USA Africa Dialogue Series - Biden on Afghanistan

[8/17, 3:12 AM] +1 (701) 739-9168: Full Transcript of President Biden's Remarks on Afghanistan

Good afternoon.
I want to speak today to the unfolding situation in Afghanistan, the developments that have taken place in the last week and the steps we're taking to address the rapidly evolving events.
My national security team and I have been closely monitoring the situation on the ground in Afghanistan and moving quickly to execute the plans we had put in place to respond to every contingency, including the rapid collapse we're seeing now.
I'll speak more in a moment about the specific steps we're taking. But I want to remind everyone how we got here and what America's interests are in Afghanistan.
We went to Afghanistan almost 20 years ago with clear goals: get those who attacked us on Sept. 11, 2001, and make sure Al Qaeda could not use Afghanistan as a base from which to attack us again. We did that. We severely degraded Al Qaeda and Afghanistan. We never gave up the hunt for Osama bin Laden and we got him.
That was a decade ago. Our mission in Afghanistan was never supposed to have been nation-building. It was never supposed to be creating a unified, centralized democracy. Our only vital national interest in Afghanistan remains today what it has always been: preventing a terrorist attack on American homeland.
I've argued for many years that our mission should be narrowly focused on counterterrorism, not counterinsurgency or nation-building. That's why I opposed the surge when it was proposed in 2009 when I was vice president. And that's why as president I'm adamant we focus on the threats we face today, in 2021, not yesterday's threats.
Today a terrorist threat has metastasized well beyond Afghanistan. Al Shabab in Somalia, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, Al Nusra in Syria, ISIS attempting to create a caliphate in Syria and Iraq and establishing affiliates in multiple countries in Africa and Asia. These threats warrant our attention and our resources. We conduct effective counterterrorism missions against terrorist groups in multiple countries where we don't have permanent military presence. If necessary, we'll do the same in Afghanistan. We've developed counterterrorism over-the-horizon capability that will allow us to keep our eyes firmly fixed on the direct threats to the United States in the region, and act quickly and decisively if needed.
When I came into office, I inherited a deal that President Trump negotiated with the Taliban. Under his agreement, U.S. forces would be out of Afghanistan by May 1, 2021, just a little over three months after I took office. U.S. forces had already drawn down during the Trump administration from roughly 15,500 American forces to 2,500 troops in country. And the Taliban was at its strongest militarily since 2001.
The choice I had to make as your president was either to follow through on that agreement or be prepared to go back to fighting the Taliban in the middle of the spring fighting season. There would have been no cease-fire after May 1. There was no agreement protecting our forces after May 1. There was no status quo of stability without American casualties after May 1. There was only the cold reality of either following through on the agreement to withdraw our forces or escalating the conflict and sending thousands more American troops back into combat in Afghanistan, and lurching into the third decade of conflict.

I stand squarely behind my decision. After 20 years, I've learned the hard way that there was never a good time to withdraw U.S. forces. That's why we're still there. We were cleareyed about the risks. We planned for every contingency. But I always promised the American people that I will be straight with you.
The truth is, this did unfold more quickly than we had anticipated. So what's happened? Afghanistan political leaders gave up and fled the country. The Afghan military collapsed, sometimes without trying to fight. If anything, the developments of the past week reinforced that ending U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan now was the right decision.

American troops cannot and should not be fighting in a war and dying in a war that Afghan forces are not willing to fight for themselves. We spent over a trillion dollars. We trained and equipped an Afghan military force of some 300,000 strong. Incredibly well equipped. A force larger in size than the militaries of many of our NATO allies. We gave them every tool they could need. We paid their salaries, provided for the maintenance of their air force, something the Taliban doesn't have. Taliban does not have an air force. We provided close air support. We gave them every chance to determine their own future. What we could not provide them was the will to fight for that future.
There are some very brave and capable Afghan special forces units and soldiers. But if Afghanistan is unable to mount any real resistance to the Taliban now, there is no chance that one year — one more year, five more years or 20 more years — that U.S. military boots on the ground would have made any difference.

Here's what I believe to my core: It is wrong to order American troops to step up when Afghanistan's own armed forces would not. The political leaders of Afghanistan were unable to come together for the good of their people, unable to negotiate for the future of their country when the chips were down. They would never have done so while U.S. troops remained in Afghanistan bearing the brunt of the fighting for them. And our true strategic competitors, China and Russia, would love nothing more than the United States to continue to funnel billions of dollars in resources and attention into stabilizing Afghanistan indefinitely.

When I hosted President Ghani and Chairman Abdullah at the White House in June, and again when I spoke by phone to Ghani in July, we had very frank conversations. We talked about how Afghanistan should prepare to fight their civil wars after the U.S. military departed. To clean up the corruption in government so the government could function for the Afghan people. We talked extensively about the need for Afghan leaders to unite politically. They failed to do any of that. I also urged them to engage in diplomacy, to seek a political settlement with the Taliban. This advice was flatly refused. Mr. Ghani insisted the Afghan forces would fight, but obviously he was wrong.

So I'm left again to ask of those who argue that we should stay: How many more generations of America's daughters and sons would you have me send to fight Afghanistan's civil war when Afghan troops will not? How many more lives, American lives, is it worth, how many endless rows of headstones at Arlington National Cemetery? I'm clear on my answer: I will not repeat the mistakes we've made in the past. The mistake of staying and fighting indefinitely in a conflict that is not in the national interest of the United States, of doubling down on a civil war in a foreign country, of attempting to remake a country through the endless military deployments of U.S. forces. Those are the mistakes we cannot continue to repeat because we have significant vital interest in the world that we cannot afford to ignore.

I also want to acknowledge how painful this is to so many of us. The scenes that we're seeing in Afghanistan, they're gut-wrenching, particularly for our veterans, our diplomats, humanitarian workers — for anyone who has spent time on the ground working to support the Afghan people. For those who have lost loved ones in Afghanistan, and for Americans who have fought and served our country in Afghanistan, this is deeply, deeply personal. It is for me as well.

I've worked on these issues as long as anyone. I've been throughout Afghanistan during this war, while the war was going on, from Kabul to Kandahar, to the Kunar Valley. I've traveled there on four different occasions. I've met with the people. I've spoken with the leaders. I spent time with our troops, and I came to understand firsthand what was and was not possible in Afghanistan. So now we're focused on what is possible.

We will continue to support the Afghan people. We will lead with our diplomacy, our international influence and our humanitarian aid. We'll continue to push for regional diplomacy and engagement to prevent violence and instability. We'll continue to speak out for the basic rights of the Afghan people, of women and girls, just as we speak out all over the world.

I've been clear, the human rights must be the center of our foreign policy, not the periphery. But the way to do it is not through endless military deployments. It's with our diplomacy, our economic tools and rallying the world to join us.

Let me lay out the current mission in Afghanistan: I was asked to authorize, and I did, 6,000 U.S. troops to deploy to Afghanistan for the purpose of assisting in the departure of U.S. and allied civilian personnel from Afghanistan, and to evacuate our Afghan allies and vulnerable Afghans to safety outside of Afghanistan. Our troops are working to secure the airfield and ensure continued operation on both the civilian and military flights. We're taking over air traffic control. We have safely shut down our embassy and transferred our diplomats. Our diplomatic presence is now consolidated at the airport as well.

Over the coming days we intend to transport out thousands of American citizens who have been living and working in Afghanistan. We'll also continue to support the safe departure of civilian personnel — the civilian personnel of our allies who are still serving in Afghanistan. Operation Allies Refuge, which I announced back in July, has already moved 2,000 Afghans who are eligible for special immigration visas and their families to the United States. In the coming days, the U.S. military will provide assistance to move more S.I.V.-eligible Afghans and their families out of Afghanistan.

We're also expanding refugee access to cover other vulnerable Afghans who work for our embassy. U.S. nongovernmental organizations and Afghans who otherwise are a great risk in U.S. news agencies — I know there are concerns about why we did not begin evacuating Afghan civilians sooner. Part of the answer is some of the Afghans did not want to leave earlier, still hopeful for their country. And part of it because the Afghan government and its supporters discouraged us from organizing a mass exodus to avoid triggering, as they said, a crisis of confidence.

American troops are performing this mission as professionally and as effectively as they always do. But it is not without risks. As we carry out this departure, we have made it clear to the Taliban: If they attack our personnel or disrupt our operation, the U.S. presence will be swift, and the response will be swift and forceful. We will defend our people with devastating force if necessary. Our current military mission is short on time, limited in scope and focused in its objectives: Get our people and our allies as safely and quickly as possible. And once we have completed this mission, we will conclude our military withdrawal. We will end America's longest war after 20 long years of bloodshed.

The events we're seeing now are sadly proof that no amount of military force would ever deliver a stable, united, secure Afghanistan, as known in history as the graveyard of empires. What's happening now could just as easily happen five years ago or 15 years in the future. We have to be honest, our mission in Afghanistan made many missteps over the past two decades.
I'm now the fourth American president to preside over war in Afghanistan. Two Democrats and two Republicans. I will not pass this responsibility on to a fifth president. I will not mislead the American people by claiming that just a little more time in Afghanistan will make all the difference. Nor will I shrink from my share of responsibility for where we are today and how we must move forward from here. I am president of the United States of America, and the buck stops with me.

I'm deeply saddened by the facts we now face. But I do not regret my decision to end America's war-fighting in Afghanistan and maintain a laser focus on our counterterrorism mission, there and other parts of the world. Our mission to degrade the terrorist threat of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and kill Osama bin Laden was a success. Our decades-long effort to overcome centuries of history and permanently change and remake Afghanistan was not, and I wrote and believed it never could be.

I cannot and will not ask our troops to fight on endlessly in another country's civil war, taking casualties, suffering life-shattering injuries, leaving families broken by grief and loss. This is not in our national security interest. It is not what the American people want. It is not what our troops who have sacrificed so much over the past two decades deserve. I made a commitment to the American people when I ran for president that I would bring America's military involvement in Afghanistan to an end. While it's been hard and messy and, yes, far from perfect, I've honored that commitment.
More importantly, I made a commitment to the brave men and women who serve this nation that I wasn't going to ask them to continue to risk their lives in a military action that should've ended long ago. Our leaders did that in Vietnam when I got here as a young man. I will not do it in Afghanistan.

I know my decision will be criticized. But I would rather take all that criticism than pass this decision on to another president of the United States, yet another one, a fifth one. Because it's the right one, it's the right decision for our people. The right one for our brave service members who risked their lives serving our nation. And it's the right one for America.
Thank you. May God protect our troops, our diplomats and all brave Americans serving in harm's way.
[8/17, 3:44 AM] +1 (701) 739-9168: https://www.nytimes.com/.../afghanistan-president-ashraf...
After 7 Years of Failing to Fix Afghanistan, Ghani Makes a Hasty Escape
By the time ex-president Ashraf Ghani fled the country, the hot-tempered leader was isolated and ineffective. Critics blamed him for the chaos in Kabul, saying he had betrayed his people.
Western technocrat. Would-be populist. Wartime president. Ashraf Ghani tried to inhabit many roles during his years as Afghanistan's president.
But after fleeing the Taliban's advance into Kabul this weekend, Mr. Ghani — wherever he is — is stepping into a far less welcome role: that of a failed leader whose hasty escape from Kabul scuttled negotiations to ensure a smooth transition of power to the Taliban and left his own people to deal with the deadly chaos and frightening uncertainty under the country's once and future rulers.
As of Monday, it was not even clear where Mr. Ghani was or would end up living. Close aides could not be reached by phone. Some reports suggested that he had gone to neighboring Uzbekistan or Tajikistan or perhaps even Oman. There was talk that Saudi Arabia had agreed to give him asylum, and rumors that he had been accompanied by as many as 200 aides, ministers and Parliament members.
There were also reports that Mr. Ghani had fled with piles of cash, and questions about whether the United States played any role in his departure.
Instead of fixing Afghanistan during his nearly seven years in power, Mr. Ghani fled much the way he governed: isolated from all but a handful of advisers who are said to have departed with him.
The fallout was swift, as what semblance of civil government that was left in Kabul melted away and thousands of Afghans stormed through Kabul's international airport — the city's sole connection to the outside world — desperate to find a way out. But unlike Mr. Ghani, almost all of them had no chance of getting out, and several people died in the chaos.
Mr. Ghani, 72, defended his decision to bolt in a social media post late on Sunday, writing from an undisclosed location that, "If I had stayed, countless of my countrymen would be martyred and Kabul would face destruction."
Others, though, condemned his flight as a desperate act of self-preservation by a man whose failures had paved the way for the Taliban's return nearly 20 years to the month after the American-led invasion that led to their ouster following the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
"He will be known as the Benedict Arnold of Afghanistan. People will be spitting on his grave for another 100 years," said Saad Mohseni, who owns one of Afghanistan's most popular television stations, Tolo TV.
Mr. Mohseni was part of a last-ditch effort to save Kabul from a violent and bloody takeover by the Taliban, working with former president Hamid Karzai and others to negotiate an interim arrangement that would give the Taliban a week or two to take the reins of Afghanistan's government.
The effort collapsed once word got out that Mr. Ghani had fled, whereupon the Taliban began moving into Kabul in force. Some were even pictured sitting at the same desk from which Mr. Ghani had only days ago tried to rally his faltering military to resist the Taliban.
"He's a coward, and him leaving this vacuum is the reason why we have what we have today," Mr. Mohseni said in a telephone interview from London. "The scenes at the airport and people getting killed are his doing."
One of Mr. Ghani's former ministers was similarly blunt, writing in a text message, "I wonder how he can live with such betrayal of his people."
Mr. Ghani's time in power in many ways came to mirror the failed international effort to rebuild Afghanistan into a modern state with regular elections, a Western-style financial system and a military built on an American model. The latter was a pricey endeavor, heavy on logistics and advanced weaponry in a country with little expertise in either one. Like that effort, Mr. Ghani's approach faltered time and again.
He was a policy wonk at heart who had a penchant for conducting small talk in a vernacular best described as technocratese (think phrases like "consultative processes" and "cooperative frameworks"). It made him a successful finance minister in the years after 2001 and a darling of Western officials. He was looked to hopefully as the man who could clean up Afghanistan's corrupt and often nonfunctional government after he was declared the victor of a highly disputed election in 2014.
Mr. Ghani, too, insisted that his reasoned analyst's approach would overcome centuries of ethnic division, spoils-seeking and tribal hatred in Afghanistan's politics. Yet he at times also sought to play the populist, talking tough about American interference in his country and sometimes showing up at rallies clad like a village chief in a heavy turban and thick robes that dwarfed his slight frame. He embraced warlords he had once insisted Afghanistan needed to be rid of if it was to flourish, and he took anger management classes to get his temper in check.
But as the years in power wore on and turmoil festered, and the government failed to bend to his intellect, he isolated himself in Kabul's sprawling presidential palace, rising at 5 a.m. to read 600-page reports, bringing to bear his training as an anthropologist.
While no one doubted Mr. Ghani's own firmly held conviction about his outsized intellect, it did little to help him manage the endless palaver of Afghan politics with its power brokers, ethnic divisions and reliance on outright bribery to get things done. His temper and tendency to lecture did not make matters any better.
He neglected his American-backed army, leaving its soldiers in the field hungry; the military turned out to be a mere facade, crumbling as soon as the Taliban exerted pressure. He treated warlords who could have fought for him with contempt and condescension; they, too, put up little resistance as the Taliban swept across Afghanistan.
He micromanaged the military and civil command structure, replacing competence with personal loyalty. Critics accused Mr. Ghani, an ethnic Pashtun, of alienating Afghanistan's other, less numerous ethnic groups. He turned his back — at best — on reports of corruption in the upper echelons of his administration, allowing to flourish the same kind of graft that he had promised to clean up.
On his way out Afghanistan, he may have indulged in it himself: Russia's embassy in Kabul said on Monday that "four cars were full of money" as Mr. Ghani's entourage fled, the Russian news agency RIA reported.
Perhaps most disastrously over the last year was Mr. Ghani's handling of his top military leadership, leaving in office a defense minister so crippled by injuries from a suicide bomb he could hardly function. He was finally replaced in June, but with a grizzled veteran from another age of combat.
His temper flared continuously. Cabinet ministers described a president given to shouting at them during meetings, publicly humiliating those he needed to work with.
"He had an Afghanistan in his mind that existed in the briefings he got," said Khalid Payenda, his former finance minister, who left the country eight days ago.
Right up until the end, even as his country was falling apart around him, Mr. Ghani was holding meetings in which he rode his favorite hobby horses: the "digitization" of the country's finances and reforms in the attorney general's office.
"People were afraid of his temper, afraid of being ridiculed. So people were afraid to give honest feedback," Mr. Payenda said. "Good people left, those who clung to power were either very loyal or very corrupt."
In the meantime he nurtured a curious substitute for his lack of popularity: a personalization of power in which images of his bald pate were plastered everywhere in the capital. The Afghan public gave no evidence of subscribing to the image Mr. Ghani attempted to project of himself: an omniscient public servant bound to make the wisest choices for his constituents, because of his sizable intellect.
It was a tone-deaf tack for a man whose two electoral "victories" were marred by widespread fraud. In both instances, American officials had to intervene to preserve at least the appearance of democratic legitimacy.
Yet for all his smarts, Mr. Ghani often displayed a remarkable lack of self-awareness. As his statement defending his decision to flee as an act of noble self-sacrifice spread among Afghans, a clip from a television interview he did with the BBC in 2016 also began making the rounds on social media.
Asked about the tens of thousands of Afghans who were then fleeing to Europe, he said they were impoverishing their families and undermining Afghanistan's future.
"I have no sympathy," he said."
[8/17, 8:32 AM] +234 806 285 5575: *Biden's Chamberlain Moment in Afghanistan*


*"We must all hope that Mr. Biden can claw his way out of this hole into which he so heedlessly and unnecessarily leapt."*



The fall of Kabul has been heard around the world, to the dismay of our allies and delight of our enemies.

Picture: US. soldiers stand guard as Afghans trying to flee the new Taliban rule wait at the airport in Kabul, Aug. 16.
PHOTO: WAKIL KOHSAR/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

'You were given the choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor and you will have war." Winston Churchill's words to Neville Chamberlain following the Munich agreement echo grimly across Washington this week as the Biden administration reckons with the consequences of the worst-handled foreign-policy crisis since the Bay of Pigs and the most devastating blow to American prestige since the fall of Saigon.

Joe Biden believed three things about Afghanistan. First, that he could stage a dignified and orderly withdrawal from America's longest war. Second, that a Taliban win in Afghanistan would not seriously affect U.S. power and prestige world-wide. Third, that Americans were eager enough to put the Afghan war behind them that voters wouldn't punish him even if the withdrawal went pear-shaped. He was utterly and unspinnably wrong about the first. One fears he was equally wrong about the second. We shall see about the third, and his Monday afternoon speech staunchly defending the pullout indicates that he believes he can carry the country with him.
The bipartisan scuttle caucus of which President Biden is a founding member—and former President Trump an eager recruit—argued that withdrawal would enhance rather than undermine American credibility. Ending a war in a remote country of little intrinsic interest to the U.S. does not, one can argue, make America look weak. If anything, the two-decade U.S. intervention testifies to an American doggedness that should reassure our allies about our will. At the same time, cutting our losses after 20 years of failing to build a solid government and military in Afghanistan demonstrates a realism and wisdom that should reassure allies about Washington's judgment.

Defenders of the withdrawal argue this is one way that America can reduce its footprint in peripheral theaters to focus on the principal threat in coastal East Asia. Why should the U.S. government pay the heavy price—in military resources and in the political costs at home of defending an endless engagement in a remote part of the world—required to contain the Taliban? Isn't the jihadist group a more direct threat to both Russia and China than to America? Why are U.S. soldiers fighting and dying so that Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping have one less headache to worry about?

A well-executed withdrawal that visibly served a coherent national strategy might have accomplished what Messrs. Trump and Biden hoped. But that is not what we have, and the Biden administration is facing a major test of credibility. The president's tragically misguided press-conference remarks of July 8, in which he doubled down on naively optimistic predictions that would have embarrassed Baghdad Bob, cast a shadow over the president's judgment that will not be easily or quickly dispelled.
The Taliban's sweeping military victory should not have surprised Mr. Biden. The core of the argument for withdrawal, an argument he has embraced for more than a decade, is that the Afghan government and military are so irredeemably weak and corrupt that it is pointless for America to support them. To expect that such a government and such an army would cohere long enough to provide its vanishing betrayers a dignified retreat is magical thinking of the silliest kind.

The fall of Kabul has been heard around the world. In Europe, where allies had no say in either the substance or the timing of the president's decision this looks like yet another instance of the incoherent U.S. unilateralism that marked President Obama's reversal of his Syrian red line and much of Mr. Trump's policy. It is not just that America's scuttle threatens to produce a massive refugee crisis in Europe. After 9/11 our allies invoked Article 5 of the NATO mutual defense treaty to come to the aid of the U.S. They deserved some real input into the decision and the planning of any end to the war and are right to resent the arrogant incompetence that presented them with a disastrous fait accompli. In the future, Mr. Biden must expect even less European deference and respect than he has so far received.

China, Russia and Iran surely interpret this shambolic performance as a sign of exploitable weakness and poor judgment. From the peaks of Pakistan to the sands of the Sahel, fanatical jihadists discouraged by the failure of ISIS sense a fresh and favorable turn of events with the arrival of their greatest victory since 9/11. Recruitment will prosper and resources will flow—fed by the sophisticated weapons and tech we left in the field. The president may be finished with Afghanistan, but Afghanistan may not be finished with him.
A multitude of cooks collaborated to spoil this broth. The George W. Bush administration invaded Afghanistan with no clear idea of what to do next. Through the Bush and Obama years, American war aims inexorably and witlessly widened as Congress and private advocacy groups got into the act. Afghanistan was going to be a modern democratic country. Its women would have equal rights. Religious freedom would be guaranteed by a U.S.-inspired constitution. Pride flags floated in the Afghan skies. Kabul University opened a master's degree program in gender studies.
As America's war aims reached ever loftier and less feasible heights, the U.S. military studiously ignored the gaping flaw in its strategy: unrelenting support for the Taliban from our "ally" in Islamabad. As long as the Pakistanis offered the jihadist group sanctuary and support, it could not be destroyed. Worse, after any American departure, the Taliban's Pakistani backing would give it an insurmountable advantage over the democratic Afghan government.

The U.S. security establishment dithered for 20 years, unwilling to confront Islamabad effectively or to recognize that failure and change its Afghan policy to accommodate its consequences. As it is, Pakistan—a nuclear power with a record of promoting proliferation and deep ties both to China and to the most hate-filled and murderous jihadist groups—has faced down America and achieved its long-term goal of reinstalling a friendly regime to its north. Whether Pakistan will be happy with its radical neighbor in the long term remains to be seen, but for now Pakistani hard-liners are celebrating the greatest single win in their history.

Nothing is more vain than the hope that somehow this debacle will help the U.S. in the Indo-Pacific. For more than 70 years India, whose massive population and economy make it a linchpin of any American strategy in Asia, has seen the world through the lens of its competition with Pakistan. Now, as Islamabad cements its ties with Beijing, the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan hands Pakistan a strategic victory and strengthens the most radical anti-Indian and anti-Western forces in its government. Few in New Delhi will perceive this catastrophe as a sign of Washington's competence or reliability. If a third-tier country like Pakistan can tie the U.S. in knots, Indians will ask: What chance does Washington have against China?

Perhaps the biggest winner in this dismal week was former Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who wrote in his 2014 memoir that then Vice President Biden "has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades." Those lines may not have the Churchillian flair, but they are unlikely to be forgotten now. We must all hope that Mr. Biden can claw his way out of this hole into which he so heedlessly and unnecessarily leapt.


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