Afghanistan will be US troop free by August ending: ‘Those Afghans who sided with us have a place in US: President Biden
Washington: With U.S. troops almost completely out of Afghanistan and the Taliban making rapid territorial gains in the country, U.S. President Joe Biden said that the U.S. was not in Afghanistan for nation-building and that it was for the Afghans to decide their future.
Mr Biden said the U.S. had achieved what it had gone into Afghanistan to do, including preventing it from becoming a base from which the U.S. could be attacked.
“We did not go to Afghanistan to nation-build. And it’s the right and the responsibility of Afghan people alone to decide their future, and how they want to run their country,” he said, speaking on the troop drawdown from the East Room of the White House on Thursday.
Mr Biden said America’s military mission in Afghanistan would end on August 31.
“And in this context, speed is safety,” he said, adding that no U.S. or allied forces had been lost in the drawdown.
“There was never any doubt that our military performed this task efficiently and with the highest level of professionalism,” Mr Biden said.
American troops left Bagram Airfield last week – their largest base in Afghanistan – in the dead of night, without informing the Afghans, according to the base’s new commander. The place was looted before Afghan troops could take it over.
To those who had worked with the U.S. side in Afghanistan, such as drivers and translators and their families, Mr Biden said, “There is a home for you in the United States, if you so choose. And we will stand with you, just as you stood with us.”
Note: This piece appeared in The Hindu first
