partners and allies, the interpreters and so forth. but i know the president and vice president are meeting with the secretary of defense, the chairman of the joint chiefs, the whole national security council, looking at worst case scenarios. worst case would be for the taliban to attack u.s. troops. i don t think they will. there is no reason for them to do so at this point. it s in the taliban s somewhere it s in the taliban s interest for us the leave. but i think they are doing the prudent thinking and sending in troops, 6,000 troops can form a perimeter around the airplane. some analysts are comparing this day to the fall of saigon. do you think that s a fair comparison? i think in some ways it is, rev. you and i are both old enough to remember those days. you saw helicopters lifting off from the american embassy taking
was happening in the beginning of the fall of saigon and the complete disregard for what happened in the fall of kabul and afghanistan. it seems that we don t want to learn from our history. it s being decimated every time we turn around and it s being repeated over and over and over. what are the differences? at this point, i don t know if there are a lot of differences. i still hold the people of both nations responsible for letting their countries fall. i will give the vietnamese credit. at least it took saigon 11 days before the bc finally came in. kabul, what did it take? less than 24 hours.
what is your interpretation of what is happening. as you know, i commanded that mission for four years as the supreme alied commander of nato. it is a nato mission. at the time we had 150,000 troops there, we were taking heavy casualties. under the obama administration we reduced that from 150,000 troops down to around 10,000 troops. then i think it kind of went quiet as far as the american public is concerned. i think many americans are kind of shocked that this is now so suddenly hit the front page again with images that are reminiscent of the days of vietnam and the fall of saigon. so i think it s a shock to the american system. and from a military perspective, it is certainly a defeat for our military. we failed in our mission to train the afghan security forces. we are going to have to do a lot of soul searching to understand
onto the landing rails of helicopters and helicopters going off the side of our navy ships because we can accomodate the space or the size. as lofty as the goal was, ending our longest war, john, it sounds bad. it looks bad. and as the title goes, there will be blood. there will be, my father fought in vietnam. i got one of the most poignant notes i ve received from anybody, much less a president, from gerald ford ones. he had been part of a project talking about april 30th, 1975, the fall of saigon, that evacuation in that period. and he talked about it i remember the phrase was, most tragic of days it was it s always stuck with. me the most tragic of days, it ended this war that in 1968 killed 49 americans a day, on
sizing republicans are piling in and cut sizing the republicans are piling in and cut sizing the decision, republican leader sizing the decision, republican leader mitch mcconnell saying the biden leader mitch mcconnell saying the biden administration had been reduced biden administration had been reduced to pleading with the taliban to protect reduced to pleading with the taliban to protect the us embassy and said the us to protect the us embassy and said the us risked a humiliating sequel to the the us risked a humiliating sequel to the fall the us risked a humiliating sequel to the fall of saigon. i think this is a rethink to the fall of saigon. i think this is a rethink of how reliable the us is a rethink of how reliable the us is as is a rethink of how reliable the us is as a is a rethink of how reliable the us is as a partner going forward the afghans is as a partner going forward the afghans feel betrayed and when you see potentially facing millions of refuge