Pullout from Afghanistan: Biden sticks to his guns

KABUL (Pajhwok): Unmoved by growing criticism of his decision, US President Joe Biden insists bringing home American troops from Afghanistan is the right move.

In July, Biden announced all US forces would be withdrawn from Afghanistan by the end of August. The pullout process is almost complete.

The US mission in Afghanistan was never intended to be about nation-building, Biden said in his first comments after the Taliban took over Kabul.

Al-Jazeera quoted the US president as saying on Monday that the Afghan government collapsed faster than he expected.

He added: “If anything, the developments of the past week reinforce that ending US military involvement in Afghanistan now was the right decision.

“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,” he remarked.

Last week, Republican Senator Mitch McConnell said in a statement Biden’s decisions had the Americans hurtling toward an even worse sequel to the fall of Saigon in 1975.

Withdrawing from Afghanistan was one of his campaign pledges, Biden said in his speech, scorning the Pentagon’s request for a surge in US troops in 2009.

With regard to endless US involvement in what he called an Afghan civil war, the president said: “This is not in our national security interest.”

He said America’s only vital national interest in Afghanistan continued to be what it had always been – preventing a terrorist attack on the American homeland.

Biden claimed: “We gave them (Afghans) every chance to determine their own future. We could not provide them with the will to fight for that future.”

He warned Taliban leaders would face devastating force if they interfered with the US pullout from the country.

“I stand squarely behind my decision,” Biden said. “After 20 years I’ve learned the hard way that there was never a good time to withdraw US forces. That’s why we’re still there.”

PAN Monitor/mud

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