It was time to finish US’s ‘forever war’, says Biden
WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden has defended his decision to end the war in Afghanistan and the hurried evacuation operations, saying in remarks from the White House that he was not going to “extend the forever war” and “was not extending the forever exit”.
The US President called the operation that airlifted 120,000 Americans, allies and Afghan partners an “extraordinary success”. He also defended the exit date of August 31, saying it was not an “arbitrary deadline” but it was “designed to save American lives”.
Biden said he refused to send another generation to fight in a “forever war.” The departure from Afghanistan, completed Monday after 20 years of war against the Taliban, was “a wise decision and the best decision for America,” Biden said in an address to the nation. After coming under fire over the chaotic nature of the rush to the exits in Afghanistan, Biden said he did what should have been done years ago.
The last American military aircraft involved in the evacuation operation left the Hamid Karzai International Airport in
Kabul at 11.59pm local time on Monday, with Major General Chris Donahue, commander of the US Army 82nd Airborne Division, the last US personnel to leave Afghan soil.
“I was not going to extend this forever war, and I was not extending a forever exit,” Biden said, speaking from the Dining Room in an address to the nation.
To the Islamic State-Khorasan, which has claimed responsibility for the Kabul airport bombing that killed 170 Afghans and 13 US troops, Biden said: “We are not done with you yet.” The US killed two IS-K “planners” and “facilitators” in a drone strike in Nangarhar province and one suspected suicide bomber headed for the airport in another strike.
The President defended his decisions to end the war, wrap up the evacuation operation before his self-imposed deadline of August 31 and pushed back against those who have argued that the US could have stayed longer in Afghanistan and the airlift could not have started earlier or have been more orderly.
He reiterated that the decision to end the military operations at Kabul airport was based on “unanimous recommendation” of his civilian and military advisers, the secretary of state, the secretary of defence, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and all the service chiefs.
Biden called the evacuation an “extraordinary success”, saying “no country in history has done more to airlift out the residents of another country, as we have done”. To those who have argued the evacuation should have started earlier, in June of July, and in a more orderly manner, he said, that there still would have been a “rush to the airport, a breakdown in confidence and control of the government, and it still would have been a very difficult and dangerous mission”.
The US President said that when he decided in April to end the Afghanistan war, the assumption was that the Afghan military that had been trained and equipped by the US would put up a fight. “That assumption that the Afghan government would be able to hold on for a period of time beyond military drawdown turned out not to be accurate,” he said.
On the question of the US staying indefinitely, as some of his critics have argued for, he said he had only two options: accept the deal made by his predecessor Donald Trump and extend the timeline from May 1 to get more people out or “send in thousands of more troops and escalate the war”.
He said staying in Afghanistan longer served no national interest, because of the goal of going there had been achieved a decade ago with the killing of Osama bin Laden and decimation of the al Qaeda. The US stayed there for another decade and it was time to end the war, he added. Biden maintained that the US will remain focussed on combatting terrorism, but it does not have to fight a ground war to do it. Using over-the-horizon capabilities, terrorists can be struck anywhere without “American boots on the ground – or very few, if needed”.