QuoteThe Taliban are poised to take full control of the Afghan capital, Kabul, after their fighters took up positions on the outskirts of the city, and the US sent helicopters to evacuate diplomats from its embassy.
In deeply humiliating scenes for the Biden administration, embassy personnel were ferried by military helicopter from the compound to the nearby airport. Diplomatic armoured SUVs could be seen leaving. The exodus began early on Sunday after the insurgents captured the eastern city of Jalalabad.
Wisps of smoke could be observed near the embassy roof, as diplomats urgently destroyed sensitive documents, US military officials told the Associated Press. British embassy staff were also scrambling to leave the country, with the ambassador due to fly out.
One has to ask what exactly has been achieved in Afghanistan in the last 20 years with the Taliban poised to take Kabul. They have already taken Bagram air base and the Afghan army has literally crumbled in the face of the Taliban advance.
Wit the US and UK sending thousands of troops to aid the evacuation of Kabul, one has to ask what the families of of soldiers who died in the conflict feel like today.
Why couldn't the might of the US military defeat the Taliban and will Saigon 1975 rear its ugly head as the US leaves the country, defeated by the very force they went there to displace in the first place?