THIS SUMMER, THE U.S. government finally set an official end date for America’s two-decade military misadventure in Afghanistan. After announcing a drawdown of the U.S. troops presence there in April, President Joe Biden declared at a July 8 press briefing that the U.S. “military mission in Afghanistan will conclude on August 31.”
Fulfilling a campaign promise, Biden admitted what the U.S. should have admitted more than a decade ago: “The United States did what we went to do in Afghanistan,” he said. The goal, he explained, was “to get the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11 and to deliver justice to Osama bin Laden and to degrade the terrorist threat to keep Afghanistan from becoming a base from which attacks could be continued against the United States.” He added that “we achieved those objectives.”
The mission was not, Biden said, “to nation-build.” Rather, “it’s the right and the responsibility of the Afghan people alone to decide their future and how they want to run their country.”
This story is from the October 2021 edition of Reason magazine.
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This story is from the October 2021 edition of Reason magazine.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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