Our goal has never been to build an Afghan state, our goal has been to fight terrorism: Joe Biden

President Joe Biden says the US goal in Afghanistan was to eradicate terrorism, not to build a state.

Speaking at the White House, Biden reminded the public once again why the war in Afghanistan started. The president says the military operation was planned after September 11, 2001, and from day one, the United States’ main interest has been in eliminating terrorism in Afghanistan.

“We started a mission in Afghanistan 20 years ago, for several reasons. The first answer was for those who attacked us in 2001, and the second was to make sure that Al Qaeda could not use Afghanistan as a base from which to attack again. We did it. Our goal has never been to build an Afghan state. Our goal was to fight terrorism.
We spent one trillion US dollars on a 20-year war. A great resource to invest in Afghanistan and what happened? After the US military left the country, the Afghan state army was completely disbanded, the government gave up power… The US military can not and will not interfere in these processes. How many more years should we have stayed in Afghanistan? How many American lives should we have lost? “We must not continue to make the mistakes of the past, we can not do that,” said Biden.