On Wednesday, US President Joe Biden has announced plans to pull all US military forces from Afghanistan by September 11 and their final withdrawal will start from 1st May 2021. The recent announcement will bring an end to America’s longest war by the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon. President Biden spoke about the way forward in Afghanistan, including his timeline for the drawdown of US troops, from the Treaty Room at the White House, the same place where former President George W. Bush announced airstrikes in Afghanistan on 7th October 2001. Biden said, “Keeping thousands of troops grounded and concentrated in just one country at a cost of billions each year makes little sense to me, with the terror threat now in many places and to our leaders”.
President Biden also said, “We cannot continue the cycle of extending or expanding our military presence in Afghanistan hoping to create ideal conditions for a withdrawal, and expecting a different result. I am now the fourth United States president to preside over American troop presence in Afghanistan, two Republicans and two Democrats. I will not pass this responsibility on to a fifth”. He said the US is forever indebted to the members of the military who fought and died in Afghanistan and offered them ‘Thanks”, of a grateful nation. But, he now added that it’s time to move on from that chapter in our history. Biden said, “It’s time to end the forever war. The war in Afghanistan was never meant to be a multigenerational undertaking. Troop presence in Afghanistan should be focused on the reason the US went to war”.
The White House administration is looking to ensure that Afghanistan could not be used as a base against the United States. Biden said, “We did that. We delivered justice to bin Laden a decade ago, and we’ve stayed in Afghanistan for a decade since. Our reasons for remaining in Afghanistan have become increasingly unclear since then, even as the terrorist threat that we went to fight evolved. We cannot continue the cycle of extending or expanding our military presence in Afghanistan, hoping to create the ideal conditions for our withdrawal, expecting a different result. However, the US will not be involved in Afghanistan militarily, diplomatic, and humanitarian work. It will keep continuing providing support to the Afghan government and assistance to the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces. President Biden also said that the US also asked other countries in the region to support Afghanistan, including China, Pakistan, and Russia.