Biden defends hasty US exit as Afghanistan slips into chaos
19 Aug 2021
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After 20 years of engagement in the cauldron of global terrorism, Afghanistan, the United States declared defeat by abandoning the elected Afghan government and leaving the weak Afghan army to the mercy of the Pakistan-backed insurgents.
By doing so, President Joe Biden has owned up the illegitimate child of the US-Pakistan alliance and legitimised the Taliban’s authority over Afghanistan.
Biden now has only to defend his action before the world – which he is managing with support from his close Nato allies and Taliban backers like China, Pakistan and most of the Islamic world.
Biden’s defence that the United States does not want to fight a war in Afghanistan that the Afghan people do not want is itself testimony for the US desire to see the Taliban taking control of the country. What else would explain the hasty withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan and Taliban's blitzkrieg in the war-torn region.
"How many more American lives is it worth?" asked the Democratic president.
And, despite the "messy" pull-out, he said "there was never a good time to withdraw US forces".
On Sunday, a day before the Taliban officially entered the Afghan capital Kabul and declared victory, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled the country.
The fall of Kabul, the last major city in Afghanistan to fall to a Taliban offensive, cemented the terror group’s control of the territories.
Chaos prevailed in Afghanistan following Taliban’s a dramatic surge in Kabul, Kabul's international airport witnessed hundreds of civilians desperate to flee the country forcing their way inside on Monday.
Many thronged the runway, running alongside a moving military transporter aircraft as it prepared for take-off.
Some clung to the side of a plane, and at least two of them are reported to have perished when they fell from the aircraft after it had left the ground.
Taliban has announced a general amnesty for government officials, and have urged them to return to work as government employees deserted work to look for safety.
Biden, who returned on Monday to the White House from the Camp David presidential retreat to make his first public statement on Afghanistan in nearly a week, said, "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."
Washington invested billions to train and equip Afghan security forces, but it all went down the drain as it collapsed, in some cases without even firing a shot. American investment turned out to be the gains of Taliban.
Taliban captured combat aircraft, including helicopters that America supplied to Afghan forces, besides modern military equipment like guns, ammunition and all firepower with Afghan forces when they overran Afghan forces who failed to defend the state.
The US failed to raise a sustainable Afghan army and police force, or they have deliberately failed to do so in order to keep the terror group alive.
Whatever claims the Americans or their allies would make, the fact remains that it is the same humiliating exit for America from Kabul as from Saigon, Vietnam, in 1975.
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