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A group of 26 Republican senators has written to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin demanding a full accounting of the weaponry and equipment that was allowed to fall into the hands of the Taliban upon the collapse of the Afghan government and army, which followed quickly on the heels of the withdrawal from Afghanistan of American forces.
The Epoch Times reported, on 20 August, that the senators told Sec. Austin, “It is unconscionable that high-tech military equipment paid for by U.S. taxpayers has fallen into the hands of the Taliban and their terrorist allies,” and that “Securing U.S. assets should have been among the top priorities for the U.S. Department of Defense prior to announcing the withdrawal from Afghanistan.”
Photos and videos are currently circulating on the internet, showing Taliban fighters who have replaced their traditional AK-47s and AKMs with American M-4s and M-16s, and posing with American helicopters and aircraft.
Over the two decades of America’s war in Afghanistan, some $83 billion was spent on the Afghan army and police, including some 600,000 weapons and 163,000 communication devices and 208 aircraft, as well as surveillance and reconnaissance equipment.
Just between 2017 and 2019 the U.S. delivered 4,702 Humvees, 7,035 machine guns, 2,520 bombs, 20,040 hand grenades and 1,394 grenade launchers, according to the Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction.
Needless to say, the Taliban are now better-armed than ever before. Prior to the Taliban’s all-but-complete takeover of Afghanistan, Pres. Biden was touting the Afghan army as among the best-equipped armies in the world, and, if true, it was American materiel that made it so.
The Epoch Times article cites Elias Yousif, deputy director of the Center for International Policy’s Security Assistance Monitor, as representative of “experts” who believe that such seizure of arms and equipment has “more of a psychological than practical impact.” Yousif told The Hill news outlet that having U.S.-made weaponry is, for the Taliban, “a sort of psychological win,” a status symbol.
Yousif also stated that the Taliban would be able to use advanced weaponry and aircraft, but not for very long. Even in the hands of the Afghan military, it was American maintenance and servicing that kept the aircraft flying.
Small arms such as M-16s are another matter, however. They are easy to use and maintain, easy to transport and therefore easy to transfer or sell, and may turn up anywhere else in the world.
The Epoch Times article also quotes Jake Sullivan, Pres. Biden’s National Security Advisor, repeating the Biden administration talking point that the blame for the loss of all that materiel, and of Afghanistan itself, can be laid at the feet of the Afghan National Security Forces for not fighting to defend themselves.
TREND FORECAST: This again illustrates how low the U.S. military command has sunk, and how the mainstream media barely reports on their long trail of disastrous failures.
And when their crimes and misdemeanors are revealed by whistle blowers such as Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden and others, they are persecuted and prosecuted to the full extent of what is now criminally called “the law.”
For some of the international ramifications of the debacle that is Afghanistan today, see the TJ article of 20 July, “CHINA RIDICULES U.S. AFGHAN DEFEAT.”