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Biden defends his decision to end the U.S. war in Afghanistan

  • By Brian Naylor/NPR
President Joe Biden speaks about the end of the war in Afghanistan from the State Dining Room of the White House, Tuesday, Aug. 31, 2021, in Washington.

 Evan Vucci / AP Photo

President Joe Biden speaks about the end of the war in Afghanistan from the State Dining Room of the White House, Tuesday, Aug. 31, 2021, in Washington.

Speaking one day after the last U.S. troops left Afghanistan, ending America’s longest war, President Biden on Tuesday forcefully defended his decision to end the U.S. military involvement in the beleaguered country, calling it “the right decision, the wise decision, the best decision for America.”

In a White House speech, Biden said that “there is nothing low grade or low risk or low cost about any war.” He added: “It is time to end the war in Afghanistan.”

He also defended the much-criticized way in which American troops left.

As he has previously, the president painted the decision to leave Afghanistan as a binary choice — either continue indefinitely the 20-year war at an additional cost of U.S. lives and resources, or end the American involvement.

Biden said the U.S. achieved its original goal in Afghanistan a decade ago by hunting down Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaida leader and the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, but still stayed another decade. The terrorist threat has metastasized since then, Biden said, and the U.S. will maintain its fight against it, but he added, “We don’t need to fight a ground war to do it.”

Nearly 2,500 U.S. service members have died over the 20-year war, which cost hundreds of billions of dollars.

Biden said that people don’t understand “how much we have asked of the 1% [of Americans] who put on the military uniform.”

He cited the war’s costs to America — an estimated $300 million a day — as well as the human costs to veterans and their families — including, he said, the 18 veterans who die by suicide each day.

Biden also defended the decision to leave by his self-imposed Aug. 31 deadline. He said it was not arbitrary, but “was designed to save American lives.”

He said 100 to 200 Americans remained in the country “with some intention to leave.” Most of them are dual citizens or long-term residents, he said.

Biden said that “the bottom line” was that 90% of the Americans in Afghanistan “who wanted to leave were able to leave.”

Biden said since March, the administration reached out 19 times to Americans in the country “with multiple warnings and offer to help them leave.”

Biden praised the service members and diplomats who worked to evacuate more than 120,000 citizens from Afghanistan, calling it an “extraordinary success.”

“The women and men of the United States military, our diplomatic corps and intelligence professionals did their job and did it well,” he said, “risking their lives not for professional gains but to serve others, not in a mission of war, but a mission of mercy.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCRbzcPYA6I

But the withdrawal from Afghanistan was anything but smooth. Thirteen American service members and an estimated 170 Afghans were killed by a suicide bomber at a gate at the Kabul airport last week. In response, a U.S. drone strike had targeted suspected ISIS-K militants; the group had claimed responsibility for the attack. Now the U.S. military says it is looking into reports that up to 10 civilians were killed when the U.S. carried out another strike Sunday on a vehicle near the airport.

In a statement Monday, Biden said there was a unanimous recommendation by the U.S. military to end the airlift mission as planned.

“Their view was that ending our military mission was the best way to protect the lives of our troops and secure the prospects of civilian departures for those who want to leave Afghanistan in the weeks and months ahead,” Biden said.

The U.S. has evacuated some 5,400 Americans from Afghanistan over the past month.

Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said Monday that the U.S. would “continue our relentless efforts to help Americans, foreign nationals and Afghans to leave Afghanistan, if they choose.”

Biden criticized for pulling out U.S. troops before all Americans exited

Sen Ben Sasse, R- Neb., said in a statement, “The President made the morally indefensible decision to leave Americans behind. Dishonor was the President’s choice. May history never forget this cowardice.”

The comment is broadly reflective of the criticism Biden has faced — from Republicans and Democrats — on the manner in which the withdrawal was carried out.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin released a statement Monday night, thanking “all those who labored so hard and under such difficult circumstances over the past few weeks.”

Austin noted the toll of the military’s two-decade-long presence in Afghanistan. “We lost 2,461 troops in that war, and tens of thousands of others suffered wounds, seen and unseen,” he said.

“The scars of combat don’t heal easily, and often never heal at all.”

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