President Biden on Monday defended his Afghanistan exit strategy in a speech, arguing that American troops shouldn't fight and die in a war that the U.S.-trained Afghan military "is not willing to fight for itself." He was referring to the fact that Afghanistan's security forces appeared to put up little resistence against the Taliban's offensive last week.
"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" US President Joe Biden says Afghanistan's leader were given "every tool they could need" to face the Talibanhttps://t.co/b5Pi73sB8M pic.twitter.com/1uJim1D8Hb — BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) August 16, 2021
Over the last couple of days, as the Biden administration has faced criticism over how the withdrawal has unfolded amid the Taliban's takeover of Kabul, multiple White House officials has repeated that talking point. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, for instance, suggested the Afghan security forces' "inability" to hold off the insurgents was a primary reason as to why Afghanistan fell so much more quickly than anticipated. And National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said that while the U.S. may have spent a lot of money building up Afghanistan's defense, they could not give the forces "the will" to fight.
The argument hasn't sat well with everyone, though — some people view it as Biden and his Cabinet trying to deflect blame.
brentmgill on August 17th, 2021 at 18:34 UTC »
I fought in Afghanistan in 2010-11 as a combat medic. Though I’m frustratingly bitter about the failure there I’m in no way surprised by it and he’s absolutely right. Kudos to him for ending it finally and not choosing the politically face saving route of passing on the problem to the next administration at the cost of US soldiers lives. The voices you will continue to hear scream loudest in politics against this decision are the ones who were/are financially vested in defense/weapons industries and stood to gain from an unending conflict
what_would_freud_say on August 17th, 2021 at 16:22 UTC »
A lot of people bought into the sunk cost fallacy that because we put so much money and time into Afghanistan that we couldn't walk away. I hate what is happening there right now, but it was never going to work.
Makememak on August 17th, 2021 at 15:53 UTC »
Something we should have been asking ourselves twenty years ago.