Well, knock me over with a feather - how could this be?
Everything went GREAT, except for the hiccups one always expects, right?
In April of 2023, after nearly two years of exhaustive research to bolster their excuse-making on the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal, the Biden toadies, including none other than polished National Security Council lying crap weasel extraordinaire John Kirby, had their talking points in order.
The first and best excuse they had for their catastrophic failure was:
TRUMP!
...Today’s press gathering with Adm John Kirby in the spotlight was occasioned by the release of the long-awaited Biden administration reports on the catastrophic withdrawal from Afghanistan, or, as they called it:
- WHY DID TRUMP DO THIS TO US?!
Think I’m kidding? I’m not.
President Joe Biden’s administration on Thursday laid the blame on his predecessor, President Donald Trump, for the deadly and chaotic 2021 withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan that brought about some of the darkest moments of Biden’s presidency.
The second excuse was telling the world what their lying eyes saw in August of 2021 was a mirage. Admiral Kirby, outstanding example of military integrity that he has always been, said 'Chaos? I din see no stinkin' chaos!' as if that settled the argument.
Biden Spokesman John Kirby on the Afghanistan withdrawal: "For all this talk of 'chaos,' I just didn't see it" pic.twitter.com/4LIF8ovMuC
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) April 6, 2023
Understand that performance by Kirby and a twelve-page report were supposed to be the clean-up round to explain the dead Marines and soldiers in the teeming throng of panicked humanity at Abbey Gate one last, final time. The Biden administration version was set in stone, and Afghanistan was now going to be buried away, never more to be questioned.
As for all the equipment left behind when US forces began their precipitous, ill-conceived, deadly withdrawal, the Expert™ assurances that the numbers we were hearing from alarmed Republicans and others were greatly exaggerated and that what was left was nearly useless to the Taliban had been orchestrated from the very beginning to conceal the obvious truth. All with the help of a compliant press and collaborative Defense Experts™.
No less sanctified, unimpeachable source than FactCheck.org, not one week after the deaths of thirteen of our finest at the hands of a Taliban suicide bomber, dove into the argument to debunk Republicans' figures and concerns.
One week after the disaster, the Biden protection spin machine was already in motion with some interesting nuggets about the state of the equipment as well.
THAT FIGURE IS RUBBISH
Republicans Inflate Cost of Taliban-Seized U.S. Military Equipment
The Taliban seized an arsenal of U.S.-made military equipment when it overran the Afghan army, but not nearly as much as numerous Republicans have claimed.
Several Republican members of Congress and former President Donald Trump have cited a grossly exaggerated figure of $85 billion worth of equipment they say has now fallen into the hands of the Taliban. But that figure — actually $82.9 billion — is the total amount spent on the Afghanistan Security Forces Fund since the war began in 2001.
Only a portion of that is equipment. And military experts say much of the equipment has been used up or is otherwise inoperable; the military has moved or destroyed some of it as well.
For those reasons, and others, Anthony H. Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies told us, “The figure is statistically rubbish.”
...It is certainly true that a lot of military equipment provided to Afghan troops was seized by the Taliban. After American troops pulled out, the Taliban paraded in U.S.-made Humvees and armored SUVs, and even flew a recently seized Black Hawk pulling a Taliban flag. And numerous press photos circulated of Taliban fighters sporting U.S.-made rifles and machine guns.
“We don’t have a complete picture, obviously, of where every article of defense materials has gone, but certainly a fair amount of it has fallen into the hands of the Taliban,” National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan acknowledged on Aug. 17, a couple days after the fall of the capital, Kabul.
Oh, some of it was money, and the rest of the equipment?
'Some' of the aircraft had been disabled, as had 'some' of the systems at the Kabul airport. I saw no mention of assets at Bagram in the FactCheck post.
...Just before leaving, the military also destroyed a weapon system used to intercept rockets, artillery and mortars, known as C-RAM, McKenzie said. The New York Times reported that C-RAMs and several armored vehicles left behind at the U.S. Embassy were also destroyed or rendered inoperable.
Expert™, the late Anthony Cordesman said, 'We junked most of it.' And lost a bunch, too, so no worries is the gist of the FactCheck article, besides Republicans are big fat liars.
...However, the $83 billion figure cited by Republicans — more precisely $82.9 billion — is far too high. It comes from a July 30 report by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction and represents the total appropriated funding for the Afghanistan Security Forces Fund going back to the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. As of June 30, about $75 billion was actually disbursed.
That fund includes money spent to provide military equipment to the Afghans. But equipment costs are only a piece of the fund.
...For starters, most of the equipment provided to the Afghans was used in fighting over the last 20 years, and “we junked most of it,” Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies told us in a phone interview. “War tends to use stuff up in a hurry.”
Nor should anyone assume the Taliban will have the expertise or wherewithal to operate all of the equipment.
“U.S. military equipment tends to require extensive support from technical specialists,” Loren Thompson, a defense industry consultant and military analyst at the Lexington Institute, told us via email. “In the absence of such specialists, much of it will run down due to wear and a lack of spare parts.”
...“Truth be told, if the Russians or Chinese wanted to get their hands on a Super Tucano or early model Black Hawk it wouldn’t be that hard,” he said. “They were equipped in a pretty low-tech way.”
Very little of the equipment left in Afghanistan could be considered sophisticated, Cordesman, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told us.
“We’re not giving the most advanced intelligence equipment to anyone,” he said.
Nonetheless, there is still a large cache of U.S.-made weaponry that has found its way into the Taliban’s hands. While most of that would be considered “primitive,” by U.S. military standards, Cordesman told us, “that doesn’t mean it isn’t effective.”
Strangely enough, despite what FactCheck, Jake Sullivan, Kirby, and others like the late Mr Cordesman assured us, the Afghan Reconstruction Inspector General seems to think the Taliban have made out pretty well on those abandoned and 'worn out' US military assets. In fact, almost exactly as well as those cranky Republicans were worried and warning about.
Isn't that peculiar? Like, it's almost the exact opposite of what the Biden stooges were telling us.
Afghan watchdog concludes billions in weapons U.S. left behind form ‘core’ of Taliban military
The inspector general responsible for scrutinizing U.S. reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan has detailed the billions of dollars wasted by the U.S. government during the 20-year war in the country and concluded that the arsenal of U.S.-provided military weaponry that was left behind now forms the “core” of the Taliban’s own military machine.
A massive number of U.S.-made and U.S.-supplied weapons and military facilities were left behind in Afghanistan as a result of President Joe Biden’s troop withdrawal announcement in April 2021, which resulted in the dissolution of the Afghan military, a chaotic U.S. evacuation, and a Taliban takeover in August 2021.
The Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction (SIGAR) issued its “final forensic audit report” this week more than four years after the U.S. withdrawal and evacuation from the country, concluding that “these U.S. taxpayer-funded equipment, weapons, and facilities have formed the core of the Taliban security apparatus.” SIGAR said in its final report that it will close its doors at the end of January 2026 as a result of the National Defense Authorization Act for 2025.
The report said that the Pentagon has concluded that the U.S. left behind weaponry worth at least $7.1 billion — weapons now in the hands of the Taliban — and that the U.S. government also continued to send $3.47 billion in humanitarian and development assistance to Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover.
Leaving aside what the US spent over the decades 'rebuilding' that third-world Schlitzhole, from 2021 on is enough to make you ill, and runs counter to the Biden 'no worries' narrative. The Afghan Air Force has planes that flew, unlike what the FactCheck article says.
...SIGAR said that Pentagon records from late July 2021 – roughly two weeks before the Taliban seized Kabul – “indicated that the Afghan Air Force had 162 U.S.-provided aircraft in its inventory, of which 131 were usable.”
The report added that “the remaining $11.5 billion of the $31.2 billion spent by the U.S. was devoted to the construction of infrastructure for the ANDSF, including the construction of headquarters, training facilities, and bases or outposts around the country.”
“DoD determined that the United States left behind approximately $7.1 billion in material and equipment it had given to the ANDSF,” SIGAR stated. “Similarly, any remaining ANDSF facilities that were not destroyed, can be assumed to be under Taliban control.”
And here's a real kick in the teeth. POTATUS and his toadies - or handlers, like Sullivan - didn't make sure to clean the Karzai's government defense bank account out before they turned tail and scooted out of the country. They left one helluva a US savings account in situ for the Taliban to work off of.
Oh, hello.
...SIGAR also found that “approximately $57.6 million likely remained in Afghan government-controlled accounts when the Taliban took over in August 2021” and that “it is likely that the Taliban were able to access at least a portion of this money when they took over Afghanistan’s Ministry of Finance.”
For assets that were removed prior to our withdrawal, how'd so much get left behind then?
...The Defense Department inspector general also conducted an investigation into the U.S.-provided weapons that were left behind in Afghanistan and that are now mostly in the hands of the Taliban. The watchdog argued that “the U.S.-funded equipment now under the control of the Taliban had previously been property of the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces.”
The Pentagon inspector general revealed in 2022 that the U.S. military left $7.12 billion worth of U.S.-funded aircraft, vehicles, weapons, munitions, and other equipment in Afghan government inventories at the time of the Taliban takeover. This included Afghan military aircraft “valued at $923.3 million” – although the U.S. military stressed that “some” of these aircraft were “demilitarized and rendered inoperable” during the NEO – as well as aircraft weapons “valued at $294.6 million.” This also included Afghan ground vehicles “valued at $4.12 billion” – including tactical vehicles such as Humvees and Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles (MRAPs). The U.S. military had transferred 35 MRAPs to the Afghan Ministry of Defense in early 2021.
The Pentagon watchdog found that “Afghan forces had 316,260 weapons, worth $511.8 million, as well as ammunition and other equipment in their stocks when the former government fell.” This included rifles, sniper rifles, pistols, machine guns, rocket-propelled grenade launchers, and howitzers. The Taliban also got its hands on “specialty ground munitions (such as mortar rounds), communications equipment, explosive ordnance detection and disposal equipment, night vision devices, and other surveillance equipment.”
Is anyone toting up these numbers because I swear they have to be coming close to what Republicans orginally were talking about.
...Former CENTCOM Commander Gen. Frank McKenzie wrote in his memoir that “the thousands of weapons ranging from M4 and M16 rifles to D-30 artillery pieces that were in the hands of the Afghan military … were all lost.” The general said the Taliban also likely gained control of “12,000 high-mobility multi-wheeled vehicles and 21,000 Ford Ranger trucks.” And the general wrote that “37 aircraft that weren’t at HKIA fell into Taliban hands at airbases like Kandahar.” All told, the general said that “our best estimate was that the equipment lost totaled about $18 billion.”
And damned if those little hairy goatherders haven't learned to fix an airplane. We were assured by Experts™ that they couldn't do that either.
...The Taliban claimed to have recovered 40 operational aircraft from the former Afghan government, including two Mi-17 helicopters, two UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters, two MD-530 light helicopters, two Mi-24 helicopter gunships, and one fixed-wing transport aircraft – all of which the Pentagon said have since been observed flying.
SIGAR later revealed that an unclassified Defense Intelligence Agency assessment from March 2022 stated that the Taliban claimed to have repaired seven former Afghan Air Force aircraft, with the DIA indicating that “the Taliban may have obtained a degree of operation and maintenance capability.”
THE TALIBAN MAY HAVE OBTAINED A DEGREE OF OPERATION AND MAINTENANCE CAPABILITY
There's an understatement for you when something is in the air years later that wasn't ever supposed to be capable of flight to begin with.
The shocking conclusion is that every word coming out of the Biden administration was a lie.
They had no clue what they were doing. They only knew they wanted out of Afghanistan, and these amateur hour players figured that whatever happened, because Trump had been part of previous negotiations, they could dump whatever they screwed up on him.
If they pulled it off, they were heroes.
If they jacked it up, it was Trump's fault anyway.
If crap got left behind, who cares?
Those third-world cavemen couldn't use toilet paper, let alone fix a Blackhawk.
If someone died?
Hey. They volunteered for this job.
Nobody forced them to be a Marine.
At HotAir, we’ve been dealing with real government suppression of free speech for YEARS. Despite the threats and consequences, we refuse to go silent and remain committed to delivering the truth.
But we can't do it without your support.
Please help Ed, David, John, and me continue fighting back against government censorship by joining our terrific HotAir VIP community today. Use promo code FIGHT to receive 60% off your membership.
And thank you so much again for being here with us at HotAir.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member