Biden’s Change of Plans
Current attacks in Kabul, Afghanistan have intensely risen since August 15, 2021. The United States has been at war with Afghanistan ever since after the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001 on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. President Joe Biden made the executive decision recently of removing all military troops from Afghanistan after the Taliban had taken over. Since then, Biden has had deeper knowledge of the situation as he has been part of two major leadership roles in which those being: Vice President while former President Barack Obama was elected for eight years starting from 2008-2017. And currently as President of the United States of America (2021-). In a recent interview, ABC news anchor George Stephanopoulos asked Biden straightforwardly “Back in July, you said a Taliban takeover was highly unlikely. Was the intelligence wrong, or did you downplay it?” Biden claims with “the intelligence reports, they said that it’s more likely to be sometime by the end of the year”. Biden proceeds by explaining how the situation arose at a rapid speed and how it’s not the fault of any part of the government. “When you had the government of Afghanistan, the leader of that government got in a plane and took off and went to another country, when you saw the significant collapse… Afghan troops we had trained — up to 300,000 of them just leaving their equipment and taking off, that was –… that’s what happened”. Biden was put against three different options on how to approach the situation and in those being leaving during the set timeframe, extending the departing until September 1st or to add more troops into the field. Biden and his administration felt pure pressure once they had entered office as they had a forced time period to get troops out (May 1, 2021) because of a previous agreement that 45th President Donald J. Trump had signed with the Talibans. The agreement talked about how U.S military troops would no longer be in Afghanistan land by May 1st with the solem condition that the Talibans would not attack.