‘We’ve seen what they’ve done before’: Biden adviser Jake Sullivan says ‘heart goes out’ to Afghan women and girls

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President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, expressed concern for the women and girls of Afghanistan in the face of a Taliban takeover on Monday, while defending the administration’s decision to withdraw US troops from the country.

At the White House’s first press briefing since Kabul fell on Sunday, Mr Sullivan said that the Taliban’s track record on women’s rights provided great cause for concern, and asserted that the US would continue to advocate for the safety and rights of women even as the military occupation ended.

“Truly, deeply, my heart goes out to Afghan women and girls today under the Taliban. We’ve seen what they’ve done before,” Mr Sullivan said of the Taliban’s history. “That was a very hard thing for us to face.”

But, he continued, “the alternative choice had its own set of human consequences”.

“These are the choices a president has to make, and it doesn’t mean because we don’t have forces in that country that we are not going to fight on behalf of women and girls and human rights and human dignity. We are. We do, in many other countries where we don’t have active military participation and we’ll do it in Afghanistan, too,” the national security adviser said.

His comments came in response to a question from a reporter about what the White House’s message was to many Afghan civilians who now face the potential of a rollback of human rights following the failure of the US-backed Afghan government to defeat the Taliban.

The end of the country’s civil war has yet to spark the kinds of significant social changes that western commentators have feared, though Taliban officials are largely currently focused on setting up their government and taking full control of the country’s territory.

Asked what tools the US will still have to pressure the Taliban on issues of human rights, Mr Sullivan pointed to sanctions and other measures that the US frequently implements against countries seen as opposing US interests or policies.

His remarks come as lawmakers in the UK and other countries involved in the US’ nearly two-decade-long war in the Middle East have scorned the Biden administration’s response to the fall of Kabul and blamed the president, still in his first year in office, for abandoning the people of a country that has been ravaged by conflict between the US and Taliban.

Mr Biden is expected to speak again about Afghanistan in the days ahead, Mr Sullivan and White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on Tuesday.