President Joe Biden spoke from the Roosevelt Room today to announce that the US would be pulling troops from Afghanistan. The withdrawal will begin May 1, though a treaty signed by the Trump administration stated that the US would leave the nation by that date.
He spoke of the terror threat, and said that “our reasons for remaining in Afghanistan have become increasingly unclear.”
“With the terror threat now in many places, keeping thousands of troops… in one country… to the cost of billions per year makes little sense to me or our leaders,” he said.
He noted that he’s the fourth US president to preside over a military operation in Afghanistan. “It’s time to end America’s longest war, it’s time for American troops to come home.”
Biden inherited a treaty that said troops would be out of the country by May 1, and while this is not what he would have negotiated himself, it was an agreement made by the US government, and “that means something.” It will be on May 1 that the beginning of the end of the deployment will begin.
Biden said that “we will not take our eyes off the terrorist threat. We will reorganize our counter-terrorism capabilities, and the substantial assets in the reason to prevent reemergence of terrorists’ threats to our homeland from over the horizon.”
“We will hold the Taliban accountable to their commitment not allow any terrorists threats to the United States or its allies from Afghan soil.” Biden noted that he would hold the government of Afghanistan accountable to that as well. Biden said that if the US is attacked during the withdrawal, there would be a response.
While troops will be leaving the much fought-over nation, the US will not be abandoning it financially. Biden said that masses of funding would be delivered to Afghanistan in the form of aid both from the US and from allies in the region.
