After 20 years of valor and sacrifice, it’s time to bring troops home: Biden

In his first formal speech to lawmakers since becoming president nearly 100 days ago, US President Joe Biden devoted a sizable amount of time, of the national address, to his recent decision to withdraw troops from Afghanistan and said the war was never meant to have been a “multi-generational undertaking of nation-building”.

“We went to Afghanistan to get the terrorists who attacked us on September 11. We delivered justice to Osama bin Laden and we degraded the terrorist threat of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. After 20 years of American valor and sacrifice, it’s time to bring our troops home.”

Biden’s decision has received a mixed response on Capitol Hill and many have expressed concerns that the Afghan government won’t be able to defend itself, which could result in a civil war.

But Biden acknowledged the concerns and said that even as troops pull out of the country “we will maintain an over-the-horizon capability to suppress future threats to the homeland.”

But he also emphasized that Afghanistan, the site from which the September 11 terrorist attacks on America were planned, no longer represents the critical threat to national security it once did.

“The terrorist threat has evolved beyond Afghanistan since 2001, and we will remain vigilant against threats to the United States, wherever they come from,” he said.

“Al-Qaeda and ISIS are in Yemen, Syria, Somalia, and other places in Africa and the Middle East and beyond,” he said.

Biden also mentioned economic and security threats posed by Russia, China and North Korea, and promised to work more closely with foreign allies to address these areas of concern.