Pulling out of Afghanistan could lead to 'another Saigon,' counterterrorism expert warns

Yahoo ^ | September 5, 2019 | Michael Isikoff

[NorseViking]

A draft U.S. peace deal with the Taliban could result in “another Saigon” in which the Afghan government is toppled from power and its leaders executed after U.S. troops withdraw, warns a former top FBI counterterrorism agent and international security consultant.

“If we continue the negotiations only between us and between the Taliban, that is not a withdrawal — that is another Saigon,” said Ali Soufan, one of the FBI’s lead agents targeting al-Qaida before the 2001 terror attack, when the group was headquartered in Afghanistan under the protection of the Taliban. “Because, you know, we’re telling the Afghan government, we’re telling the Afghani security forces, we’re telling the Afghani army, ‘We’re out of here.’”

In April 1975, as Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City) fell to North Vietnamese troops, U.S. personnel in the South Vietnamese capital organized a chaotic evacuation by helicopter. South Vietnamese government officials were taken captive, imprisoned, exiled or executed.

[thoughtomator]

He’s a Muslim and a former FBI agent, which means that anything he says is likely to be the precise opposite of what is true.

[Little Ray]

It will inevitably lead to the Taliban winning.
The ‘government’ of Afghanistan is corrupt, incompetent, and hindered by a lack of national identity.
The Taliban works within tribalism and will, inevitably, overthrow the Afghani government and take over, put Afghanistan right back at square one.
We never should tried national building there. We should have arranged an extinction event and left the Taliban figure how to rule the corpses.

[lurk]

Our lesson is the same as Vietnam. We are visitors fighting an organic foe that is supported and supplied by a compliant civilian population soaked in ancient savagery.

[angcat]

Go to hell this expert is a piece of shit. Let his children die in a useless war.