That is how the Wall street Journal described the scene in Kabul—comparing the US evacuation from Afghanistan on August 15th to that at the end of the failed Vietnam War in 1975. After Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani and his entourage fled the country and Taliban fighters entered the presidential palace—signaling an official transfer of power—Kabul’s population erupted into a state of panic and terror at the return of the Taliban. People thronged banks to try and withdraw their life savings, overwhelmed visa processing centers to enter other countries and those with financial means clogged Kabul streets and the airport, desperately attempting to flee the country (footage below). Those without financial means—the vast majority—will undoubtedly also try to flee, which is likely to precipitate a refugee crisis. Once again, US imperialism has yet more blood on its hands after another unjust war that was doomed from the beginning.
Sharon Smith
Sharon Smith is the author of Subterranean Fire: A History of Working-Class Radicalism in the United States (Haymarket, 2006) and Women and Socialism: Class, Race, and Capital (revised and updated, Haymarket, 2015).
