Experts weigh in on Afghan government collapse, Taliban in Kabul CNBC's 'Squawk Box' team discusses the fall of the Afghan government and the Taliban taking Kabul with Mick Mulvaney, former OMB director, and Donna ...
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"Experts" weigh in on Taliban capturing Kabul, Afghanistan August 15, 2021
In Afghanistan yesterday the inevitable occurred as the Taliban took over the capital Kabul much sooner than expected. Yes nothing is inevitable except ones death. Yet anyone following the events in Afghanistan these past few weeks with the Taliban securing Afghan border cities with neighboring Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tadzhikistan as Kabul's government troops easily disintegrated plus the Taliban taking areas just south of the capital made it appear the Afghan government would fall in a matter of weeks.
Not so. Yesterday the Taliban flag over the capital. Somewhat earlier in the day Afghan President Ashraf Ghani had fled in a helicopter filled with bags of cash some of it strewn to the ground as he took off. As some the money couldn't fit in his helicopter four other cars were dispatched stuffed with the loot was also seen fleeing.
Meanwhile US military helicopters were furiously evacuating US embassy personnel. A scene reminiscent of US helicopters evacuating embassy personnel as Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese in 1975.
Significantly as all this was happening the Russian embassy in Kabul remained fully functional operating normally with Taliban sentries peacefully outside the compound having replaced the government sentries that had fled.
In the coming days many commentators will offer their assessments. Undoubtedly some will condemn Biden for abandoning the country. Others may envision the Taliban returning to governing the country as it did for 5 plus years before Dubya Bush invaded the country in October 2001; going after Osama bin Laden, he being the accused-no real evidence provided-as the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks now supposedly hold up in the country protected by the Taliban. Each day Defense Secretary Rumsfeld giving us daily reports on the effort to capture him. Thus began Dubya's global war on terrorism.
Now Afghanistan known as the graveyard of empires sees the US as the latest empire vanquished by the indigenous Taliban. The same entity which the CIA armed to fight against the Soviet's who invaded the country in 1979. Back then bin Laden was a US ally and his Mujahedeen were freedom fighters.
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