On April 30, 1975, the last of the US Army had left South Vietnam and Saigon to tender mercy of the Viet Cong. Not only did this mark the end of a 20-year conflict, but above all the withdrawal from America. A withdrawal not only from Vietnam, but also from the interventionist policy.
Since the United States had withdrawn from Saigon, it had gradually withdrawn into isolationism. Anti-war sentiment of the Vietnam War persisted and yet, while America still plays a major role in international politics, anti-war sentiment has been increasingly embraced by left and right movements. .
Recently from this week, President Joe Biden and his administration have begun a complete withdrawal from the Afghan conflict. The Taliban’s gains do not bode well for him politically.
As a result, the Taliban obtained large amounts of territory and currently threaten several large cities across the country. In the town of Kunduz, the Taliban quickly seized military bases, outposts and surrounding towns. In the nearby town of Pul-i-Khumri, the Taliban have seized several highways that are economic lifelines for Kabul. Meanwhile, the Taliban have secured the surrounding neighborhoods of the large city of Kandahar, a major hub of the Southern Province.
But the abandonment of Afghanistan not only signals the plight of many living in Afghanistan, but also serves as a further reminder that the United States is a bad ally.
When the Americans left Saigon city, they also left thousands of civilians, former allies and soldiers under the bus. The South Vietnamese ARVN (Army of the Republic of Vietnam) had been disintegrated and 250,000 people – the allies we had abandoned – had been murdered and tortured by the new communist government.
Hundreds of thousands of civilians are said to cling to helicopters to escape the regime of a government that has long been labeled an enemy. And thousands more would be “re-educatedâ€In impoverished camps.
America’s failed policies in the Middle East had also left their allies in a state of neglect. In Iraq In particular, the United States had thrown its Kurdish allies under the bus for Saddam Hussein, the Iranian Shah and for Erdogan.
In 1963, the United States not only had supported the coup that would soon lead to Saddam Hussein coming to power. When Kassam was ousted, the United States not only immediately threw our allies under the bus and ended military aid, but also provided Iraq with napalm to use against them.
In the early 1970s, Saddam Hussein was no longer useful to the Nixon administration, causing the rearmament of the Iraqi Kurds. However, Kissenger had no intention of creating a free Kurdish state after an agreement was reached with Hussein and the Shah despite pleading from our allies.
Again, in 1991, President George HW Bush called on the Iraqi people to Take the things over control. It was only when Iraqi Kurds and Shiites attempted this that the US military looked while Saddam Hussein violently silenced their rebels in northern Iraq.
And when we finally toppled Saddam Hussein, the US military was withdrawn by the Obama administration in 2011, just as Iraq could become a the democracy. In 2013, ISIS seized power after appeals for help faded from the Obama administration.
Many veterans and active soldiers who had cooperated with us to overthrow Hussein had been realized. And as the United States returned to Iraq to fight the terrorist group ISIS, we still received life-saving aid from the Syrian and Iraqi Kurds. Allies that we had before and that we will betray again after President Trump’s withdrawal from Northern syria.
For many, the war in Afghanistan is a matter of life and death. As the Taliban adopt a more repressive and fundamentalist view of Islam, it will have to remain less brutal to gain international recognition. But trusting our adversaries to be benevolent leaders has only disappointed us.
The United States faces a challenge in terms of foreign policy. After unleashing several endless wars abroad, the United States has created a path of destruction. Yet we refuse to end the conflicts we have started. Instead of ensuring peace and stabilization, we fed our allies wolves and the inconsistency caused by partisan politics made the United States only a worse ally.
