Biden Promises No Airlift Evacuations in Afghanistan - July 8, 2021

"Under no circumstances will you see people evacuated from the roof of the American embassy in Afghanistan."

BY AP & REUTERS

SEE: https://www.newsmax.com/headline/trump-afghanistan-statement-biden/2021/08/15/id/1032402/;

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:

As Afghanistan veered on the brink of collapse Sunday, former President Donald Trump slammed President Joe Biden for abandoning "the plan our Administration left for him — a plan that protected our people and our property, and ensured the Taliban would never dream of taking our Embassy or providing a base for new attacks against America."

"The plan would be guided by facts on the ground," Trump stressed as Biden blamed him for striking a peace deal with the Taliban in 2020 that Biden said Saturday had tied his hands.

"One more year, or five more years, of U.S. military presence, would not have made a difference if the Afghan military cannot or will not hold its own country," Biden said in a White House statement. "An endless American presence in the middle of another country's civil conflict was not acceptable to me."

He then blamed Trump for cutting a deal with the Taliban that he said left them "in the strongest position militarily since 2001," pulling 2,500 troops before he left office and imposing a May 1, 2021 deadline for withdrawing U.S. forces.

"When I became President, I faced a choice—follow through on the deal, with a brief extension to get our Forces and our allies' Forces out safely, or ramp up our presence and send more American troops to fight once again in another country's civil conflict," Biden said in the statement.

But Trump was having none of that.

"Joe Biden gets it wrong every time on foreign policy and many other issues. Everyone knew he couldn’t handle the pressure. Even Obama’s Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, said as much...," Trump said in one of his "Save America" statements.

"After I took out ISIS, I established a credible deterrent," Trump said in a statement released late Saturday. "That deterrent is now gone. The Taliban no longer has fear or respect for America or America’s power. What a disgrace it will be when the Taliban raises their flag over America’s Embassy in Kabul. This is a complete failure through weakness, incompetence, and total strategic incoherence."

Afghanistan’s embattled president left the country Sunday, joining his fellow citizens and foreigners in a stampede fleeing the advancing Taliban and signaling the end of a 20-year Western experiment aimed at remaking Afghanistan.

The Taliban, who for hours had been on the outskirts of Kabul, announced soon after they would move further into a city gripped by panic where helicopters raced overhead throughout the day to evacuate personnel from the U.S. Embassy. Smoke rose near the compound as staff destroyed important documents. Several other Western missions also prepared to pull their people out.

Civilians fearing that the Taliban could reimpose the kind of brutal rule that all but eliminated women’s rights rushed to leave the country as well, lining up at cash machines to withdraw their life savings. The desperately poor — who had left homes in the countryside for the presumed safety of the capital — remained in their thousands in parks and open spaces throughout the city.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken rejected comparisons to the U.S. pullout from Vietnam, as many watched in disbelief at the sight of helicopters landing in the embassy compound.

President Ashraf Ghani flew out of the country, two officials told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to brief journalists. Abdullah Abdullah, the head of the Afghan National Reconciliation Council, later confirmed that Ghani had left.

“The former president of Afghanistan left Afghanistan, leaving the country in this difficult situation," Abdullah said. "God should hold him accountable.”

In a stunning rout, the Taliban seized nearly all of Afghanistan in just over a week, despite the billions of dollars spent by the U.S. and NATO over nearly two decades to build up Afghan security forces. Just days earlier, an American military assessment estimated it would be a month before the capital would come under insurgent pressure.

Instead, the Taliban swiftly defeated, co-opted, or sent Afghan security forces fleeing from wide swaths of the country, even though they had some air support from the U.S. military. But a peace deal with the U.S. limited direct military action targeting them, allowing them to prepare and move quickly to seize key areas when President Joe Biden announced his plans to withdraw all American forces by the end of this month.

Many quickly drew comparisons between the fall of Kabul — helicopters rumbling overhead evacuating American diplomats — to the aftermath of the Vietnam War, which saw even more chaotic airborne rescues. Pressed on CNN about it, Blinken said: “This is not Saigon.” However, he acknowledged the “hollowness” of the Afghan security forces.

“From the perspective of our strategic competitors around the world, there’s nothing they would like more than see us in Afghanistan for another five, 10, 20 years,” he said. “It’s simply not in the national interest.”

On Sunday, the insurgents entered the outskirts of Kabul but initially remained outside of the city's downtown. Meanwhile, Taliban negotiators in Kabul discussed the transfer of power, said an Afghan official who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. It remained unclear when that transfer would take place and who among the Taliban was negotiating.

The negotiators on the government side included former President Hamid Karzai and Abdullah, who have been vocal critics of Ghani.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss details of the closed-door negotiations, described them as “tense.” Karzai himself appeared in a video posted online, his three young daughters around him, saying he remained in Kabul.

“We are trying to solve the issue of Afghanistan with the Taliban leadership peacefully,” he said, while the roar of a passing helicopter could be heard overhead.

Afghanistan’s acting defense minister, Bismillah Khan Mohammadi, didn’t hold back his criticism of the fleeing president.

“They tied our hands from behind and sold the country,” he wrote on Twitter. “Curse Ghani and his gang.”

The insurgents tried to calm residents of the capital, insisting their fighters wouldn’t enter people’s homes or interfere with businesses. They also said they’d offer an “amnesty” to those who worked with the Afghan government or foreign forces.

“No one’s life, property, and dignity will be harmed and the lives of the citizens of Kabul will not be at risk,” the insurgents said in a statement.

But there have been reports of revenge killings and other brutal tactics in areas of the country the Taliban have seized in recent days.

And on Sunday, panic set in as many rushed to leave the country through the Kabul airport, the last route out of the country as the Taliban now hold every border crossing. NATO said it was “helping to maintain operations at Kabul airport to keep Afghanistan connected with the world.”

One Afghan university student described feeling betrayed as she watched the evacuation of the U.S. Embassy.

“You failed the younger generation of Afghanistan,” said Aisha Khurram, 22, who is now unsure of whether she’ll be able to graduate in two months' time. “A generation ... raised in modern Afghanistan was hoping to build the country with their own hands. They put blood, efforts, and sweat into whatever we had right now."

The U.S. decided a few days ago to send in thousands of troops to help evacuate some personnel, and two officials said Sunday that American diplomats were being moved from the embassy to the airport. Military helicopters shuttled between the embassy compound and the airport, where a core presence will remain for as long as possible given security conditions.

The officials were not authorized to discuss diplomatic movements and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The flights began a few hours after the Taliban seized the nearby city of Jalalabad — which had been the last major city besides the capital not in their hands.

Meanwhile, wisps of smoke could be seen near the embassy's roof as diplomats urgently destroyed sensitive documents, according to two American military officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the situation. The smoke grew heavier over time in the area, home to other nation's embassies as well.

Afghan officials said the militants also took the capitals of Maidan Wardak, Khost, Kapisa, and Parwan provinces on Sunday.

The insurgents also seized the land border at Torkham, the last not in their control, on Sunday. Pakistan’s Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed told local broadcaster Geo TV that Pakistan halted cross-border traffic there after the militants seized it.

Later, Afghan forces at Bagram airbase, home to a prison housing 5,000 inmates, surrendered to the Taliban, according to Bagram district chief Darwaish Raufi. The prison at the former U.S. base held both Taliban and Islamic State group fighters.

Material from Reuters and the Associated Press was used in this story.