Vice President Joe Biden addressed the issue of Afghanistan at the vice presidential debate Thursday night.
“The fact is we went there for one reason, to get the people who killed Americans, al-Qaeda,” said Biden. “We decimated al-Qaeda central. We eliminated Bin Laden. That was our purpose. In the meantime, we said we’d help train the Afghan military. It’s their responsibility to take over their own security. That’s why with 49 of the allies in Afghanistan, we’ve agreed on a gradual drawdown, so we are out of there by the year — in the year 2014. My friend [Paul Ryan] and the governor [Mitt Romney] say it’s based on conditions — meaning it depends.”
Biden then said that it is up to Afghans to take over their security, with over 315,000 troops trained there by the U.S. and allies — and, Biden noted, cases of “green on blue” violence where Americans have been killed by troops that they trained.
“We are leaving in 2014, period,” Biden said. “In the process, we’re going to be saving, over the next ten years, another $800 billion. We’ve been in the war for over a decade. The primary objective is almost completed. Now all we’re doing is putting the Kabul government in a position to be able to maintain their own security. It’s just their responsibility, not America’s.”
