JOE Biden has defended his decision to accelerate the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan, despite the fact that the country has since been taken over by the Taliban.
The President addressed the media on Monday evening, less than two days after the Afghan capital of Kabul fell to the Islamist militant organisation.
Biden has been widely criticised for his decision to pull troops out of the region, as well as for failing to listen to advisers who told him that a Taliban takeaway was extremely likely in the event of a full withdrawal.
But the 78-year-old doubled down on the move, insisting that America's mission in Afghanistan was centred around "counter-terrorism" rather than "nation-building".
"How many more American lives is it worth?" asked the Democratic president, stressing that there was never going to be a good time to pull troops out.
"I'm clear in my answer: I will not repeat the mistakes we've made in the past. The mistake of staying and fighting indefinitely in a conflict that is not in the national interest of the United States."
Biden claimed that the US had done all it could to help local Afghan forces to keep the Taliban at bay, providing them with arms and training them to the point where they could be militarily self-reliant.
"We gave them every tool they could need, we gave them every chance to turn around their future," the president added.
While he admitted the collapse of the Afghan government happened a lot faster than he anticipated, Biden stressed that he stands "squarely behind my decision".
"If anything, the developments of the past week reinforce that ending US military involvement in Afghanistan now was the right decision," he added.
"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."
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