During their vacation on Kiawah Island, South Carolina, President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill went for a bike ride on the one-year anniversary of the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan.
Biden said “no” when asked whether he will talk to the press on his family vacation, but asserted he had “been on the phone a lot.”
For the Sunday morning trip, the president wore a blue shirt, khaki shorts, and a Beau Biden foundation cap, while Jill wore a white tank top, a black sports skirt, and purple tennis shoes. Both wore aviator sunglasses. Finnegan Biden, the daughter of Hunter Biden, accompanied the first couple on their Sunday morning stroll, wearing an all-black ensemble consisting of a tank top, leggings, and a ball cap.
Biden grabbed selfies with beachgoers and told reporters he was’really enjoying’ his time away from the White House, but refused to comment on the day’s events.
One year after the Taliban took control of Afghanistan, former president Ashraf Ghani talked with Fareed Zakaria on his Sunday CNN show GPS.
Ghani said that the international community’s support for his administration diminished after Biden’s declaration of a complete military pullout a year ago.
He further justified his choice to quit Afghanistan, arguing that taking a stand was not an option, unlike Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who, according to Ghani, was able to fight back more effectively thanks to international backing for his government’s sovereignty.
“The whole NATO, the United States, Australia, and other nations united around Ukraine,” Ghani told Zakaria in a Sunday morning interview.
“After President Biden’s decision in 2021, there was no longer any support for continuing in Afghanistan,” he stated. ‘It was an irrevocable choice, and many were saying, if you are going to fight another round of civil war, what is the end? What’s the verdict?’ Ghani declined to answer whether he felt “betrayed” by the United States.
He said, “I don’t use such sorts of terms.” Because our trauma and suffering should not be directed at betrayal or blame. We must concentrate on what is immediately before us. We must learn from the past and cope with the current situation.
“Our nation is in terrible straits,” Ghani stressed. “I do not have the luxury of blaming others or feeling betrayed. Superpowers and great powers make decisions based on their national interests. I hope that they have considered the ramifications of these.
On 15 August 2021, Taliban forces stormed Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, and Ghani left the nation.
The United States evacuated all diplomats from the embassy by helicopter on that day.
By the end of August 2021, a U.S. military C-17 transported the last American soldiers out of Afghanistan, thus ending the nation’s longest conflict.
However, the retreat was complicated by the fact that between 100 and 200 Americans and tens of thousands of Afghan friends were left behind in Afghanistan.
During the pullout, thirteen U.S. military men were killed in a suspected ISIS suicide attack at the Kabul airport.