The president of the United States defends the withdrawal and accuses the Afghan leaders: “They did not fight”. And he adds: “We cannot die in someone else’s civil war”
«I do not intend to repeat the mistakes of the past, there is no good time to leave Afghanistan, but we cannot stay indefinitely“. President Joe Biden speak to the nation from White House, calling himself “saddened by the harrowing images” arriving from Kabul but affirming that these last dramatic days after twenty years of war only confirm that the time of withdrawal has arrived. Faced with historical images of the fall of Kabul, the chaos of the evacuation and the desperation of the Afghans, Biden yesterday morning let it be known from Camp David that he would speak “in the next few days”, but in the afternoon, under considerable pressure, he returned to the White House to speak to the nation.
Joe Biden will be remembered as the president who ended the longest war. It was what he wanted, though he did not imagine it would end like this. “The president known for empathy chooses coldness,” the headline before the speech Washington Post. Biden also used personal tones, recalling his travels over the years in Afghanistan, “talking to the people, leaders and troops”, and addressed veterans, diplomats and activists who have spent a lifetime helping Afghanistan. and now they look sorrowful. But he explained that he understood, precisely because he was there, “what is possible and what is not”: he claimed the success of the mission that killed Osama bin Laden and that “demolished” Al Qaeda, but explained that the the project of “building a nation, a unified and centralized democracy, overturning centuries of history” was impossible. “China and Russia want nothing more than to see us squander eternal resources and attention in Afghanistan.”
The American media reproach him for not acknowledging the errors of assessment and the failure of intelligence. The president insisted that every scenario had been contemplated and while admitting that “everything happened more quickly than we anticipated,” he blamed the flight of Afghan leaders and the collapse of the armed forces. As already last Saturday, Biden blamed Trump for conducting negotiations that strengthened the Taliban, setting a withdrawal date as early as May 1 and leaving him only the choice between respecting it or returning to the war.
Counter-terrorism operations will continue in Afghanistan but also in numerous other hotspots, and there is a promise to strike the Taliban with “devastating force” if they obstruct the evacuation or attack American interests. “We have to fight the threats of the present, not those of the past“. But there are those who wonder if it will really be possible, given that intelligence expected the fall of Kabul in 90 or 30 days. Finally, the president promises Afghan women that he will defend their rights “with diplomacy”.
In the last 72 hours Biden he found himself under pressure not just by Republican rivals or Trump, but by progressive media, former generals and diplomats. Until last Tuesday, the president had claimed that the Afghan forces were capable of defending themselves from the Taliban. On July 8, he denied the possibility of a new Saigon (“You will never see people taken from the roof of the embassy”). Ryan Crocker, former US ambassador to Kabul below Obama, called this withdrawal from Afghanistan “an indelible stain”. Many of the criticisms also fall on the secretary of state Antony Blink and the National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan.
The question is what the political cost will be for the president. America is tired of military interventions abroad. Biden knows this when he asks “How many generations do you want me to send to fight these civil wars?” The latest Chicago Council poll, in July, indicated that the 70% of Americans want the military to withdraw. The polls have yet to grasp the impact of the dramatic images that come and will continue to arrive, but the troupe of journalists will eventually leave the country as well. In Europe, the British premier Boris Johnson announces a virtual summit of the G7, the German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the French president Emmanuel Macron they promise not to abandon the Afghans but are worried about the wave of refugees. Now the world is watching how the Taliban will manage power.
August 16, 2021 (change August 16, 2021 | 23:45)
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