You call that an army?

I was in disbelieve yesterday, I saw information and memo after memo and I was lost, I really was. The media to a larger extent reported on it, the Times had impressive graphics, the BBC used something similar (or a cut version of it) and others followed on these starts (as far as I could tell), yet the larger stage was left behind the writing and that is not an accusation. They reported on a lot. I liked Forbes most, the cold numbers appealed to me. The article (at https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamandrzejewski/2021/08/23/staggering-costs–us-military-equipment-left-behind-in-afghanistan) called ‘Staggering Costs – U.S. Military Equipment Left Behind In Afghanistan’ gives us a lot. The stage is that the Afghan army was better equiped that several NATO nations, the total cost as some sources gave me EXCEEDS $84,000,000,000. This path implies that a small group of people received OVER $4,000,000,000 in bonuses and commissions. Afghanistan was big business and several made a bundle. Now consider that the Afghan army was 5 times the size of the Taliban, with all this hardware and the Taliban ran them over in a week. As I personally see it, a core in the Afghan forces and politicians (with optional exclusion of the former and running like a jackrabbit president of that place) wanted the Taliban back. Consider that me, my lonesome self could do well over twice the damage any Afghan pilot did. 

I would opt for the Huey (with Gatlings), I know the Blackhawk is better but it is less manoeuvrable than a Huey and it has about 200 more options on the instrument panel and with my limited flying skills, less is definitely a lot more. And it gets to be a more questionable setting when you see 

And you consider how many Taliban would not make it with up to 300,000 rifles and 25,000 grenade launchers as well as 2,000 mortars. And the dent in the Taliban was close to non existent and all these weapons are now in Taliban hands, they can now put a serious dent in their opponents. They are now armed to the teeth and no one is asking the harder questions, where the  Eff You See Kay was the CIA? The Taliban ‘inherited’ over 700,000 pieces of equipment and the Afghan army did close to nothing, even as they outnumbered their ‘enemy’ five to one. 

Forbes also gives us “The U.S. provided an estimated $83 billion worth of training and equipment to Afghan security forces since 2001. This year, alone, the U.S. military aid to Afghan forces was $3 billion” and in all this there is a stage for much harder questions and that falls on the politicians, not the military, they were handed a set of orders that should never have been allowed and the media is not asking those questions, are they? Yet Forbes also gives us “Not helping transparency, the Biden Administration is now hiding key audits on Afghan military equipment. This week, our auditors at OpenTheBooks.com reposted two key reports on the U.S. war chest of military gear in Afghanistan that had disappeared from federal websites”, I am not willing to push the blame on the Biden administration without knowing all the players. A small group made billions, they have access to lobbyists and there is an unnamed DoD link in all this, hiding information in plain sight is what they are good at and hiding a link (at https://www.gao.gov/) can be done by any number of people, evidence is key and there is none, as such (even as I am Republican in mind) blaming an administration with that lack this early in their administration seems pointless. The GAO-17-667R Afghanistan Security report that Forbes also had gives light to a few items, but there is a lot that is missing and I wonder if the CIA will hide behind national security for handing over 700,000 pieces of military hardware to the Taliban. And make sure that you take notice of a small footnote. We are given “All equipment described in encs. I-VI is fully U.S. funded, with the exception of communications equipment in fiscal years 2003 and 2004”, so I reckon that the Taliban will not be merely killing US forces, it will killing them using US funded hardware. Are you awake now?

It is also worth noting that there is a chart in the report that shows that the Afghan police got well over 50% of most hardware that the Afghan army received. A stage we need to be aware of. A stage where the army was not alone in this failure and it is a massive failure when you have all this hardware and well over 500% the personnel that you get taken over by a group of insurrectionists. The media (not placing blame here) is not asking the right questions, they aren’t asking that much. The few that did (BBC, the Guardian, the Times, Forbes) are not asking on who got commissions and that is the $4 billion question, I also reckon that the CIA in that area, who got a huge increase in funds and budget dropped the ball, I am actually wondering if they know what a ball looks like, so I am including it at the bottom.