i think were the words. is that reasonable? what did you think of that? how did it sit with you? no, it doesn t sit well with me at all. the entire tone, we ve talked about this before, over the last few weeks has been defensive and dismissive and blaming others. at the end he said, yes, the buck stops with me, but there was a lot of finger pointing, and a lot of finger pointing at the integrity of the afghan people. i have called it geopolitical victim shaming. i think that s what i continue to feel and see from this white house that makes it most outrageous. how many americans would stand up and fight if everybody else left them hanging out to dry and the taliban was rolling through their neighborhood? the afghans are not different from us in so many ways that they make different decisions under different circumstances. they are in a catastrophically tough bind that we maybe couldn t prevent, but we can definitely alleviate. i think that s the core issue that we ve got to shift. bi
to the american people. he also went a long way to really fleshing out a biden doctrine. and there are questions about whether he can achieve what he set out. but there is no equivocation, there is no lack of confidence that this is the right decision. and what he has going for him is a vast majority of americans in both political parties. nicolle, he did talk about mistakes, but he also assigned blame. political leaders in afghanistan left the country, gave up. afghan forces refused to fight. we ve seen this story just over the course of the last few days across the countryside as the taliban advanced with rapid speed. the president conceded, it did unfold more quickly than we anticipated. and he also promised, this gets to the doctrinal part of this,
sometimes without trying to fight. if anything, the developments of the past week reinforce that any u.s. military involvement in afghanistan now was the right decision. 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. hi, everyone. it is just after 56sh in the east. continuing our coverage of the developing situation in afghanistan just in the last hour we heard president joe biden address the nation with firm resolve, unapologetically defending his decision to withdraw u.s. forces from afghanistan after two decades, saying the buck stops with him. he was not willing to put americans through more years in america s longest war. the events we are seeing now
staff. americans, allies, and other partners from kabul to their onward destinations. secretary established the crisis action group in early july the, and we ve been working very chosely with the department of state as a lead agency since that time. partnered with the department of homeland security, our initial focus was to relocate the sivs, finalize their visas and resettle them into the united states with the help of our nongovernmental organizations. to date nearly 2,000 afghans have passed through this process, joining more than 70,000 that have participated in the siv program since 2005. our military has done an outstanding job supporting this effort. u.s. north com and u.s. army north operating predominantly from fort lee, virginia, have provided housing, food, medical treatment, medical screening, and other services to these afghans. our military embrace the opportunity to recognize their contributions to combined
to forcefully defend our remaining forces, the americans we re trying to get out of harm s way, the afghans we re trying to get out of harm s way. he threatened to use devastating force, his quote, to defend americans and their interests. right. he threatened retaliation against the taliban if they shoot us on our way out the door is i think a more blunt description of what he was trying to say there. this white house may not have come to this with a forthright explanation of how quickly the taliban would take over the country, but this president came to this speech with a very forthright explanation of why that was. he suggested that president ghani engage in diplomacy. he did not. he suggested that president ghani engage in, you know, the kinds of ways that you build a state that is trusted and responsive to its people. they did not. so if they were surprised, which is what that sound bite made it