'Right decision': Kamala Harris backs President Biden for sticking to withdrawal from Afghanistan
2 min read 25 Aug 2021, 08:19 PM ISTHarris said Biden had made a promise that he would bring America’s military involvement in Afghanistan to an end, and ‘it is the right decision’
PremiumUS Vice President Kamala Harris has supported President Joe Biden for sticking to his decision to withdraw troops from Afghanistan. She said Biden had made a promise that he would bring America’s military involvement in Afghanistan to an end, and "it is the right decision".
“Joe Biden made a commitment to the American people when he ran for president that he would bring America’s military involvement in Afghanistan to an end. It’s the right decision," Harris wrote on Twitter.
Joe Biden has come under heavy criticism for botched-up exit of US troops from Afghanistan. Much of it has to do with total intelligence failure on how quickly Taliban took control of the war-torn country.
Days before Afghanistan fell to Taliban, US President Biden had assured the world that Afghan forces were highly trained and would take on militants, and that there were no possibilities of total collapse of then government.
Turned out that his assessment was entirely off the mark, and he himself was taken a back on speed with which Taliban captured power in Kabul.
Biden later admitted that Afghan forces collapsed much sooner than expected.
In his address to nation, Biden put the blame squarely political leaders and army. “Afghanistan political leaders gave up and fled the country. The Afghan military collapsed, sometimes without trying to fight," he said.
He said the quick collapse of army, for which America poured trillions of dollars for training and equipment, reinforced 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. We spent over a trillion dollars.
“We trained and equipped an Afghan military force of some 300,000 strong — incredibly well equipped — a force larger in size than the militaries of many of our NATO allies," he said.
“We gave them every tool they could need. We paid their salaries, provided for the maintenance of their air force — something the Taliban doesn’t have. Taliban does not have an air force. We provided close air support," the US President said.
Biden said America gave Afghans every chance to determine their own future. “What we could not provide them was the will to fight for that future. If Afghanistan is unable to mount any real resistance to the Taliban now, there is no chance that 1 year — 1 more year, 5 more years, or 20 more years of U.S. military boots on the ground would’ve made any difference," he said.
