Donald Trump, former President of the United States, is urging President Joe Biden to withdraw American forces from Afghanistan instead of 11th September, the 20th anniversary of the 2001 terror attacks on Washington and New York. Trump’s office released a statement in which Trump opposed using the 09/11 anniversary for the pullout.

The former president wrote that he wished Biden wouldn’t use 11th September as the departure date for American troops from Afghanistan for two reasons. The first one, U.S. troops can and should get out earlier, and Biden blew past his own 1st May deadline for the withdrawal. Furthermore, the second reason was that 11th September would take away from the day of reflection.

The statement further adds that 19 years is enough, actually too much and way too long. Trump adds that he earlier made early withdrawal possible in Afghanistan by previously pulling much of U.S. billions of dollars of equipment out and, more significantly, reducing American military presence to below two thousand troops from the sixteen thousand levels that were there, likewise in Iraq, and no troops in Syria except for the area where the U.S. kept the oil.

11th September Represents a Sad Event in the U.S. History

Trump wrote that 11th September represents a tragic event and period for the United States and should remain a day of reflection and commemoration honoring those people who lost their lives. Getting out of Afghanistan is a positive and wonderful thing to do. Trump added that he planned to withdraw troops on 1st May and should keep as close to following that schedule as possible.

The statement from the former president comes as Joe Biden recently announced that he would pull out twenty-five hundred American armed forces from Afghanistan between 1st May and September, defying the previously announced fourteenth-month period established in February 2020 in an agreement signed by Donald Trump, American NATO allies and the Taliban.

In his speech on Wednesday, Biden said that they couldn’t continue the cycle of expanding or extending the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan, hoping to establish the ideal conditions for troops to pull out, expecting a different result. Biden adds that he is the 4th U.S. president to administrate an American military presence in Afghanistan. Two Republicans and two Democrats, and he will not pass this responsibility to a fifth one.

It is time to end America’s longest war.

It is time for American troops to come home from Afghanistan.

— President Biden (@POTUS) April 14, 2021

Earlier Sunday, Antony Blinken, the Secretary of State, defended the decision of the Biden administration to withdraw American troops from Afghanistan, saying the current situation is not 2001 and that the terror risk moved to other places. Blinken told ABC News’ This Week that Biden felt that as they are looking at the world now, they have to look at it through the optical prism of 2021s, not 2001.

Afghan President Rejected False Analogies

The terrorism threat moved to other places, and they have other crucial items on the country’s agenda, including the relationship with China and dealing with everything from coronavirus to climate change, Blinken added. Nobody can offer guarantees about the future of Afghanistan after the withdrawal of U.S. forces, a top White House official said.

Jake Sullivan, the White House National Security Adviser, asked on Fox News about the risk of a recurrence of what happened in Iraq, where militants of the Islamic State seized territory after American troops withdrew in 2011. That led former President Barack Obama to send troops back into Iraq.

Sullivan said that president Biden had no intention of sending American troops back to Afghanistan. However, he added that he couldn’t make any guarantees about the future happening in the country. All America could do is provide the Afghan government, the Afghan security forces, and the Afghan people competencies and resources, equipping and training their military and other forces, assisting their government.

Ashraf Ghani, the Afghan President, rejected what he said false analogies with the war in Vietnam along with any suggestions the Afghan government was at risk of folding under the pressure of the Taliban after American troops leave the country. Moreover, he said that the security forces of Afghanistan were capable of defending the nation. In an interview with CNN news agency, Ghani said that the Afghan security and defense forces have been carrying more than ninety percent of the operation in recent two years.

UN Report about the Al Qaeda Fighters in Afghanistan

On Wednesday, William Burns, the Central Intelligence Agency Director, told the Senate Intelligence Committee that the ability of the United States to gather intelligence and act against terror threats in Afghanistan would reduce after the withdrawal of American forces. According to the United Nations report, there were as many as five hundred al Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan, and the Taliban maintained a close tie with the Islamist extremist group.

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