Joe Biden faces backlash over defence of US pull out from Afghanistan

His speech was met with a wave of criticism, including from prominent public figures in Scotland.

Andrew Wilson, the former SNP MSP, and an close ally of First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, gave a scathing assessment of the US President's address.

"I think I have never been more shocked by a US President. And that is saying something," he tweeted last night.

"That was singularly awful."

In his TV address from the White House last night, Biden admitted: “The truth is, this did unfold more quickly than we had anticipated.”

But he added: “I stand squarely behind my decision. After 20 years I’ve learned the hard way there was never a good time to withdraw US forces.

"We will end America’s longest war after 20 long years of bloodshed.”

Biden also shifted some of the blame to the Afghans, who received years of training and billions of dollars in equipment. Nevertheless, the US could not provide Afghan security forces “the will to fight.”

“Afghanistan political leaders gave up and fled the country. The Afghan military collapsed, sometimes without trying to fight,” Biden said.

“If anything, the developments of the past week reinforce that ending US military involvement Afghanistan now was the right decision. We cannot and should not be fighting in a war, and dying in a war, that Afghan forces are not willing to fight for themselves.”

The President laid out steps his administration was taking to deal with the crisis, including taking over air traffic control, ensuring the operation of civilian and military flights to evacuate thousands of Americans in the coming days, as well as ramping up assistance to Afghan citizens who are applying for asylum in the US.

The developments prompted widespread criticism of his administration’s handling of the troop drawdown the President announced earlier this year. Flights leaving the Kabul airport were temporarily halted amid security breaches, as Afghans desperate to escape the Taliban swarmed US military aircraft.

In Kabul, Lecturer at the American University of Afghanistan Obaidullah Baheer said what he heard from Biden's speech last night was "I'll punch you in the gut, then I will tell you the amazing things I did after punching you." 

In the US, the Wall Street Journal described Biden’s speech as “one of the most shameful in history by a commander-in-chief”.

Biden's words also drew damning responses from the foreign policy and military establishment, as well as prominent Republicans and politicians from his own party.

“The President’s failure to acknowledge his disastrous withdrawal provides no comfort to Americans or our Afghan partners whose lives hang in the balance,” the moderate Republican senator Mitt Romney, a bitter opponent of Donald Trump, tweeted.

Lindsey Graham, a Republican who became a key Trump supporter, said: “The Biden speech was a pathetic attempt to shift blame and an unnerving analysis of the situation he, and he alone, created.”

The President also faced criticism from his own side.

Chrissy Houlahan, a Democratic congresswoman and air force veteran, challenged Biden’s assertion that the pace of the Taliban’s response was surprising. “We sounded the alarm and our dire warnings fell on deaf ears,” she said.

Tom Malinowski, a Democratic congressman and director of Human Rights Watch at the time of the Afghanistan invasion, fumed about Biden’s assertion that Afghan civilians had not wanted to leave before now. “Anyone writing goddamn talking points should get in the visa line,” he said.

Over 20 years, the Afghan military has been built to work with American forces, including technical support and maintenance of its air forces provided by 18,000 civilian contractors.

All of these were pulled out with the departing American troops, the bulk of which left overnight on July 4 without informing their Afghan counterparts.

The withdrawal also involved the departure of American air support from within the country, limiting the ability to respond to the Taliban’s advance with air strikes.