As the United States withdraws personnel from its embassy in Kabul and Taliban fighters enter the Afghan presidential palace, Secretary of State Antony Blinken has rejected comparisons to the Washington’s exit from Vietnam decades ago.
In a series of US media interviews on Sunday, Blinken defended President Joe Biden’s decision to pull US troops out of Afghanistan by the end of August, despite mounting criticism that the US withdrawal contributed to the Afghanistan's deteriorating security situation.
In an interview to CNN, Blinken said, the takeover of Kabul is not Saigon, referring to the fall of Saigon in 1975 at the end of the Vietnam War.
Also watch: Afghanistan: Taliban takes control of Kabul's presidential palace, Ashraf Ghani flees
Blinken said, the United States went to Afghanistan 20 years ago with one mission, and that mission was to deal with the people who attacked them on 9/11 – and the US has succeeded in that mission.