"My national security team & I have been closely monitoring the situation on the ground in #Afghanistan & moving quickly to execute the plans we had put in place to respond to every contingency, including the rapid collapse we're seeing now" per @POTUS
"We severely degraded #alQaida in #Afghanistan" per @POTUS of US reason for going in 20 years ago "We never gave up the hunt for Osama bin Laden & we got him"
"That was a decade ago"
"That was a decade ago"
"Our mission in #Afghanistan was never supposed to be nation building. It was never supposed to be creating a unified, centralized democracy" per @POTUS
"Our only vital national interest in #Afghanistan remains today what it has always been, preventing a terrorist attack on the American homeland" per @POTUS
"I'm adamant we focus on the threats we face today, in 2021, not yesterday's threats" per @POTUS
"Today the terrorist threat has metastasized well beyond #Afghanistan..." he says "There threats warrant our attention & our resources"
"Today the terrorist threat has metastasized well beyond #Afghanistan..." he says "There threats warrant our attention & our resources"
"We conduct effective counterterrorism missions against terrorist groups in multiple countries where we don't have permanent military presence" per @POTUS
"If necessary, we'll do the same in #Afghanistan"
"If necessary, we'll do the same in #Afghanistan"
"When I came into office, I inherited a deal that President Trump negotiated" per @POTUS
"US forces had already drawn down during the Trump administration from roughly 15,500 American forces to 2,500 troops in country & the Taliban was at its strongest militarily since 2001"
"US forces had already drawn down during the Trump administration from roughly 15,500 American forces to 2,500 troops in country & the Taliban was at its strongest militarily since 2001"
"The choice I had to make as your president was either to follow through on that agreement or be prepared to go back to fighting the #Taliban in the middle of the spring fighting season" per @POTUS
"There would have been no cease fire after May 1. There was no agreement protecting our forces after May 1. There was no status quo of stability without American casualties after May 1" per @POTUS
"There was only the cold reality to withdraw our forces or escalating the conflict & sending thousands more American troops back into combat in #Afghanistan, lurching into the 3rd decade of conflict" per @POTUS
"I stand squarely behind my decision" per @POTUS "After 20 years I've learned the hard way that there was never a good time to withdraw US forces"
"I always promised the American ppl I would be straight with you - the truth is this did unfold more quickly than we had anticipated" per @POTUS
#Afghanistan
#Afghanistan
"So what's happened? #Afghanistan political leaders gave up & fled the country. The Afghan military collapsed, sometimes without trying to fight" per @POTUS
"If anything, the developments of the past week showed that ending US military involvement in #Afghanistan now was the right decision" per @POTUS "American troops cannot &should not be fighting in a war & dying in a war that Afghan forces are not willing to fight for themselves"
"We gave them every tool they could need" per @POTUS of the #Afghan security forces, claiming #Afghanistan had a bigger military than some @NATO allies
"We paid their salaries... "
"We paid their salaries... "
"We gave them every chance to determine their own future" per @POTUS of #Afghanistan gvt "What we could not provide them was the will to fight for that future"
"But if #Afghanistan is unable to mount any real resistance to the #Taliban now, there is not chance that 1 more year, 5 more years or 20 more years of US military boots on the ground would have made any difference " per @POTUS
"The political leaders of #Afghanistan were unable to come together for the good of their ppl, unable to negotiate for the future of their country when the chips were down" per @POTUS
"our true strategic competitors, #China & #Russia, would love nothing more than for the #UnitedStates to continue to funnel billions of dollars & attention & resources into trying to stabilize #Afghanistan indefinitely" per @POTUS
Advice the US gave #Afghanistan @ashrafghani @DrabdullahCE on what to do after US troops left - "This advice was flatly refused" per @POTUS
"So I'm left again to ask ... how many more generations of America's daughters and sons would you have me send to fight #Afghanistan's civil war when Afghan troops will not?" per @POTUS "How more American lives is it worth?"
"I also want to acknowledge how painful this is to so many of us" per @POTUS "The scenes we're seeing in #Afghanistan, they're gut-wrenching...for anyone who's spent time on the ground working to support the Afghan people"
"I came to understand what was & what was not possible in #Afghanistan" per @POTUS
"Now we're focused on what is possible. We will continue to support the Afghan ppl" he says, but leading w/diplomacy
"Now we're focused on what is possible. We will continue to support the Afghan ppl" he says, but leading w/diplomacy
"I know there are concerns about why we did not begin evacuating Afghans, civilians sooner" per @POTUS
"Part of it is bcs the Afghan gvt & its supporters discouraged us from organizing a mass exodus to avoid triggering, as they said, a crisis of confidence"
"Part of it is bcs the Afghan gvt & its supporters discouraged us from organizing a mass exodus to avoid triggering, as they said, a crisis of confidence"
"As we carry out this departure, we have made it clear to the #Taliban if they attack our personnel or disrupt our operation...the response will be swift & forceful"
"We will defend out ppl w/devastating force if necessary"
"We will defend out ppl w/devastating force if necessary"
"The events were seeing now are sadly proof that no amount of military force would ever deliver a stable united secure #Afghanistan" per @POTUS noting the country's reputation as "the graveyard of empires"
"I will not mislead the American ppl by claiming that just a little more time in #Afghanistan will make all the difference" per @POTUS
"Nor will I shrink from my share of responsibility for where we are today or how we must move forward" he says "I am president of the United States of America and the buck stops with me" per @POTUS
#Afghanistan - "This is not in our national security interest" per @POTUS "It is not what the American ppl want. It is not what our troops...deserve"
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