NBC News’ chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel spoke to viewers via satellite from Afghanistan. He is one of the many Americans still inside the newly claimed Taliban country. Engel offered some very real insight to what’s going on now that Biden has agreed to the Taliban’s deadline. Engel also revealed the Taliban’s real intentions on setting that deadline.
Again, all while he is still in Afghan country— For his own sake, I hope he gets out soon.
“If you step back and you look at what is going on, this is the United States after twenty years,” Engel told Chuck Todd.
“This war used to be called Operation Enduring Freedom. It’s turned out not to be enduring and they’re not leaving behind a society that is free, it is only free according to what the Taliban says it will be free, if the Taliban promises that it will be free,” he explained.
“You could also look at this as tremendously humiliating, a moment of American humiliation,” Engel said. Which is the Taliban intentions, Engel explained.
“Leaving, forced to leave on the Taliban’s clock and with the Taliban’s good graces,” he continued. “So, tactically it makes sense, but I’m not sure how history will, I think history will judge this moment as a very dark period for the United States.”
The Taliban demanded a complete US withdrawal by August 31st and like a coward, Biden excepted. Biden’s own Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said meeting that deadline would be impossible.
“It’s a red line,” Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen said this week. “President Biden announced that on Aug. 31 they would withdraw all their military forces. So if they extend it, that means they are extending occupation.”
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Engel, who at the time of reporting was still in Kubal Afghanistan, said that ‘people can’t leave’ adding that ‘the airports are closed. His first-hand accounts directly conflict with what the White House has claimed. According to them, no one is trapped and Americans need to get to the airport.
Call me crazy, but I believe the guy inside the thick of it.
