Why Biden's Saigon moment will haunt the US
The comparisons to Saigon’s fall were mostly about Americans fleeing as their puppet government collapsed, but there was more to it than that. In Kandahar, the Taliban captured American-made helicopters — the same Blackhawk models used in the evacuation of Saigon. Of course, Kabul airport was evacuated by transport plane this week, and the choppers in the sky were massive Chinooks, but when the journalistic imagination roams free, poetic metaphors win the day.
One of the more surprising historical references was over at Politico’s Brussels newsletter. Reporting on European countries that have set up makeshift embassies in Kabul airport to process refugee applications, the author commented, “echoes of Sugihara and Zwartendijk.”
Chiune Sugihara was the famed Japanese diplomat who rescued the Mir yeshivah, going rogue to provide bochurim visas to Japan. His less famous Dutch colleague, Jan Zwartendijk, risked his family’s life to assist in saving Jews. Top marks to Politico for historical knowledge.
While this is undoubtedly an inglorious rout, there are precedents for snatching victory from the jaws of retreat. The trouble for the Biden administration is that they depend on a) being heavily outnumbered, and b) vowing heroically to come back one day, and doing so.
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