After just a week of fighting against newly equipped and highly trained Afghan government forces, the Taliban eventually regained the seat of power shortly after Western-backed Afghan President Asraf Ghani fled the country allegedly “to avoid bloodshed.”
Scenes of Taliban fighters on military jeeps entering Kabul while thousands of Afghans with their children and some precious possessions fleeing the capital reminds many of the Saigon incident when American forces and Western diplomats left Vietnam to the mercy of Vietnamese Communists in the seventies. Many observers are blaming United States president Joe Biden for this, saying that US forces should have stayed longer and should have negotiated a much better deal with the Talibans before Western forces allowed these Islamic insurgents entry.
The speed by which the Talibans assumed power is a shock especially since the United States spent billions of dollars equipping and “modernizing” the Afghan military. Shortly after US President Biden announced his decision for US forces to leave the war-torn country, hundreds of Taliban fighters suddenly sprouted out of nowhere and began fighting the remaining Afghani security forces.
Some analysts thought that the Afghan security forces would give the Talibans a fight but the contrary happened. The country’s security forces just “melted away”as Talibans occupied towns after towns. Many police forces assumed civilian attire just to avoid fighting the Talibans. Several top military generals of the military either joined the Taliban or fled with their families.
Horrific scenes of civilians clinching to the wheels of US military aircraft just to flee their country populated news agencies throughout the world. Men, women and children ran to embassies and airports just to catch a way out of the country.
Biden’s statement condemning the incident puts back the blame on him and his administration for not properly coordinating the withdrawal of US troops from the area.
