Biden delivers defensive speech following Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan [Video]

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:

• President Joe Biden delivered a defensive speech on Monday following the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan.
• Biden blamed the Afghan leaders for not putting up a fight amid decades of US support and military training.
• He still stood by his decision to pull out the US troops in Afghanistan.

In a White House address on Monday, President Joe Biden defended the quick fall of the US-trained Afghan forces and the drawdown of US troops following Taliban’s invasion of Afghanistan. He also blamed the Afghan leaders for not giving a fight despite decades of military investments and training.

“If they attack our personnel, the US presence will be swift and the response will be forceful. We will defend our people with devastating force, if necessary,” he said Monday.

The president also stressed that the recent deployment of US troops in Afghanistan was not in any way an interest for them.

While Biden recognized that Taliban’s invasion of Afghanistan happened “more quickly than expected,” he was quick on where to point fingers.

“I am the president of the United States of America, and the buck stops with me,” he said, before adding that the Afghan leaders should have stood better for their country.

“So what’s happened? Afghanistan’s political leaders gave up and fled the country. The Afghan military collapsed, sometimes without trying to fight… We gave them every chance to determine their own future. What we could not provide them was the will to fight for that future,” Biden argued.

Biden did not appear in public or provide any on-cam statements over the weekend as the Afghan destabilization occurred and it was reported that Afghan President Ashraf Ghani had fled out of the country.

He permitted the deployment of additional troops in Afghanistan on Saturday to facilitate the “orderly and safe drawdown of US personnel and other allied personnel and an orderly and safe evacuation of Afghans who helped our troops during our mission and those at special risk from the Taliban advance.”

All US Embassy personnel in Kabul were evacuated on Sunday.

Ultimately, Biden ended his Monday address by saying: “I am deeply saddened by the facts we now face, but I do not regret my decision to end America’s war fighting in Afghanistan.”

White House officials were also in awe with how the turn of events happened swiftly. Speaking with NBC News Sunday, National Security adviser Jake Sullivan admitted that Biden was confronted with bad decisions.

“The choice he made … to ultimately ask the Afghans to step up and fight for themselves — it is heartbreaking to see what is happening in Kabul, but the president had to make the best possible choice he could, and he stands by that decision,” Sullivan said. 

He also noted that the White House believed that the Afghan government’s collapse against the Taliban forces was “not inevitable.”

Source: YAHOO News