How 2021 'Kabul Evacuation' echoes the 1975 'Fall of Saigon', and US defeat
During the 1975 offensive, US officials were told to evacuate the city of Saigon. But because of continuing rocket fire on the nearby runways, US officials urged that any evacuation must take place by helicopter - an incident that mirrors Sunday's evacuation of US embassy in Kabul
Pictures showing US embassy officials being evacuated from Kabul on Sunday after the Taliban closed in the city are almost the mirror image of those taken during the "Fall of Saigon" in 1975, when US civilian and military personnel in Saigon were evaculated in Helicopter after the city was captured by the People's Army of Vietnam.
The incident, also known as the "Liberation of Saigon" by the North Vietnamese, saw the People's Army of Vietnam and the Viet Kong capture the South Vietnamese capital of Saigon - now called Ho Chi Min city, reports the Daily Mail.
During the offensive, US officials were told to evacuate the city. But because of continuing rocket fire on the nearby runways, US officials urged that any evacuation must take place by helicopter. So began Operation Frequent Wind, officially declared by the US radio stations putting Irving Berlin's White Christmas on repeat - the signal for US staff to begin evacuation.
Keep updated, follow The Business Standard's Google news channel
The embassy evacuation managed to fly out 978 Americans and about 1,100 Vietnamese citizens.
Ambassador Graham Martin was flown out to the USS Blue Ridge, where he pleaded for helicopters to return to the embassy. His pleas were overruled, though many locals were still rescued by sea and boats after.
Saigon was later turned over to the Communist Party of Vietnam.
On Sunday, US diplomats in Afghan capital of Kabul were ferried by helicopters to the airport from its embassy in the fortified Wazir Akbar Khan district. More American troops were being sent to help in the evacuations after the Taliban's surge brought the Islamist group to Kabul in a matter of days.
"Core" US team members were working from the airport, a US official said, while a NATO official said several European Union staff had moved to a safer location in the capital.
Earlier on Sunday, the insurgents captured the eastern city of Jalalabad without a fight, giving them control of one of the main highways into landlocked Afghanistan. They also took over the nearby Torkham border post with Pakistan, leaving Kabul airport the only way out of Afghanistan still in government hands.
After US-led forces withdrew the bulk of their remaining troops in the last month, the Taliban campaign accelerated as the Afghan military's defences appeared to collapse.
The Taliban said its rapid gains showed it was popularly accepted by the Afghan people.
The photographs, with some 46 years gap between them, immortalised America's defeat - first in Vietnam, and now maybe in Afghanistan.
