{"id":6957,"date":"2021-08-17T06:36:10","date_gmt":"2021-08-17T06:36:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/box5917.temp.domains\/~iriacom\/\/news\/?p=6957"},"modified":"2021-08-17T06:36:10","modified_gmt":"2021-08-17T06:36:10","slug":"biden-defends-afghanistan-policy-blames-afghan-army-and-leaders-for-giving-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/biden-defends-afghanistan-policy-blames-afghan-army-and-leaders-for-giving-up\/","title":{"rendered":"Biden defends Afghanistan policy, blames Afghan army and leaders for giving up"},"content":{"rendered":"

Biden blames Afghan leaders for giving up as the Taliban took control<\/strong><\/p>\n

President Joe Biden said on Monday he stood \u201csquarely behind\u201d his decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan despite the Taliban\u2019s swift takeover of the country and images of chaos in Kabul.<\/p>\n

Breaking his silence on the U.S. pullout, Biden admitted that the Taliban\u2019s rapid advance \u201cdid unfold more quickly than we anticipated\u201d.<\/p>\n

Biden blamed the Taliban’s takeover in Afghanistan on Afghan political leaders who fled the country and the unwillingness of the U.S.-trained Afghan army to fight the militant group.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfghanistan political leaders gave up and fled the country. The Afghan military collapsed, sometimes without trying to fight\u201d the U.S. president said.<\/p>\n

The United States spent over $83 billion over the last two decades to build and train Afghan security forces that collapsed quickly and completely in some cases without a shot fired. Multiple videos on social media showed the Taliban using weapons they had confiscated from U.S. air bases.<\/p>\n

Graveyard of empires<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThe events we\u2019re seeing now are sadly proof that no amount of military force would ever deliver a stable, united, and secure Afghanistan \u2014 as known in history as the \u201cgraveyard of empires\u201d Biden noted.<\/p>\n

He also clarified that the United States mission \u201cwas never supposed to be about nation-building\u201d or to create a unified, centralized democracy. \u201cOur only vital national interest in Afghanistan remains today what it has always been: preventing a terrorist attack on American homeland,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Biden insisted in his speech he would not repeat “mistakes” made by past presidents. \u201cI\u2019m now the fourth American President to preside over war in Afghanistan \u2014 two Democrats and two Republicans. I will not pass this responsibly on \u2014 responsibility on to a fifth President.\u201d<\/p>\n

Focus on safe withdrawal<\/strong><\/p>\n

Biden was forced to send U.S. troop reinforcements to Kabul to ensure a safe withdrawal of American diplomatic personnel and civilians.<\/p>\n

He warned Taliban leaders they would face “devastating force” should they interfere with the U.S. pullout.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs we carry out this departure, we have made it clear to the Taliban: If they attack our personnel or disrupt our operation, the U.S. presence will be swift and the response will be swift and forceful. We will defend our people with devastating force if necessary.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the current military mission will be short in time, limited in scope, and focused on getting the people and allies to safety as quickly as possible.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd once we have completed this mission, we will conclude our military withdrawal. We will end America\u2019s longest war after 20 long years of bloodshed.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Biden blames Afghan leaders for giving up as the Taliban took control President Joe Biden said on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6889,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[124,1,125],"tags":[9,137,10,7,128],"class_list":["post-6957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-news","category-united-states","tag-afghanistan","tag-asia","tag-taliban","tag-u-s","tag-war"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/US-President-Biden.jpeg?fit=690%2C370&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7jJWb-1Od","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6957"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6957\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6959,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6957\/revisions\/6959"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}