WASHINGTON — When a comparison was made between the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan a year ago and a similar debacle in Vietnam 46 years earlier, President Joe Biden and his administration recoiled.
The Afghan capital, Kabul, would not become another Saigon, Biden assured the American people. There would be no dramatic helicopter rescues from rooftops nor would the U.S. walk away and allow the Afghan government to collapse as the South Vietnamese regime did so quickly.
But latter-day versions of both did unfold in a matter of days as the United States withdrew from Afghanistan, ending its 20-year military and political involvement.
