Afghanistan...

GC

Well-known member
Biden sure has that handled. A week ago he said nobody would be clinging to helicoptors on the roof. As usual he was wrong, wrong, wrong.
 
This one is a real chit show that is going to get a lot of people killed. Including Americans.
 
More results of the America last philosophy. This is a total sham and lack of planning and preparation on the administration and all the top level players that allowed the pull out and left our people behind. Abandon our people, assets, and bases and put the remaining troops there in the middle of a sh!t show trying to get people out. Don’t be surprised when our enemies in the rest of the world seize the opportunity to make a move in this moment of embarrassment and weakness for the administration, and unfortunately as a result of piss poor decisions, the military.
 
And in another massive display of incompetence, Biden gives an address and fails to mention one thing about the situation in Afghanistan. I guess it’s part of the playbook to deflect attention and try to force the desired narrative of COVID bad and everyone who doesn’t get a shot is to blame. What a joke!
 
Originally Posted By: vahunterI read the Babylon Bee and they said 82% of the taliban are happy they voted for Biden.LOL

Ha!
 
Originally Posted By: Stu FarishBabylon Bee has become a more accurate news source than most of the actual news media


Sad but true.
 
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Undated photo showing a Black Hawk helicopter over Kabul in Afghanistan. (Dan Kitwood/AP)
National Security

US Black Hawk Helicopters Captured by Taliban as ‘Horrified’ Senators Demand DOD Audit

By Jack Phillips
August 19, 2021 Updated: August 20, 2021

Likely billions of dollars of American weapons and vehicles are now in the hands of the Taliban extremist group after the collapse of the Afghan government and army, with numerous videos and photos surfacing online showing Taliban members seizing the equipment.

Photos have circulated of Taliban members holding American M-4 carbines and M-16 rifles rather than AK-47s or AKMs. Other images and videos showed the Taliban surrounding U.S. Black Hawk helicopters and A-29 Super Tucano attack aircraft.

On Wednesday, several GOP senators demanded the Department of Defense (DOD) provide full accounting over the weapons and equipment that were captured by the Taliban, considered by several agencies as a terrorist organization.

“As we watched the images coming out of Afghanistan as the Taliban retook the country, we were horrified to see U.S. equipment—including UH-60 Black Hawks—in the hands of the Taliban,” Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and two dozen other senators wrote to Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin this week.

Robert Spencer روبرت سبنسر रॉबर्ट स्पेंसर 🇺🇸
@jihadwatchRS
Taliban seizes $6,000,000 US Blackhawk helicopters https://wp.me/p4hgqZ-Z2J
E81_aXEWQAAWZlr

Image
11:00 AM · Aug 15, 2021

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,” the Republicans added. “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.”

Some experts said that the Taliban capture of U.S. hardware has more of a psychological impact—rather than a practical impact.

“When an armed group gets their hands on American-made weaponry, it’s sort of a status symbol. It’s a psychological win,” said Elias Yousif, deputy director of the Center for International Policy’s Security Assistance Monitor, according to The Hill.

Yousif said the development is problematic for a number of reasons.

“Clearly, this is an indictment of the U.S. security cooperation enterprise broadly,” he added. “It really should raise a lot of concerns about what is the wider enterprise that is going on every single day, whether that’s in the Middle East, Sub-Saharan Africa, East Asia.”

Military
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Military vehicles transferred by the U.S. to the Afghan National Army in February 2021. (Afghanistan Ministry of Defense/via Reuters)
talibans
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Taliban stand guard at an entrance gate outside the Interior Ministry in Kabul, on Aug. 17, 2021. (Javed Tanveer/AFP via Getty Images)

The Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, established by Congress in 2008, has said that about $83 billion was spent on developing and sustaining the Afghan police and army over two decades. Between 2003 and 2016, the United States transferred nearly 600,000 weapons, 76,000 vehicles, 163,000 communication devices, 208 aircraft, and surveillance and reconnaissance equipment to the Afghan forces, said a 2017 Government Accountability Office report.

Between 2017 and 2019, the United States provided Afghan army forces with 4,702 Humvees, 2,520 bombs, 1,394 grenade launchers, 20,040 hand grenades, and 7,035 machine guns, said the Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction.

Yousif told The Hill that it’s likely the Taliban would be able to use advanced aircraft or weaponry but stressed they won’t be able to keep the aircraft in the air for long.

“They may be able to manage a flight or two or to operate them in some really limited capacity in the short term, but without long-term sustainment, maintenance, servicing, that sort of thing, it wouldn’t turn into a robust or useful military capability,” he said. “It took the Afghans and the United States a long time to develop an indigenous air capability, and even then, they were reliant on the United States to keep those planes in the sky.”

Small arms like M-16s, he said, are of more concern.


Status-6
@Archer83Able
The Taliban has seized AAF's UH-60 Black Hawk & Mil Mi-8/17 helicopters at the Kandahar Airport.

CLICK HERE FOR VIDEO


“They are easy to maintain, easy to learn how to use, easy to transport,” Yousif told the outlet. “The concern for all small arms is that they are durable goods and they can be transferred, sold. We’ve seen this before where a conflict ends and the arms that stay there make their way to all parts of the world.”

When pressed for comment, White House officials said that it’s not clear how many weapons or vehicles were seized.

“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,” White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters on Tuesday. “And obviously, we don’t have a sense that they are going to readily hand it over to us at the airport.”

And Sullivan made reference to the Black Hawk helicopters that were taken, blaming the Afghan army for not defending themselves.

“Those Black Hawks were not given to the Taliban,” he said. “They were given to the Afghan National Security Forces to be able to defend themselves at the specific request of [Afghan] President [Ashraf] Ghani, who came to the Oval Office and asked for additional air capability, among other things.”

Jack Phillips
Senior Reporter
Jack Phillips is a reporter at The Epoch Times based in New York.
https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_morningbrief/billions-of-dollars-in-us-weapons-aircraft-likely-seized-by-taliban_3956556.html?utm_source=Morningbrief&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=mb-2021-08-20&mktids=6915e925258a10451cc2001be2c0d771&est=%2FalWQtre%2BycHJurjdNRI%2FKY%2BTGy7cA5YEKsJTR9h0%2FfgglLJ76fI4hX4
 
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A general view shows Bagram Air Base, after all U.S. and NATO troops left, some 43 miles north of Kabul, Afghanistan on July 2, 2021. (Zakeria Hashimi/AFP via Getty Images)

Demilitarizing US Bases Isn’t so Easy: Afghanistan War Vet

By Ken Silva
August 19, 2021 Updated: August 20, 2021


Former President Donald Trump said this week that the U.S. military should have destroyed its permanent bases before withdrawing from Afghanistan—an action that’s probably too late to take by now, according to a Marine Corps veteran who’s performed such operations.

During an Aug. 17 interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity, Trump lamented the Taliban’s seizure of U.S. military equipment left abandoned at unmanned U.S. bases.

“We have billions of dollars of brand new equipment. Take the equipment out. And then take the soldiers out,” Trump said. “And frankly, I said, ‘Take the soldiers out. But before you leave, blow up all the forts.’ Because we built these forts that are now being used by the enemy—it’s not even believable.”

By now, it’s too late to properly demilitarize major bases such as the ones in Kandahar and Bagram, according to Defense Priorities senior fellow Gil Barndollar, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran twice deployed to Afghanistan who has experience in demilitarizing bases.

“You can’t just demilitarize a base, which would be anything from reducing it to getting rid of it altogether. I ‘demilled’ a patrol base in Afghanistan in 2011, and it was literally a scorched mark on the desert when we were done with it,” Barndollar told The Epoch Times during an Aug. 16 press conference. “Prior to that, it had housed close to a company of Marines. So, that’s a process that involves engineering assets.”

Simply bombing bases is both ineffective and dangerous to civilians, Barndollar says.

“Just bombing something from the air—one, there’s a high possibility of civilian casualties. A lot of Afghans in the rural areas will swarm into a base and loot it of anything they can take, so there’s a serious risk of civilian casualties if you think you’re just going to level something from the air,” Barndollar said.

“And second, it’s really not that effective. You need to bring in heavy-equipment engineering assets, and take it apart and bulldoze it piece by piece.”

Rather than undertake this demilitarization process, U.S. officials planned for the military bases to be used by Afghan security forces.

But that plan collapsed along with the U.S.-backed government. The Associated Press reported on Aug. 15 that the Taliban captured Bagram Air Base, and videos have been circulating in recent days that show the Taliban apparently plundering Black Hawk helicopters and other U.S. military equipment from the Kandahar airfield.

“The pace of this surprised everybody,” Barndollar said. “We thought these bases were going to be handed over to reasonably coherent Afghan security forces.”

At an Aug. 18 press conference, reporters asked whether the military could retake Bagram Air Base, since that would presumably facilitate the outflow of more Americans and Afghan refugees. Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, responded that doing so would have required the help of the now-defunct Afghan military.

“Securing Bagram is a significant level of military effort of forces, and it would also require external support from the Afghan Security Forces,” Milley said.

When pressed on why the military abandoned Bagram in the first place, Milley said he and his colleagues had tough decisions to make, because of resource constraints.

“Our task given to us at that time was to protect the embassy in order for the embassy personnel to continue to function with their consular service and all that,” Milley said. “If we were to keep both Bagram and the embassy going, that would be a significant number of military forces that would have exceeded what we had or stayed the same or exceeded what we had.”

Some observers have expressed concern that China may move into the abandoned bases.

Former CIA analyst Michael Scheuer is one of those voices. Scheuer has been mired in controversy in recent years due to comments promoting political violence and conspiracy theories. However, he remains a leading authority on Afghanistan, and is widely credited with sounding unheeded warnings within the CIA throughout the 1990s about Osama bin Laden.

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Steve Coll, in his history on the Afghanistan war, said that after Scheuer was ousted from the CIA, many of his colleagues hunting bin Laden kept photos of Scheuer hanging in their offices—“like shrines.”

Moving into the U.S. bases would give China a new strategic foothold in the Middle East, Scheuer told The Epoch Times.

“Those are [U.S.] bases, at least the ones in Bagram and Kandahar, that can accommodate strategic bombers. If the Chinese get a hold of them, the runways will still be there, and they’ll be usable,” he said. “And with their main ports in the Maldives, Sri Lanka, and the giant port in southern Pakistan—those airports plus the harbors, which are navy-capable, give them a really powerful place in the center of Asia.”

However, Defense Priorities Policy Director Benjamin Friedman said he doesn’t think the Chinese Communist Party will make the same mistake as the Russians and Americans made by invading Afghanistan.

“China’s not going to rush into Afghanistan behind us because they’re not foolish enough to jump into what could be a messy and destabilized situation,” Friedman said at the Aug. 16 press conference organized by Defense Priorities. “I don’t think they’re that foolish.”

https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_morningbrief/demilitarizing-us-bases-isnt-so-easy-afghanistan-war-vet_3956478.html?utm_source=Morningbrief&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=mb-2021-08-20&mktids=6915e925258a10451cc2001be2c0d771&est=o%2Fxpa2dDz%2FV%2FOriOCjX3heI36WHk2BWuVdp7HPMC3K%2Bl1NyYP0yLkMHn
 
Someone within the admin or a group within the administration are probably benefiting greatley from this. By accident or due to incompetence...well, I don't buy that for a second...






 
An alliance was formed between the Obama administration and Iran? Now an alliance is being formed between the Taliban and the Biden administration?
 
Meuser to Newsmax: Questions Abound on Abandoned Black Hawks
(Newsmax/"Wake Up America")

By Sandy Fitzgerald | Thursday, 19 August 2021 09:54 AM

Rep. Dan Meuser, decrying President Joe Biden's actions concerning Afghanistan, said on Newsmax Thursday there are many questions the administration must face, including the decision to leave behind expensive U.S.-made weaponry including Black Hawk helicopters.

The Pennsylvania Republican said on Newsmax's "Wake Up America" that it's his "understanding" that 158 of the million-dollar aircraft was left behind for the Taliban to seize.

"That is a billion dollars worth of Black Hawk helicopters left behind," said Meuser. "Speaker (Nancy) Pelosi refers to this as leaving some stuff behind. These people are thinking in an inverse manner (compared) to how my constituents certainly feel about this issue, and I believe, most rational members of Congress."

The actual amount of equipment seized by the Taliban, or even whether any Black Hawks or the other aircraft is still operable, is not yet being reported by the federal government, reports Defense One.

According to the U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, as of June 30, the Afghan Air Force had just over 200 planes and helicopters, the site reports.

Of that, just 167 was available for missions, with most operating from Kabul and Kandahar, the special inspector report indicates.

Last weekend, Twitter postings purported to show Black Hawks and other helicopters that had been seized by the Taliban at the Kandahar Airport, but their authenticity has not been confirmed.

Not all of the Afghan military's aircraft came from the United States. According to the report, the Afghan government had 50 American-made MD-530 attack helicopters, and its Air Force had been flying the Black Hawks and Russian-made Mi-17 helicopters, among other planes.

According to the report, the United States gave the Afghan Air Force more than 130 aircraft over the last 20 years, and in July the Defense Department said it would be providing the Afghan Air Force with 35 more Black Hawks and three A-29 Super Tucanos, but just three of the new Black Hawks were delivered last month.

Defense One reports that much of the equipment that has been seized is in poor repair and missing parts, including engines, and it remains in doubt that many with the Taliban would know how to fly, maintain, or arm the helicopters and planes.

Meanwhile, Meuser, responding to Biden's Wednesday interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos, said it is "astounding" that Biden planned to surrender Afghanistan to terrorists and that the president said the chaos that happened once the country fell was inevitable. He added that he hopes the House Foreign Affairs Committee will have a hearing with Secretary of State Antony Blinken so it can ask some "real questions."

"Not only is our standing throughout the world in crisis, but you have China informing Taiwan that they had better cooperate with mainland China, with the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) because America is not going to be there for you," said Meuser. "By the way, we released all of the known terrorists out of prisons in Afghanistan. We emptied the prisons and we have an open border...all their mistakes, unfortunately, work against America."

He also said there is "no rational explanation" about why the United States removed the military from Afghanistan before American civilians.

"This is just an outright, created crisis that could have been avoided, that has long-term repercussions and ramifications," said Meuser.

Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has said the United States may not be able to get all Americans out of Afghanistan by Aug. 31, and Meuser said he couldn't believe that comment.

"The idea of maintaining this Aug. 31 date, I feel that's equivalent to the captain of the Titanic keeping his arrival date after hitting an iceberg," said Meuser. "What are you people talking about? You have a real crisis here."

At least it seems that there is "some evacuation" taking place after authorities spoke with Taliban leaders to demand American citizens be given safe ways to get to the Kabul airport to leave, but still, "are we informing the Taliban that should they perform the atrocities that they have in the past and harm Americans along the way, the full might of NATO and the American military force will be used against them? Are these conversations taking place? They didn't seem that doesn't seem so. They need to."

ARTICLE AND VIDEO HERE:
https://www.newsmax.com/newsmax-tv/meuser-black-hawks-afghanistan-taliban/2021/08/19/id/1032994/
 
Originally Posted By: tnshootistBiden destroys everything he touches. Just like he is supposed to.
Biden is not running things.
Wonder who biden reports to.



Obama and his obama handlers.
 

Exclusive: Ex-Trump aide lays out Afghan withdrawal plan that Biden scrapped

Trump's overarching theme was a conditions-based withdrawal from Afghanistan, Kash Patel says.

By Susan Katz Keating

Updated: August 19, 2021 - 11:04pm

Article
Dig In

The Biden administration ignored or jettisoned carefully designed plans to withdraw from Afghanistan, with the result being chaos and bedlam, a former national security official to President Donald Trump said.

"I don't even know that anyone could have made this awful scenario up," former National Security Council Senior Director Kash Patel told Just the News. "It's literally worse than you could possibly conjure."

Patel, who handled the Pentagon transition to Biden’s team as chief of staff to Acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller, made his remarks while appearing Thursday on the John Solomon Reports podcast.

The Biden team has failed to prepare for evacuating American citizens and Afghans who helped the U.S. government, Patel said, and has allowed other important issues to founder.

"There's no plan to secure our weaponry or machinery, we're just giving it over to terrorists," Patel said. "And there's no plan to secure a Kabul International Airport so that at least flights can get in and out."

Careful plans, though, already were laid out by the Trump administration, and were offered to Team Biden, Patel said.

The overarching theme was a conditions-based withdrawal, whereby the U.S. military would leave Afghanistan in increments if the Taliban met clear conditions, according to Patel. Among other things, the Taliban were required to reject and repudiate Al Qaeda, and would have to negotiate in good faith. The U.S. would also maintain a special operations contingent in place, and would retain the capacity to launch air strikes under specific circumstances.

The Trump plan included retaining control of Bagram Air Base until all Americans were withdrawn from Afghanistan. A large, sprawling site, Bagram has multiple airfields and other facilities that safely can handle significant amounts of traffic and also host a large population.

Handing control of Bagram to Afghanistan set up the sequence of events that saw the Taliban seize the facility, Patel said.

"We would not have ever relinquished control of Bagram Airfield, because that is our command and control node for the entire region," Patel said. "And that's where we would fly in and out securely."

Bagram also was home to a prison where the U.S. held accused terrorists who were set to be prosecuted. Among them were alleged senior Al Qaeda operatives. The Taliban released thousands of prisoners who were considered to be a high threat to the West.

The U.S. never planned simply to release those prisoners.

"We were working with allies and partners to prosecute them either in America or prosecute them in their home countries of origin as we successfully did under President Trump," Patel said. The prosecutions take time, he said. "We had a plan in place and we were doing it. Releasing terrorists is never an option. It was never an option under President Trump," Patel said.

The overall arrangement under Trump included a robust air presence, with armed and unarmed aircraft and drones to collect intelligence or launch air strikes. That plan, too, appears to have been jettisoned, the former security official said.

In a war zone, the U.S. always is ready to enact pre-established procedures to evacuate Americans, their local allies, and their families. The situation in Kabul, particularly at the airport, where humanitarian crises were on full display, stems from a lack of proper planning, Patel said.

"The only way you are surprised by this sort of situation is if you don't plan for it, if you don't prepare for it," he said.

"We lost not one American casualty under President Trump's conditions based withdrawal. Look at the chaos and death that is occurring now under Biden's [so-called] plan for Afghanistan."

People on the ground inside Kabul and the airport told Just the News on Thursday that the situation continues to be both chaotic and dangerous.

https://justthenews.com/government/secur...trump-aide-says
 
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