Why Are People Comparing Afghanistan To The Fall Of Saigon?

Explanation:

surface of Afghan people crowding airports and clambering on top of planes in the hope of fleeing the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, politicians and veterans in the U.S. are joining a mounting wave of criticism calling this President Joe Biden's "Saigon moment."

Biden told reporters last month the U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan would not be comparable to what occurred when the capital of South Vietnam fell to the North Vietnamese in late April 1975. But the speed with which the Taliban triggered the collapse of the Afghanistan government and the evacuation of the U.S. Embassy in Kabul has led many to draw those comparisons.

Biden announced in April his administration aimed to finish its planned U.S. troop withdrawal before the end of the summer. As the months ticked past, the Taliban expanded its reach in the country by capturing major provinces and continued to escalate its efforts through the last week.

Over the weekend, the Taliban surrounded Kabul, Afghanistan's capital city, and completed its takeover. U.S. State Department officials said people working in the U.S. Embassy were successfully evacuated to the Hamid Karzai International Airport.

Comparisons are being drawn between the fall of Saigon in 1975 and the fall of Afghanistan following the recent collapse of the Afghanistan government. Above, Afghan people climb atop a plane as they wait at the Kabul airport in Kabul on Monday after a stunningly swift end to Afghanistan's 20-year war, as thousands of people mobbed the city's airport trying to flee the group's feared hardline brand of Islamist rule.