On Thursday, it was revealed that a classified State Department cable warned Secretary of State Antony Blinken that Kabul would quickly fall into Taliban hands after the August 31 troop withdrawal deadline.
Ultimately, the Afghan army completely collapsed in a matter of days, and the entire country soon followed.
This news came from a report in the Wall Street Journal.
“About two dozen State Dept officials serving at Kabul embassy sent an internal memo to Secretary of State Blinken & another top State Dept official last month warning of the potential collapse of Kabul soon after the Aug. 31 troop withdrawal deadline.”https://t.co/y9c5rN554o pic.twitter.com/vYI5NqCJxx
— Jerry Dunleavy (@JerryDunleavy) August 19, 2021
State Department Memo Warned Of Coming Collapse
WSJ reported, “About two dozen State Department officials serving at the embassy in Kabul sent an internal memo to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and another top State Department official last month warning of the potential collapse of Kabul soon after the Aug. 31 troop withdrawal deadline, according to a U.S. official and a person familiar with the cable.”
The State Department memo warned that the Taliban would quickly gain control of Afghanistan and “offered recommendations on ways to mitigate the crisis and speed up an evacuation.”
“The cable, dated July 13, also called for the State Department to use tougher language in describing the atrocities being committed by the Taliban,” reported WSJ.
The news outlet continued, “The classified cable represents the clearest evidence yet that the administration had been warned by its own officials on the ground that the Taliban’s advance was imminent and Afghanistan’s military may be unable to stop it.”
Prior to this warning, on July 8, President Biden said that Kabul would not repeat the mistakes made in Saigon in 1975.
A reporter asked Biden, “Mr. President, some Vietnamese veterans see echoes of their experience in this withdrawal in Afghanistan. Do you see any parallels between this withdrawal and what happened in Vietnam?”
Internal State Department cable warned Blinken of pending Afghanistan collapsehttps://t.co/htEgBJgIUb pic.twitter.com/r1EyFCi22S
— Fox News (@FoxNews) August 19, 2021
Biden: ‘The Taliban Is Not The North Vietnamese Army’
Biden responded, “None whatsoever. Zero. What you had is you had entire brigades breaking through the gates of our embassy — six, if I’m not mistaken.”
“The Taliban is not the South — the North Vietnamese army,” Biden said. “They’re not — they’re not remotely comparable in terms of capability.”
Biden added, “There’s going to be no circumstance where you see people being lifted off the roof of an embassy in the — of the United States from Afghanistan.”
“It is not at all comparable,” the president finished.
Reports indicate that there are as many as 15,000 Americans still trapped behind enemy lines in Afghanistan.
Yesterday, the Pentagon said they were “unsure” how many Americans are still there.
This article was originally published by the Political Insider. Read the original article.
The Political Insider publishes the authentic conservative voices of political insiders and award-winning contributors who believe in personal responsibility, limited government, free markets, individual liberty, traditional American values, and a strong national defense. Each one is committed to combating the overwhelming liberal bias in today’s media to give you, the reader, the unedited facts on real issues.
