US President Joe Biden on Thursday strongly defended his decision to pull US troops out of Afghanistan, saying that Afghans must decide their own future and that he would not consign another generation of Americans to the 20-year war.
Biden said that the Afghan military has the ability to repel the Taliban, denying reports that US intelligence forecast a collapse of Kabul’s US-backed government within six months amid warnings of a civil war.
Biden set a target date of Aug. 31 for the final withdrawal of US forces, excluding about 650 troops to provide security for the US embassy in Kabul, adding that thousands of Afghan interpreters would be moved to safety.
Photo: AFP
A long-time skeptic of the prolonged military presence in Afghanistan, Biden said that the US long ago achieved its original rationale for invading the country in 2001: to root out al-Qaeda militants and prevent another attack on the US like the one on Sept.11, 2001.
The mastermind of that attack, Osama bin Laden, was killed by the US military in neighboring Pakistan in 2011.
Biden was careful not to declare victory, saying: “There’s no mission accomplished.”
“We achieved those objectives, that’s why we went. We did not go to Afghanistan to nation-build. And it’s the right and the responsibility of the Afghan people alone to decide their future and how they want to run their country,” Biden said.
Addressing critics of his decision directly, he asked: “How many thousands more Americans, daughters and sons, were you willing to risk? How long would you have them stay?”
“I will not send another generation of Americans to war in Afghanistan with no reasonable expectation of achieving a different outcome,” he added.
The speech was Biden’s most extensive comments to date about the US withdrawal and came as pressure mounted to give more explanation for his decision to withdraw.
Biden called on countries in the region to help bring about an elusive political settlement between the warring parties.
The Afghan government should seek a deal with the Taliban to allow them to coexist peacefully, Biden said.
“The likelihood there’s going to be one unified government in Afghanistan controlling the whole country is highly unlikely,” he said.
Biden said the US plans to move thousands of Afghan interpreters out of the country next month, adding that they can safely apply for US visas.
US Department of Defense spokesman John Kirby said that Washington was looking at a range of options to temporarily house Afghan interpreters as they wait for their visas, including potentially military installations on US territory, as well as in third countries.
Washington agreed to withdraw in a deal negotiated last year under Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump.
Biden overruled military leaders who wanted to keep a larger presence to assist Afghan security forces and prevent Afghanistan from becoming a staging ground for extremist groups.
Biden said that Afghan troops far outnumber the Taliban, 300,000 to 75,000, and that a Taliban takeover can be stopped.
“It’s not inevitable,” he said.
There was no comparison between Taliban forces and the North Vietnamese Army that defeated US-backed South Vietnamese troops in the 1970s, prompting a hasty US withdrawal.
“There’s going to be no circumstance you’re going to see people being lifted off the roof of an embassy,” he said.
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