President Joe Biden said Wednesday that he plans to gradually withdraw troops from Afghanistan beginning on May 1 and finish the project by Sept. 11, 2021, according to The New York Times.
- “It is time to end the forever war,” he said.
What Biden said about the Afghanistan War
Biden’s decision comes almost 20 years after former President George W. Bush ordered the war in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
- “We were attacked,” Biden said. “We went to war with clear goals. We achieved those objectives.”
Biden said there is no longer justification to keep troops there, according to The New York Times.
- “War in Afghanistan was never meant to be a multigenerational undertaking,” Biden said.
Details of the Afghanistan War
There have been more than 2,300 U.S. military lives lost. Tens of thousands of U.S. soldiers were wounded as well, according to CNN. The war cost more than $2 trillion in taxpayer dollars, too.
- “After all that, the last U.S. troops to depart — some of them surely born after the 9/11 attacks — will leave parts of Afghanistan under the control of the same oppressive Taliban leaders who were there in 2001,” according to CNN.
Any criticism?
There has been some pushback against Biden’s decision to withdraw troops.
- “Meanwhile, the drumming insistence that it’s too soon to leave — perhaps the steadiest beat in American politics for more than 19 years and four presidential administrations — is only growing louder,” according to USA Today.
Madiha Afzal, who works at the Brookings Institution, wrote for The Washington Post that leaving the country could create more problems.
- “As difficult as it is to remain in this longest war, the most likely outcome of pulling out of Afghanistan would be very ugly, including ethnic cleansing, mass slaughter and the ultimate dismemberment of the country,” he wrote.