Biden speech: President defends US exit from Afghanistan, pledging ‘no deadline’ to evacuate Americans

Biden defends ending 'forever war' in Afghanistan

In an address to the nation, President Joe Biden recognised the end of a “forever war” in Afghanistan after the last American troops departed from Kabul on Monday night, marking the beginning of the end of the nation’s longest war.

He defended the evacuation effort, in which thousands of people were lifted out of Kabul in recent weeks, as an “extraordinary success” due to the “incredible skill, bravery, and selfless courage of the United States military and our diplomats and intelligence professionals.”

The end of the nation’s longest war – in which nearly 50,000 Afghan civilians, 2,500 US service members, and thousands of Afghan military, police and Taliban fighters were killed – included the deaths of at least 13 US service members and an estimated 170 Afghan civilians after a terror attack claimed by Isis-K.

The president said he does not believe mass evacuations from Kabul should have started sooner, arguing that any announcement prior to an approaching withdrawal date could have sparked a “rush to the airport.”

“I take responsibility for the decision,” he said.

He added: “Imagine if we began evacuations in June or July, bringing in thousands of American troops and evacuating more than 120,000 people in the middle of a civil war. There still would have been a rush to the airport, a break down in confidence and control of the government and still would have been very difficult and dangerous mission.”

“The bottom line is there is no evacuation from the end of a war that you can run without the kinds of complexities, challenges, threats we faced,” he said. “None.”

He also stressed that for Americans who remained beyond the 31 August withdrawal deadline, “there is no deadline.”

“We remain committed to get them out, if they want to come out,” he said.

At home, the president has approved federal disaster aid and dispatched emergency response in the wake of Hurricane Ida’s devastation across southeast Louisiana, where thousands of homes were damaged by the now-dissipated storm, leaving more than 1 million homes without power.

The president pledged the federal government to “stand with you and the people of the Gulf as long as it takes for you to recover,” he said on Monday.

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Key Points

• Biden defends Afghanistan exit in national address
• Biden slams Trump’s withdrawal plan: ‘I was not extending a forever exit’
• White House ‘committed’ to getting out remaining Americans

[1 September 2021 00:30 · Josh Marcus]

What American equipment has been left for the Taliban?

American troops have officially left Afghanistan, but the military left behind significant pieces of war-fighting hardware.

The Independent’s Tom Batchelor has this look about the sort of gear that remains.

[1 September 2021 00:44 · Josh Marcus]

‘All wars are fought twice’: Famed Vietnam War novelist on US Afghanistan exit

As political recriminations fly back and forth about who, exactly, is to blame for the chaos in Afghanistan, novelist Viet Thanh Nguyen added some much needed perspective.

The Pulitzer-prize winning author of The Sympathiser and The Committed, both of which deal with the long cultural and political aftermath of the Vietnam War, had this to say as the final US planes departed Kabul: “All wars are fought twice, the first time on the battlefield, the second time in memory.”

This begs the question, how will Mr Biden’s exit from Afghanistan after 20 years be remembered? It may take another 20 years to find out.

[1 September 2021 01:00 · Josh Marcus]

Remember her? Trump ally Sidney Powell mocked for ‘alien body snatcher’-like answers in bizarre interview about election claims

Joe Biden’s antagonists haven’t exactly disappeared since the 2020 election concluded, but they have gotten stranger

Twitter users are having a field day over a bizarre interview with former Trump campaign lawyer Sidney Powell, during which she briefly stormed off set, asked the reporter if she worked for a voting machine company, and at one point uttered the words “I’ve been in me a long time.”

Ms Powell is perhaps best known as one of Donald Trump’s most zealous lawyers in the aftermath of the 2020 election, which the former president falsely said had been stolen. At press conferences and in court, Ms Powell pushed numerous debunked conspiracy theories about the vote, at one point publicly pledging to “release the Kraken” of new fraud evidence.

The Independent’s Nathan Place has the story here.

[1 September 2021 01:06 · Josh Marcus]

Signing off for tonight

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