When President Joe Biden decided to hastily remove US troops from Afghanistan, after a decade of serving as the sole protector of the Afghan people against the rule of the vicious Islamic fundamentalism of the Taliban, Americans were enraged. We were abandoning not only an entire nation in need, but leaving the sort of power vacuum that despots and killers flourish in.
And, unsurprisingly, that is precisely what happened. Within 11 days, the Taliban had overrun US-trained Afghani forces across the country, once again plunging Afghanistan and her people into the harsh reality of a Jihadist-run government.
To add insult to injury, Biden’s withdrawal was so swift and poorly-planned that the Taliban was able to procure a vast array of US military hardware in the process. A new report details the staggering size of their confiscated cache.
The Taliban is in possession of nearly $7.2 billion in U.S. taxpayer-funded weapons, ammunition, and aircraft as a result of the Biden administration’s bungled 2021 military withdrawal from Afghanistan, according to a government watchdog.
The breakdown is staggering.
“Nearly $7.2 billion worth of aircraft, guns, vehicles, ammunition, and specialized equipment” was abandoned in Afghanistan when the Biden administration carried out its rushed evacuation, according to a report published in late February by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), the federal watchdog group that monitors U.S. expenditures in the country.
“At least 78 aircraft worth $923.3 million, 9,524 air-to-ground munitions valued at $6.54 million, over 40,000 vehicles, more than 300,000 weapons, and nearly all night vision, surveillance, communications, and biometric equipment provided to the [Afghan defense forces] were left behind,” according to information disclosed in SIGAR’s report.
The report is sure to reinvigorate criticism of Biden’s decision, and his overall foreign policy ethos, and just ahead of what many expect to be an inevitable announcement regarding his reelection campaign.
