
Biden Defends Afghanistan Withdrawal Decision
Voice of America
WHITE HOUSE - U.S. President Joe Biden is defending his decision to withdraw American forces from Afghanistan despite the quickly unfolding calamity there, vowing not to pass on the problem to a fifth U.S. president.
"American 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," the president said in a 20-minute nationally televised speech Monday afternoon from the White House East Room. Biden's speech – his first on-camera remarks in six days – came after he briefly interrupted his summer holiday, returning from Camp David, in the state of Maryland. Immediately after the address, taking no questions from reporters, he returned to the wooded presidential retreat. During his remarks, Biden said the U.S. mission in Afghanistan "was never supposed to be a nation-building. It was never supposed to be creating a unified, centralized democracy. Our only vital national interest in Afghanistan remains today what has always been, preventing a terrorist attack on (the) American homeland."
Local officials and navy personnel attend a joint Iranian, Russian and Chinese military drill in the Gulf of Oman, Iran, on March 12, 2025. (Iranian Army Office via AFP) Chinese navy troops attending a joint naval drill with Iran and Russia stand on the deck of their warship in an official arrival ceremony at Shahid Beheshti port in Chabahar in the Gulf of Oman, Iran, on March 11, 2025.

India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi waves as he arrives for Mauritius' 57th National Day celebrations at the Champ De Mars, Port Louis, Mauritius, March 12, 2025. India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi, left, and his Mauritius counterpart Navin Ramgoolam pay homage after laying a wreath at the Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam Botanical Garden during his State visit, in Pamplemousses, Mauritius, March 11, 2025. FILE - Sailors walk on the deck of the INS Imphal, a stealth guided-missile destroyer, at the Naval Dockyard in Mumbai, Dec. 22, 2023.

Police officers guard the Palace of the Republic after Bosnian prosecutors ordered the detention of three top Bosnian Serb officials over a series of separatist actions, in the Bosnian town of Banja Luka, 240 kms northwest of Sarajevo, March 12, 2025. FILE - Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik speaks during an interview with the Associated Press, in the Bosnian town of Banja Luka, 240 kms northwest of Sarajevo, Dec. 29, 2023.