In the spring of 1975, as North Vietnamese forces approached Saigon, it began to dawn on President Gerald Ford that the government of South Vietnam was likely to collapse. Though it would be slow to act, Ford’s administration finally appealed to Congress for $300 million in emergency funds it intended to put to use evacuating remaining Americans and as many as 175,000 South Vietnamese. Opposition to the plan was strongest among Senate Democrats, as was made plain by a speech given by one young lawmaker on April 23, barely a week before North Vietnamese forces captured the presidential palace in Saigon: “I do not believe the United States has an obligation, moral or otherwise, to evacuate foreign nationals . . . The United States has no obligation to evacuate one, or 100,001, South Vietnamese.”

The senator in question was, of course, Joe Biden — whose opposition would ultimately fail to prevent the evacuation of roughly 135,000 Vietnamese. Biden’s statement nonetheless articulated a sentiment that was clearly common in parts of America’s political class at the time. With the country’s cherished imperial honor diminished by defeat, many lawmakers evidently favored pushing the issue from their minds over even limited efforts at humanitarian relief.

While the administration Biden now leads has quite aggressively rejected comparisons to the fall of Saigon, there are inarguably parallels between the situation today and that of the mid-1970s. Once again, the steadfast determination of American elites to play global policeman has ended in failure and catastrophe. And, yet again, the prolonged deployment of America’s terrifying military might has left a trail of death, destruction, and human chaos in its wake. Amid the ludicrous blame game now playing out in the media over who exactly is responsible for the country’s defeat, there remains a basic truth that cannot be elided: namely, that the United States has a moral obligation to offer shelter to as many Afghans as possible — the political atmosphere be damned.