Armaments To The Taliban
BY Herschel Smith
3 years, 4 months ago
The Taliban have now captured Kandahar. Kabul won’t be long behind.
The last quarter’s most valuable items included six EMB 314 Super Tucano light attack aircraft, 174 Humvees, almost 100,000 2.75 inch air-to-ground rockets, 60,000 40mm high-explosive rounds, and more than 2 million 7.62 mm cartridges.
[ … ]
The air force flies at least nine Sikorsky-made UH-60A Black Hawk helicopters—of the original 159 ordered at a cost of between $5.75 billion and $7 billion—and 68 McDonnell Douglas-made MD530F light helicopters, part of a deal for 150 aircraft at a cost of $1.4 billion.
Among the ANA’s armored vehicles are hundreds of American-made platforms. Kabul signed a deal for 8,500 Humvees, at least hundreds of which are already believed to have been captured by the Taliban.
The ANA also agreed on deals to receive more than 200 Mine-Resistant Armored Vehicles (MRAPs) from the U.S., plus 634 M117 Strike Force Vehicles at a cost of $661.3 million.
ANA armored vehicles are supported by a range of artillery pieces, both American and Soviet. The ANA has more than 20 U.S-made M114 155mm howitzers.
Hey, how about sending some of that armament this way. We paid for it.
On August 14, 2021 at 6:39 am, Mark Matis said:
Do your local “Law Enforcement” agencies not already have enough MRAPS from previous government gifts???
On August 14, 2021 at 7:10 am, Frank Clarke said:
It’s only money, and there’s more where that came from, right? In extremis, they can always print an extra trillion or so.
I wonder why they didn’t use some of those 40mm high explosive rounds to render scrap anything that had to be left behind…
On August 14, 2021 at 7:52 am, Jsf said:
They are suppose to de-mil anything being left behind
before retreating, unless they are told not to by our commie gov.
On August 14, 2021 at 8:04 am, Wes S. said:
Oh, I’m sure some of that seized booty will eventually make it back to our shores . . . smuggled in, for the benefit of assorted domestic Muslim terror cells. More of it will be used against Americans and American interests around the world.
They’re already burning classified at our Kabul embassy. How long ’til Saigon Bugout, redux? Except this time the helos will be dodging our own Stingers, likely.
On August 14, 2021 at 10:37 am, blake said:
For a bunch of so-called “ignorant savages” the Taliban sure knows how to make it look like they sent the US packing.
Militarily, this was probably always going to be the end result of trying to “pacify” Afghanistan.
However, the current administration just handed the Taliban a huge propaganda win, which the Taliban will use to recruit even more acolytes.
On August 14, 2021 at 12:53 pm, dad29 said:
how about sending some of that armament this way. We paid for it.
And we could be needing it shortly.
On August 14, 2021 at 2:30 pm, Roger J said:
The only positive to this Saigon-1975-replay is that this time the victorious goat herders are too damn stupid to fly a plane or a helicopter, or to maintain same. And they have been killing the pilots one by one that were trained at US taxpayer expense, so the Afghan AF has been unable to provide effective air strikes. As for the other stuff, I imagine they can figure out how to make a howitzer fire at a random target, and they can drive the humvees and tanks until they break down, with no idea how to repair them. I do expect the Chinese to appear and “help” them.
On August 14, 2021 at 11:37 pm, Georgiaboy61 said:
@ Herschel
Re: “Hey, how about sending some of that armament this way. We paid for it.”
Call me old-fashioned, but isn’t it dereliction of duty – gross dereliction of duty – to abandon such a large stock of weapons, gear, equipment and other valuables to enemy when departing? You may have to ask your son for a clarification, as my info may not be current any longer, but I know that at one time, it was SOP for combat engineers and anyone else skilled in demolitions to blow up or otherwise render useless anything of potential value to the enemy – when abandoning your position.
And why on earth is all of this stuff being abandoned in the first place? The taxpayers paid for it, it rightly belongs to them. If we had the air/sea lift capability to get that stuff into the theater, then by God we have the capacity to remove it in the same way. Maybe some Pentagon bean-counter calculated that it would be “cost-prohibitive” or some such nonsense, but that’s foolishness.
Accounting does not – cannot – measure the enormous value capturing this material will mean to the enemy.
Or is letting it fall into the hands of the enemy the whole point of the exercise in the first place?
Assurances that the Taliban don’t know how to employ or service advanced weaponry – well, they aren’t much comfort as far as I am concerned. If no one in Afghanistan proper knows how, then there are plenty of people who do in places like Pakistan, Iran or China.
On August 15, 2021 at 8:58 am, S. Bishop said:
Perhaps Eric Holder was attempting to expand his ‘fast and furious’ gun running operation to the Taliban after his earlier botched attempt to arm Mexican drug cartels went awry. Why stop with a few hand-held ‘assault weapons’ when the DOD would be handling all the delivery challenges to import all these serious weapons into Afghanistan, what could possibly go wrong? Oh, and BTW let’s share any military technology with the Chinese.
On August 15, 2021 at 9:56 am, blake said:
Because I’m a bit slow, I have to apologize for not recognizing just what a disaster Kabaul and Afghanistan is.
It beggars the imagination our warfighters, and the junta currently running things, had no one smart enough to say, “You know, maybe we should prepare for the worst.”
Now, from what I’m reading, the ruling junta plans to rush some troops into Afghanistan, and, likely without any air cover nor any sort of logistical tail to support the troops.
This entire screw up should remove any doubt as to whether or not Biden is nothing more than an Obama third term, because this monumental failure is part and parcel of how the Obama administration operated back when.
On August 15, 2021 at 10:40 am, JB said:
My understanding is this weaponry was given to the ANA. It was the ANA that abandoned it, not US forces. But the US military had to know the ANA would run and leave the weapons for the Taliban.
Its clear somebody was lying in their reports back to Washington that the ANA was a fit and capable force willing and capable of defeating the Taliban
Did US intelligence agencies fail in their assessment of the Taliban or did they set Biden up ? Why set Biden up ? They were against the pull out and may have decided to give Joe a gift he will never forget.
On August 15, 2021 at 11:43 am, X said:
I’m sure plenty of it IS coming this way — to your local sheriff and to your state police, so they can roll up and shoot your dog and kill you for being an anti-vaxxer, an anti-masker, a gun owner and a Trump voter…
On August 15, 2021 at 5:53 pm, Georgiaboy61 said:
@ S. Bishop
Re: “Perhaps Eric Holder was attempting to expand his ‘fast and furious’ gun running operation to the Taliban after his earlier botched attempt to arm Mexican drug cartels went awry. Why stop with a few hand-held ‘assault weapons’ when the DOD would be handling all the delivery challenges to import all these serious weapons into Afghanistan, what could possibly go wrong?”
Good observation, but don’t forget that Obama, Holder, Clinton, et al. the usual suspects also ran weapons internationally to jihadist forces attempting to overthrow the Assad government of Syria. That was the “secret” inside the siege of Benghazi – that one of the reasons the Obama regime refused to green-light a rescue was the very real risk of their illicit operation being made public. And what the heck, anyway, right? …. just a bunch of infidels being sacrificed anyway, certainly nothing about which Imam Obama would care.
In other words, once “Fast and Furious” – the test run – worked to their satisfaction, they could take their show on the road internationally.
All of those weapons and all of that sensitive high-tech gear and equipment… what better way to stick a finger into the eye of the hated infidel than to “abandon” all those weapons, ordnance and gear to the Taliban? Chances are, if they don’t use them in Afghanistan proper, they’ll eventually be smuggled into the EU via southern Europe or make their way to Chechnya. Either way, regardless, the soldiers of Allah will be using them against their former owners.
Police in nations as far north as Sweden have uncovered/recovered weapons caches in mosques and elsewhere with weapons in them traced to the Balkans civil wars of the 1990s. So there is some sort of underground network moving all of this stuff around.
Re: “Oh, and BTW let’s share any military technology with the Chinese.”
Just don’t forget ten-percent for the “big guy,” Crazy Joe Biden himself…. that’s his cut for arranging such transfers of sensitive info. Same as it ever was…
On August 16, 2021 at 2:14 pm, Pat Hines said:
I don’t want much, just twenty or thirty RPG launchers and hundred dozen RPG-29 or RPG-31 rounds.
On August 17, 2021 at 9:57 am, Ned said:
Meanwhile, the southern border is open for business, and “DHS Issues ‘Terror Alert’ for Americans Who Question 2020 Election, Resist COVID Measures & Celebrate ‘Religious Holidays’. ”
DHS will maintain target fixation on “white supremacists” right up until the shit hits the fan.
On August 18, 2021 at 10:13 pm, Geoff said:
Reply to Ned.
Can you say the beginning of the Democrat Dictatorship?