‘It’s Time to Bring Those Troops Home’: Biden Tells Congress He’s ‘Ending the Forever War in Afghanistan’

In his first address to Congress, President Joe Biden reiterated his commitment to “ending the forever war in Afghanistan.” The Biden administration announced the move earlier this month. “We’re going to zero troops by September,” a source said at the time.

Speaking in front of a partial grouping of socially-distanced senators and representatives, Biden said it’s time to bring those service members home:

American leadership means ending the forever war in Afghanistan. We have, without hyperbole, the greatest fighting force in the history of the world. I am the first president in 40 years who knows what it means to have a son serving in the war zone. Today we have service members serving in the same war zone as their parents did. We have service members in Afghanistan who were not yet born on 9/11.

The war in Afghanistan – as we remember the debates here – were [sic] never meant to be multigenerational undertakings of nation-building. We went to Afghanistan to get the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11, and we said we would follow Osama bin Laden to the gates of hell to do it. If you’ve been to the upper Kunar Valley, you’ve kind of seen the gates of hell. And we delivered justice to bin Laden. We degraded the terrorist threat of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, and after 20 years of valor and sacrifice, it’s time to bring those troops home.

Biden’s decision to withdraw has drawn criticism from the more hawkish elements of the foreign policy establishment.

You can watch above, via CNN.

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