Secretary of State Blinken Appears on Sunday TV Shows

Aug. 15, 2021 (EIRNS)—On Sunday morning, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken appeared for interviews on ABC, NBC, and CNN. He was asked to respond to Biden’s June remarks that “The likelihood there’s going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely.” Blinken said that the world was surprised by the failure of the 300,000-strong Afghan Security Forces, into which billions of dollars and much equipment were invested, but which “proved incapable of defending the country. And that did happen more rapidly than we anticipated.”

The staff of the Kabul Embassy is being relocated, either out of the country entirely, or to facilities at the airport, where they will continue to process visas for Afghani people who had worked with the U.S. and allies.

Asked why the evacuation seemed so rushed, unprepared, and visas not previously processed, Blinken lamely blamed the previous White House.

He repeatedly stated that, overall, the U.S. mission in Afghanistan was successful: bin Laden no longer exists, al-Qaeda’s role is diminished, and Afghanistan is not a potential source of terrorist threats to the U.S.