Mission in Afghanistan was never supposed to be nation-building: US President

Aug 16, 2021

Washington DC (US), Aug 17 (ANI): While addressing a press conference on Afghanistan crisis, US President Joe Biden said, “We went to Afghanistan almost 20 years ago with clear goals, get those who attacked us on Sept 11, 2001 and make sure Al-Qaeda can’t use Afghanistan as a base from which to attack us again. We did that”. “We severely degraded Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, we never gave up the hunt for Osama bin Laden and we got him, which was a decade ago,” added President Biden.“Our mission in Afghanistan was never supposed to be nation-building or to be creating a unified, centralised democracy. Our only vital national interest in Afghanistan remains today what it has always been preventing a terrorist attack on American homeland. I’ve argued for many years that our mission should be narrowly focused on counter-terrorism, not counter insurgency or nation-building,” he further added.