Biden Backs Withdrawing U.S. Troops from Afghanistan

During his speech yesterday President Biden admitted that the collapse of the Afghan government and the Taliban retaking control happened quicker than the U.S. had anticipated. Biden refused to back away from his decision to end the American military’s presence in the nation saying that the U.S. mission was ‘never supposed to be nation building’ and blaming the Afghan government for the fall. Biden said “I stand squarely behind my decision. After 20 years, I’ve learned the hard way that there was never a good time to withdraw U.S. forces, that’s why we’re still there. We were clear-eyed about the risks. We planned for every contingency. But I always promised the American people I would be straight with you. The truth is, this did unfold more quickly than we had anticipated.”

President Biden said the United States’ interest in Afghanistan has always been ‘preventing a terrorist attack on American home land’ and that the mission had already been met. He blamed Afghanistan’s armed forces for not standing up to the Taliban, he also said that top Afghan leaders deserve the blame and added he had ‘frank conversations’ with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah, earlier this summer but ‘ultimately they didn’t take the U.S’ suggestions.’