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LAST UPDATE | 19 Aug 2021
US PRESIDENT JOE Biden has said that some US soldiers could remain in Afghanistan past the 31 August deadline to ensure all Americans get out.
Biden added that the withdrawal of US troops from the Asian country could not be achieved without “chaos”.
In an interview with ABC News, the US president also issued another defence of the withdrawal.
He was asked if, with the benefit of hindsight, he would have conducted the operation differently.
He responded: “When you had the Government of Afghanistan, the leader of that Government, get in a plane and taking off and going to another country.
“When you saw the significant collapse of the Afghan troops we had trained, up to 300,000 of them, just leaving their equipment and taking off, that was, you know, that’s what happened,” he said.
In response to a question about what his thoughts were when he saw the panicked scenes at Kabul airport he said: “What I thought was, we have to gain control of this. We have to move this more quickly – we have to move in a way and take control of that airport, and we did.”
He added: “No, I don’t think it could have been handled in a way that, we’re going to go back in hindsight and look, but the idea that somehow, there’s a way to have gotten out without chaos ensuing, I don’t know how that happens.”
EXCLUSIVE: Pressed on whether the U.S.'s exit from Afghanistan could have been handled better, Pres. Biden tells @GStephanopoulos, "The idea that somehow, there's a way to have gotten out without chaos ensuing—I don't know how that happens." https://t.co/mH1AyWI5lb pic.twitter.com/osAwdDQy2L
— ABC News (@ABC) August 18, 2021
Biden said the US forces would do “everything in our power” to get US citizens and allies out of Afghanistan by 31 August.
He said that he was committed to keeping US troops in Afghanistan beyond the deadline of the end of August if there was a need to repatriate Americans still in the country.
“It depends on where we are and whether we can ramp these numbers up to five to 7,000 a day coming out. If that’s the case, they’ll all be out,” he said.
Biden denied that there were 80,000 Afghan nationals identified as allies of the US Government.
“The estimate we’re giving is somewhere between 50 and 65,000 folks total, counting their families.
“The commitment holds to get everyone out that, in fact, we can get out and everyone who should come out.
“That’s the objective. That’s what we’re doing now. That’s the path we’re on and I think we’ll get there.
“If we don’t (complete the extraction by the deadline) we’ll determine at the time who is left and if there is American citizens left we’re going to stay until we get them all out,” he added.
On the political front, the Taliban continued to edge towards establishing a government, meeting with senior Afghan figures from the past two decades.
Taliban negotiator Anas Haqqani met with ex-president Hamid Karzai, the first Western-backed leader of Afghanistan after the Taliban’s ouster in 2001, and Abdullah Abdullah, who had led the government’s peace council, the SITE monitoring group said.
In the United Arab Emirates, ousted president Ashraf Ghani – who fled on Sunday as the insurgents closed in on the capital – said he supported negotiations between the Taliban and former top officials, and was in his own talks to return home.
Additional reporting from AFP
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If you were an American parent, would you want your son or daughter fighting in an Afghan war ? . The Afghan people need to make their own decisions and run their own country , at some stage they need to decide their own future even if it means a civil war, most countries have gone this route and countries like America intervening in another countries culture/politics/religion etc is just prolonging what is inevitable. Politicians should try to engage and reach agreement, the west can not inflict it’s ideology on people who object to western life and standards, nor can we realistically support mass immigration from a country of 38 million , we need to talk, reason and support, in the end this is the only way forward.
@Honeybee: this is true, but it doesn’t excuse the Biden administration’s piss poor intelligence about what was happening on the ground, not realizing how weak the Afghan government was and the lack of morale among the Afghan forces, not having proper contingencies on how a withdrawal would be done under different scenarios. Very disappointed and I don’t buy the excuse Biden was bound by any previous Trump agreement with the Taliban
@Diaspora’d/Honeybee: both good comments.
@Gus McIntosh: 100% agree. The two comments go hand in hand and are not mutually exclusive.
@Honeybee: America doesn’t intervene in other nations for altruistic or ideological reasons, it does so thanks to lobbying from interested parties in the USA.
Conflict is an industry, of destruction, rebuilding and accessing natural resources for bargain prices, as part of the corporate ebb and flow, and the lives of American sons and daughters and the ordinary people of the places where this conflict takes place, are viewed as the inconsequential cost of doing business, by the billionaires that profit from it.
Anything that dresses this business model as bringing democracy, freedom or anything else for that matter, is simply the propaganda of justification.
@Diaspora’d: When the U.S. withdrew from Vietnam, they knew that the South Vietnamese government and Army were incapable of stopping the North Vietnamese. The Paris peace accord was agreed without the South Vietnamese government being included .The same happened in Afghanistan. The only reason the U.S. and coalition invaded Afghanistan was the destruction of Al Qaeda, which just decamped to Pakistan. Iraq Afghanistan… The West will be dealing with the fallout for decades to come. Ironically the West now blame Afghanistan and Iraq and are suddenly concerned about human rights in these countries.
What a fall from grace !!!. He was a silent Vice President and a disaster of a president. Where is Harris during all of this? Said a lot more but was unable to do so
@Murph11: way to illustrate ur agenda. He is solidly on record as wanting this withdrawal years ago but was the overruled. So no he wasn’t “silent as VP” and nor is he a disaster as President.
@Murph11:
The fact that you think the VP has a place in any of this shows how utterly clueless you are.
@Brinster: Depends on the VP/President. Dick Cheney had plenty of input into going into Iraq, for example.
@Murph11: you do know that trump started the process in Feb 2020 after releasing 5000 taliban prisoners? There was no easy withdrawal for the Americans, the taliban were waiting. Afghanistan- the graveyard of empires.
@Paul Furey: YOU DO KNOW history will show JOE BIDEN presided over the withdrawal from Afghanistan and leaving millions of women at the mercy of the taliban, end of story Paul, deal with the facts, don’t skirt around them, u won’t be able to rewite history
@Hugo Bugo:
The invasion of Afghanistan had nothing to do with women, as is being pushed by the media to cover the lies about the real reason for the invasion.
See this article for independent analysis, which you won’t get very easily in Ireland or anywhere else in the Western media.
@Hugo Bugo:
are you somehow trying to suggest people don’t already know the Withdrawal is happening while Biden is president?
@Hugo Bugo: Ahh the old blame the President game, can I play. (copied from somehere else)
First annual Afghanistan Blame Games are about to begin, featuring US presidents (or their ghosts).
President Biden, does the buck stop with you for the scenes we are seeing play out in Kabul?
Biden: No, if Trump had eaten his cornflakes then my wife would not be face palming.
Trump: Typical witch hunt, if Obama had followed through on the surge and not telegraphed that we wanted out we would have won bigly.
Obama: Uh hold on now, uh, if Bush hadn’t taken his uh eyes off the ball by invading Iraq.
Bush 43: Y’all if Clinton had treated Osama as a serious threat in the 90′s 9/11 would never have happened in the first place.
Clinton: The entire federal government was in agreement, if your dad had not bailed on the Afghani’s in the early 90′s, Osama never would have been a factor.
Bush 41 (ghost): the Cold War was over and it was time to get a peace dividend. We had no natural interests there. All I did was wind down Reagan’s support funneled through the ISI.
Reagan (ghost): I did what I had to, to combat the Evil Empire. Besides it was actually Carter’s baby.
Carter: I build houses now.
@Brinster: actually Kamala Harris had a big role.in the withdrawal of troops.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.latimes.com/politics/story/2021-08-18/kamala-harris-u-s-withdrawal-from-afghanistan%3f_amp=true
Said after the fact.
@Patrick O’Brien: well even before the fact it would be impossible imo.
“Chaos”??? Sure. The abject 11 day failure after 20 years of occupation? Not so easy to excuse.
I’m watching Afghanistan: The Wounded Land, an excellent documentary series on the country’s history over the past sixty years or so, to better understand what’s going on and why. Most of it in English, but it’s been put on YouTube from Greek tv, so not everything will be translated.
Episode 1: Kingdom https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6jENRNzp4o
(Find the other three yourself, otherwise I can’t post this, or just let it autoplay.)
Plenty of stuff there I had no idea about, such as the presence of a vibrant jazz scene, but more significantly how it came under the influence of the cultural Marxist revolution that also absorbed French students in 1968. Except that in Afghanistan it was seen as a way to liberate the country from religion and towards equality, paving the way for the Soviet invasion, but it was a bridge too far for the country.
Common lads Afghanistan is a disaster of a country that can’t and won’t be saved …..putting it all an Biden is crazy.he right to withdraw and fold a loosing 1 trillion dollar hand…
@David cotter: Who lost? The American arms industry certainly didn’t. A 20 year revenue stream. It’s what they’ll pick to replace Afghanistan that is the question.
@D74Life: By some accounts 80-90% of America’s financial outlay in Afghanistan went straight back into the hands of US defense contractors and back into the US economy. How the other 10-20% was spent in Afghanistan was rife with corruption. Loss of life and reputation, incalculable.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/08/16/pakistan-united-states-afghanistan-taliban/
As a tax paying Irish loving person. Biden all the way.
@John kane: As a tax paying Irish loving person you’re wrong.
The man is a stooge.
Can you not see that you’re being taken for a lúdramán?
Let’s hope they get all foreign nationals out of Afghanistan soon and the taliban don’t hold them hostage it could turn into a real game of brinkmanship
@Hugh Mc Donnell:
My guess is the taliban will allow them to leave for the near future, since I think Biden will send in military to achieve that stated goal / requirement.
Once the let those out, USA is basically done with Afghanistan, and the taliban can return to what they do.
@Ixtrix Net: 20 years well spent so.
There was one President who tried to put something in place to facilitate an orderly withdrawal.
Leftists and progressive types cannot stand him.
Oh. . . . what was his name????
In the beginning, there will be a lack of sports and cultural content from that country, as well as technological innovations that they produce to make our everyday life easier, but we have to get used to it. Not to mention the lose pf holiday destination, but we will endure!
It’s a mess but all in all getting the US out of there will be seen as the right move in time to come , no hope of victory and not even knowing what victory is , the nature of the withdrawal is the problem, pure chaos, but it was depressingly predictable.
Stephen Colbert summed it up well during the week when he said it’s sad that doing the right thing feels so wrong .
@Brian James Moss: You cite Stephen Colbert.
Nuff said I suppose.
Someone posted this here yesterday and I finally understood what Joe Biden was talking about.
It gives a really interesting insight into why it failed. They basically took a bunch of misfits and paid them to be soldiers with no intrinsic motivation vs the Taliban who believe they are doing the work of Allah.
https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/p6g47t/interesting_insight_into_the_abysmal_state_of_the
Could, but won’t.
Trump wouldn’t have carried on in this shameful way.
Biden is a geriatric who has no business holding the position he does.
have your say