"What We Learn From History Is That We Do Not Learn From History:" Kabul, 2021.
Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, fell to the Taliban this past weekend and with it the effective government of that nation. It was not unexpected. The US and our NATO allies have been leaving for months, although there was still a sizable US presence in Afghanistan, as well as tens of thousands of native Afghanis who were associated with the Western Powers whose lives were therefore at risk after our departure. What shocked the world is the swiftness with which the Taliban captured Kabul, since the US blithely informed everyone that such an event was months away and the the western withdrawal could continue in a slow, steady pace. Then, pow! The Taliban took over, chaos reigned in Kabul as tens of thousands of people tried to get to the airport to escape on US transports out of the country, more Americans were trapped in other parts of Afghanistan... And President Joe Biden? He was on vacation. Yet, there was a sense of deja vu about this. We HAD been there before, in Saigon, when