"My predecessor had made a deal with the Taliban. When I came into office, we faced a deadline, May one. The Taliban onslaught was coming, we faced one of two choices. Follow the agreement of the previous administration, or extend to have more time for people to get out. Or send in thousands of more troops and escalate the war. To those asking for a third decade of war in Afghanistan I ask, "What is of vital national interest?" In my view, we only have one. To make sure Afghanistan can never be used again to launch an attack on our homeland. Remember why we went to Afghanistan in the first place, because we were attacked by Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda on September 11th, 2001, and they were based in Afghanistan. We delivered justice to bin Laden on May 2nd, 2011 over a decade ago. Al-Qaeda was decimated. I respectfully suggest you ask yourself this question, "If we’ve been attacked on September 11th, 2001 from Yemen, instead of Afghanistan, would we have ever gone to war in Afghanistan, even though the Taliban controlled Afghanistan in the year 2001?" I believe the honest answer is no. That’s because we had no vital interest in Afghanistan other than to prevent an attack on America’s homeland and our friends, and that’s true today."