After Two Decades And More Than A 150,000 Dead, America Has Left Afghanistan

The NPR Politics Podcast

NPR

Politics, Daily News, News

4.5 • 24.9K Ratings

🗓️ 31 August 2021

⏱️ 16 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The withdrawal effort managed to evacuate 124,000 people before the last U.S. service member left Afghanistan on Monday, ending nearly two-decades of American military presence in the country after the September 11th attacks.

Tuesday at the White House, President Biden fervently defended his decision not to "extend the forever war," though touted America's remote warfare capabilities and told terror group ISIS-K: "We're not done with you yet."

This episode: White House correspondent Asma Khalid, White House correspondent Scott Detrow, Pentagon correspondent Tom Bowman.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Last night in Kabul, the United States ended 20 years of war in Afghanistan.
0:07.7	It's the NPR politics podcast.
0:09.3	I'm Asma Khaled.
0:10.3	I cover the White House.
0:11.3	And then Scott Detrello, I also cover the White House.
0:14.4	After 20 years, the last U.S. ground troops have now officially left Afghanistan, bringing
0:20.0	a formal end to the longest war in American history.
0:23.3	Just a bit ago, the president gave a speech from the White House to mark the moment.
0:27.1	I was not going to extend this forever war.
0:31.0	And I was not extending a forever exit.
0:34.4	The human cost of the war was devastating.
0:37.2	More than 100,000 Afghan forces and civilians died in the conflict, along with more than
0:42.1	2400 Americans and 1100 coalition forces.
0:46.3	That's all according to the cost of war project at Brown University.
0:49.7	Not to mention the financial price tag for the war topped two trillion dollars.
0:54.9	NPR's Pentagon correspondent Tom Bowman is here again.
0:58.0	Tom, thanks for joining us.
0:59.0	Good to be with you.
1:00.0	So, I want to start with the president's remarks themselves.
1:04.0	You know, at times he seemed defensive in his speech that he gave.
1:08.2	And I'm curious what struck both of you about it.
1:11.3	I mean, to me it was that defensiveness.
	...

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