Blinken Defends US Withdrawal from Afghanistan

At a Senate hearing on Monday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken defended the country's military departure from Afghanistan last month, which ended a two-decade war, the longest in US history.

If US President Joe Biden had decided to keep troops in Afghanistan, it would have “required sending substantially more US forces into Afghanistan to defend ourselves and prevent a Taliban takeover, taking casualties – and at best the prospect of restoring a stalemate and remaining stuck in Afghanistan, under fire, indefinitely,” according to Blinken.

“There’s no evidence that staying longer would have made the Afghan security forces or the Afghan government any more resilient or self-sustaining,” he said. “If 20 years and hundreds of billions of dollars in support, equipment, and training did not suffice, why would another year, or five, or 10, make a difference?”

As Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled to exile in the United Arab Emirates, Taliban rebels assumed control of the country in mid-August. In the latter days of August, the US evacuated 124,000 people from the Kabul airport, the majority of whom were Afghans, along with roughly 5,500 Americans, leaving about 100 Americans behind.

With the Taliban's permission, some Americans have been able to depart the country by overland routes or a limited number of planes.

Even as the Taliban moved across the country, according to Blinken, US authorities did not expect the Afghan government to fall so swiftly.

“Even the most pessimistic assessments did not predict that government forces in Kabul would collapse while U.S. forces remained,” he said.

“We’re continuing our relentless efforts to help any remaining Americans, as well as Afghans and citizens of allied and partner nations, leave Afghanistan if they choose,” the senior US ambassador stated, despite the fact that the primary evacuation has ended.

“As we’ve done throughout our history, Americans are now welcoming families from Afghanistan into our communities and helping them resettle as they start their new lives,” Blinken said. “That’s something to be proud of, too.”

Blinken is expected to face difficult questions from the House panel, as well as the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday.

The president's handling of the evacuation of troops, American citizens, and thousands of Afghans who worked as translators and advisers for US forces during the war has been condemned by the opposition Republican lawmakers and some Democratic colleagues of Biden.

After 13 US service members were killed in a suicide bomb strike at the Kabul airport in the final days of the evacuation, the criticism was exceptionally harsh. Islamic State-Khorasan, an Afghan branch of the Middle Eastern terrorist organisation, claimed responsibility.

National polls show widespread support for Biden's decision to stop the "forever war" in Afghanistan, but not for the manner in which the drawdown was carried out.

Blinken will almost certainly be questioned about why the United States did not begin evacuating American civilians sooner, especially since Biden indicated in April that he would honour former President Donald Trump's agreement with the Taliban to terminate the war and evacuate American forces.

Lawmakers have also chastised the US intelligence community for failing to predict the Taliban's swift takeover and the collapse of the Afghan government.

Republicans want to focus their questions on Biden's performance in the last weeks and days of the war, while Democrats want to look at the entire American war effort, which was led by four presidents: Republicans George W. Bush and Donald Trump, and Democrats Barack Obama and Biden.

In late 2001, Bush declared war on al-Qaida terrorist training grounds, which were the source of the September 11, 2001, terrorist strikes on the United States. Nearly 3,000 inpiduals were killed in the hijacked passenger plane assaults in the United States. Last Saturday marked the 20th anniversary of the assaults.

Biden praised the departure as an "amazing success" and supported the choice to end the war in Afghanistan, saying he would not delegate command of the US military presence in the country to a fifth US president.