US President Biden spoke out on Monday (16 August) to give his first public remarks regarding the present-day situation in Afghanistan which has taken the world by storm.
Many criticized Biden’s decision of hastily withdrawing US troops and allowing the Taliban’s lightning sweep takeover to carry out in Afghanistan rather than remaining there to fight as they had been for the last 20 years. It took the Taliban a mere week to gain control of most of the nation’s most powerful provinces, and now a total of 26 of 34 provincial capitals are under Taliban control, including the capital Kabul.
Biden’s speech, which came right after the distressing videos of Afghan citizens flooding airports and clinging and falling from airplanes in order to escape, faced more disapproval and backlash as he defiantly defended his decisions of withdrawing troops, and blamed the Afghan military and political leaders for losing to the Taliban force.
“The political leaders of Afghanistan were unable to come together for the good of their people and were unable to negotiate for the future of their country…”
He stated that the US army had spent years in Afghanistan, training its military forces, paying their salaries, and providing them with every tool they might need in order to resist a seizure, yet the Afghan armed forces had shown the Taliban no resistance.
“American troops cannot and should not be fighting in a war, and dying in a war, that Afghan forces are not willing to fight for themselves.”
Post the takeover, US troops had to be sent to Kabul to safely withdraw American citizens and members working in the US embassy there. The panicked evacuation further dented America’s image, as well as Biden’s, on a global level since Biden had predicted that the Taliban’s takeover in Afghanistan was not likely to occur soon, just weeks before.
During his televised speech Biden admitted, “The truth is; this did unfold more quickly than we had anticipated.”
The withdrawal of troops has also raised uncertainties that militant groups like Al Qaeda would reestablish their dominions under the Taliban rule.
Biden further defended himself by stating that the US mission had always been “narrowly focused on counter-terrorism, not counter-insurgency or nation-building. Hence, the Taliban takeover was not their war to fight, especially if “Afghanistan’s own armed forces would not.”
Their aim had been to remove the terrorist threat from Afghanistan, by effectively abolishing Al-Qaeda from the area, which Biden stated that they had successfully done; he said it was now time to focus on the threats “we face today in 2021, not yesterday’s threats”, clearly affirming that America was moving on and completely extracting itself from Afghanistan.
“We gave them every chance to determine their own future; we could not provide them with the will to fight for that future.” Biden asserted.
Biden faced worldwide criticism, from some US political leaders as well for his decisions and the way those decisions were carried out.
Top Republican Senator Mitch McConnell said last week, “President Biden’s decisions have us hurtling toward an even worse sequel to the humiliating fall of Saigon in 1975.”
“Biden has a lot to do… has to take a bold step”: Malala Yousafzai
