President Biden today defended his decision to withdraw the U.S. military from Afghanistan, despite the Taliban's swift takeover of most of the country, including the capital of Kabul, and the stunning images of an unfolding humanitarian crisis. "Afghanistan political leaders gave up and fled the country," he said during a speech. "The Afghan military collapsed, sometimes without trying to fight. If anything, the developments of the past week reinforced that ending U.S. military involvement Afghanistan now was the right decision." Biden asserted that U.S. 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." Biden noted he continued a withdrawal policy put in place by former President Trump. "I will not repeat the mistakes we've made in the past; the mistake of staying and fighting indefinitely in a conflict is not in the national interests of the United States," he said. "This is not in our national security interest. It is not what the American people want." Biden acknowledged the U.S.-backed Afghan government collapsed far sooner than the administration had anticipated.
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