What Joe Biden said about Afghanistan
For the US president, Kabul fell because not even his army wanted to fight to defend it, and he vindicated his decision not to let the Americans do it. According to Biden, nation-building in Afghanistan never existed
(photo: Tom Brenner / Getty Images) After 20 years of US presence in Afghanistan, President Joe Biden addressed the nation with an unusual speech in tones and in the contents. In the brief speech Biden vigorously supported his decision to carry out the withdrawal of American troops, emphasizing how the current tragic situation arose, according to him, from the misunderstanding of the objective of the war in Afghanistan, namely to defeat terrorism. Furthermore, the commander-in-chief said that his choice was between a new escalation of the US presence in the Afghan conflict and its end, although, he admitted, no one expected such a rapid Taliban advance. Not even the States.“Our mission in Afghanistan has never been about building a nation. We should never have tried to create a unified and centralized democracy ”were the first words of the president“ Our only national interest in Afghanistan remains what it has always been: to prevent a terrorist attack on the homeland ”. In a few words, Biden overturned what has been the historical narrative of the United States regarding their intervention in the Middle East. The so-called state-building - the construction of a new nation with a democratic profile - the democratizing mission of the United States in the world has even been denied.
Biden therefore shifted the focus towards his idea of foreign policy and ways to pursue its goals. “I was clear”, she said, “human rights must be the center of our foreign policy. But the way to do this is not through endless military deployments. It is with our diplomacy, our economy and with bringing the world together around us ”. In this way Biden wanted to draw a dividing line between his strategy and that adopted by his predecessors, also with respect to global competition with the most important international players. Indeed, it is China and Russia, according to the US president, who "would like nothing more than the United States to continue channeling billions of dollars of resources and attention" to stabilize areas like Afghanistan indefinitely.
Tackling the causes of the rapid victory of the Taliban fundamentalists, Biden pointed the finger at the former Afghan government, accusing them of having surrendered, of having fled, and against the army that "collapsed, sometimes without a fight". For the president also “to stay and fight indefinitely in a conflict, to double a civil war in a foreign country, is not in the national interest of the United States”.
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Afghanistan Joe Biden Politics United States globalData.fldTopic = "Afghanistan, Joe Biden, Politics, United States"
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