvement in Afghanistan decades from now.
The resurgence of the Taliban is not a huge surprise as it has been building for months ahead of a planned U.S. military withdrawal. What has been a surprise is how fast the government and its military force crumpled. No one believed it would collapse in a space of two weeks. ...Well maybe not no one. More on that later.
Classic photo of Americans evacuating from Saigon by helicopter on a rooftop in 1975
Just days ago, though, there were helicopters evacuating American staff from the embassy. There was no climbing-the-rooftop scene captured on camera... though that was largely because the helicopters came a few days before Kabul fell. The US moved its embassy personnel to the airport. At the airport, however....
Recent photos of people chasing and clinging to planes at Kabul Airport in Afghanistan
At Kabul's airport in the past few days pictures and video show people on the tarmac, chasing aircraft trying to get aboard, and clinging to the fuselages, doors, wings, and landing gear.
The 1975 rooftop photo has, for better or worse, become the enduring collective memory of the US war in Vietnam. Likely images such as these will be how American remember our 20 year involvement in Afghanistan decades from now.
