Perhaps history has repeated itself in Afghanistan
The story of two wars in which America got involved and came out disappointed
A crowd of Afghans trying to board a US warplane at Kabul airport.
From the source
An American soldier carries his bag in preparation for withdrawal.
From the source
South Vietnamese climb the wall of the US Embassy in Saigon in a desperate attempt to escape.
From the source
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The chaotic scenes in Kabul a short time ago, as thousands of America's Afghan allies crowded the runways of Kabul airport in a desperate attempt to flee the country, are reminiscent of the final days of the Vietnam War, or, as some refer to it, "Biden's Saigon moment."
So what are the similarities?
Former US President Gerald Ford was meeting with his energy team when a deputy national security adviser walked in and presented him with a note warning that Saigon would fall faster than expected.
Congress and the Pentagon have been pressing the president for weeks to move faster to evacuate Americans and their South Vietnamese allies stuck there, and now time is running out.
This is what Ford faced on the evening of April 28, 1975, will history repeat itself?
After 20 years of American intervention, the "Taliban" seized the Afghan capital, Kabul, as the United States rushed to evacuate embassy staff and accelerate the rescue and transportation of Afghans collaborating with the American army.
Helicopters began landing at the US embassy on Sunday, and smoke rose from the roof of the embassy as diplomats destroyed documents to prevent them from falling into the hands of the Taliban.
"This is by no means Saigon," said Secretary of State Anthony Blinken.
But the scenes of chaos and despair at Kabul airport on Monday made those comparisons inevitable.
At least five people were killed, and US forces suspended air operations.
In a speech Monday afternoon, President Joe Biden defended the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, recalling Gerald Ford and the fall of Saigon.
Biden was at the time a new senator.
“I made a vow to the brave men and women who serve this nation that I would not ask them to continue to risk their lives in a military action that should have ended long ago,” Biden said. in Afghanistan.”
What happened in Vietnam?
In 1975, Ford met his National Security Council in the Roosevelt Room.
Although his predecessor, Richard Nixon, had pulled American forces out of the war two years earlier, diplomats, intelligence officers, and a few service members remained.
Some were in the defense attache's office at Tan Son Nhut Air Base, some were at the US Embassy downtown, and some were in their homes.
Additionally, thousands of South Vietnamese who helped the United States were begging for help out.
Ford ordered the evacuation via a C-130, but hours later, with two planes hovering in the sky, the Army decided they would not be able to land.
On one side of the airport two platoons of North Vietnamese troops were waiting, on the other hand, abandoned South Vietnamese equipment and thousands of desperate refugees blocked the runway.
It was late at night in Washington and the middle of the next day in Saigon when then-National Security Adviser and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger decided to report this news to Ford by phone.
At about the same time, the US ambassador to South Vietnam, Graham Martin, told the White House that embassy staff had been denied access to the airport.
Sea lanes have also been blocked.
The only way now was by helicopter.
Over the next 19 hours, more than 80 helicopters, each capable of carrying 50 people, carried Americans and Vietnamese to safety aboard American ships in the South China Sea.
Every 10 minutes, a new helicopter lands in the US embassy parking lot or at the collapsed airport to pick up another cargo.
Thousands of civilians climbed up the walls of the embassy, hoping to board a helicopter.
Embassy staff processed the visas as quickly as possible.
In a city apartment block, a mix of diplomats and intelligence personnel are trapped alongside their Vietnamese staff, so helicopters begin to land on a small rooftop in the compound to rescue them.
From a hotel half a mile away, United Press International photographer Hubert van S captured this evacuation, and it became the most famous photograph of the fall of Saigon.
This apartment building is sometimes referred to as the US Embassy.
By 4 a.m. on April 30, the order was given that only Americans would be allowed to board the remaining flights.
By five o'clock that morning, the ambassador was ordered to board the next helicopter.
In the event of his refusal, orders were issued to the Marines accompanying him to arrest him.
The last 200 Americans, mostly Marines, had to stay on the roof to get everyone out of the way.
By the time the last US helicopter took off at 7:53 a.m., more than 7,000 people (5,500 Vietnamese civilians and about 1,500 Americans) had been rescued, according to the State Department.
The number of refugees who failed to escape is estimated at 450.
Within hours, the South Vietnamese announced their unconditional surrender.
The Vietnam War ended.
However, that was not the end of the rescue.
The refugees continued to approach the US fleet by boat and by South Vietnamese helicopters.
Several South Vietnamese helicopters landed on American ships.
Meanwhile, at the White House, the president issued a statement: “This operation marks a remarkable chapter in the American experience.
I ask all Americans to stand together, to avoid accusations of what has happened in the past, to look forward to the many goals we share and to work together on the great tasks still to be accomplished.”
Former US President Gerald Ford was meeting with his energy team when a deputy national security adviser walked in and presented him with a note warning that Saigon would fall faster than expected.
Congress and the Pentagon have been pressing the president for weeks to move faster to evacuate Americans and their South Vietnamese allies stuck there, and now time is running out.
This is what Ford faced on the evening of April 28, 1975, will history repeat itself?
After 20 years of American intervention, the "Taliban" seized the Afghan capital, Kabul, as the United States rushed to evacuate embassy staff and accelerate the rescue and transportation of Afghans collaborating with the American army.
Memories of an old warrior
Juan Jose Valdez, a Marine veteran, remembered Vietnam when he heard the news of the chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan.
He was there in April 1975, on the roof of the US Embassy in Saigon, wondering if he and his comrades had been forgotten during the evacuation.
“The North Vietnamese were pouring in on tanks, and we stayed down so they wouldn't find out about us,” says Valdez, recalling events more than 45 years later, when the world's most powerful country was once again forced to improvise its withdrawal after a long struggle.
He says his orders were clear.
He was a Marine guard and had to protect the troops that remained in the embassy: 10 Marines were stationed with him on the roof of the building, waiting to be rescued.
They will be the last to leave Saigon.
On the morning of April 30, 1975, an American rescue helicopter appeared as a black dot on the horizon.
When I landed on the roof of the embassy, Valdez waited to board the plane until the end.
But while trying to climb he stumbled - and the helicopter started to climb without him.
A colleague realized that a member of the group was missing, and when they came down the slope, they saw him holding on to her.
They all helped him.
"I was the last American," remembers the Latin soldier, who left Vietnam.
The pain and despair experienced by Afghans today amid a chaotic retreat brings Valdez back to his last days in Saigon.
"The Vietnamese were telling us please, at least get my kids out, I'll stay here, take my little girl now," he says.
Kabul and Saigon: a fair comparison
Both wars were very costly to America, took about 20 years, and had a divisive effect on the American people.
Both also ended with surprising, much faster progress to the other side of the conflict.
On March 5, 1975, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) issued a memo estimating that South Vietnam would hold out at least until the beginning of 1976.
Less than two months later, American diplomats rushed to the roof of the embassy in Saigon to board the helicopter.
Similarly, US military intelligence has greatly underestimated the time it will take for the Taliban to regain control of Afghanistan, suggesting that Kabul will be under siege in September and fall two months later, but it has fallen faster than expected.
In both cases, the US policy of intervention failed spectacularly: the goal of establishing an independent democratic state in Afghanistan and Vietnam was not achieved.
After its victories in World War II, the Saigon disaster emerged as a big question mark over America's bragging about its supremacy.
Americans viewed themselves as the principal agents of the inevitable advance of liberal and democratic values, and endowed with knowledge, this self-identity at the core of the public aspect of American foreign policy.
Yet both Saigon in 1975 and Kabul in 2021 remain more than loopholes in this claim.
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