US President Biden gets criticised in view of Taliban's lead in Afghanistan

Washington/Kabul – US President Joe Biden’s swift withdrawal from Afghanistan has drawn sharp criticism from the United States. The criticism has intensified in the wake of the Taliban’s takeover of cities.

David Sedney, a senior official in charge of Afghanistan under former President Barack Obama, has said that no other country would trust the United States after Biden’s decision. Former US ambassador to Afghanistan Ryan Crocker has criticised Biden for handing over Afghanistan to the Taliban.

Last year, the United States announced an agreement with the Taliban to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan. President Joe Biden, the successor of Donald Trump, also upheld the decision. However, the withdrawal will be completed by September instead of May.

It was feared that the Taliban would regain control of the entire Afghanistan after the withdrawal of US and NATO countries. But before the withdrawal process was completed, the Taliban were said to have taken control of more than 80 per cent of Afghanistan. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack on Saturday, a few miles from the capital, Kabul.

Against this backdrop, President Biden is reported to have gone to Camp David for a holiday; while it was expected by the US to stop the Taliban. With the Taliban likely to take control of Afghanistan, many have expressed outrage at the US president’s holiday.

David Sedney, a senior defence official during Obama’s tenure, has slammed the policy of military withdrawal in Afghanistan. ‘The withdrawal of the United States has sent a message to our allies. The message to allies is not to trust the United States,’ said Sedney.

Ryan Crocker, the US ambassador to Afghanistan, said that the US withdrawal was like a handover of Afghanistan to the Taliban.

‘The Afghan government feels that the US has left Afghanistan in the lurch, and it is true. We have made an agreement with their enemy,’ said Crocker, a former ambassador.

Adela Raz, Afghanistan’s ambassador to the United States, also spoke out against the Biden administration. For the peace and security of the rest of the world, Afghanistan was left alone to fight the Taliban, Raz said.

Craig Whitlock, a journalist and writer for the Washington Post, has targeted former President Barack Obama over the Afghan issue. Whitlock’s book, The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of War, is due out later this month. In it, he remarked that statements made by former President Obama on the conflict in Afghanistan in 2014 were false. Obama had said at the time that the conflict in Afghanistan was coming to an end. However, Whitlock claimed that the statement was a gross betrayal of the American people. The report said that the war in Afghanistan had been going on for almost seven years and that Americans had been killed in it.