Why Kabul is not Saigon

The parallels drawn between Saigon in 1975 and Kabul in 2021 are misleading.

On April 23, 1975, United States President Gerald Ford proclaimed that the war in Vietnam was “finished as far as America is concerned”. A few days later, Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese forces while the US rushed its military and diplomatic personnel out of the country. The president’s words landed like shells of cold indifference on the ears of the South Vietnamese who had been promised support by successive US administrations, including Ford’s. Around half a century later, another US withdrawal agonises a country. A two-decade-long war has ended with the US hurrying its exit from Afghanistan. The Taliban has taken over Kabul and the people are running over each other to flee the country. President Joe Biden has said that he does not regret withdrawing troops from Afghanistan, and that the objectives of the war have been met. However, the goals of wiping out terrorism, nation building, political stability and peace stand like a ruin in the face of the empire. Many analogies are being made between these two wars. Parallels are being drawn between similar images of helicopters airlifting US diplomatic staff. Such comparisons, however, on the one hand, overlook the international developments of the last 50 years, and on the other, risk humanising the Taliban’s conquest of Afghanistan. The only similarity in these two cases is that they were both brought about by US imperialism and its failure to live up to its claims.