Biden Scrubs Federal Sites of $83 Billion Weapons Debacle

[BoilerJS]

going back to the weapons and money...Forbes had an interesting article.

Biden Administration Erased Afghan Weapons Reports From Federal Websites

Reports further quantified 208 aircraft and helicopters; 75,000 war vehicles – including 22 Humvees, 50,000 tactical vehicles and nearly 1,000 mine resistant vehicles; and 600,000 weapons – including 350,000 M4 and M16 rifles, 60,000 machine guns, and 25,000 grenade launchers.

www.forbes.com

Here is a snippet-

The War in Afghanistan has always been a black box, but the Biden administration just made matters worse.
According to an admission obtained from the State Department, Biden officials recently directed federal agencies to scrub their websites of official reports detailing the $82.9 billion in military equipment and training provided to the Afghan security forces since 2001.

The scrubbed audits and reports included detailed accounting of what the U.S. had provided to Afghan forces, down to the number of night vision devices, hand grenades, Black Hawk helicopters, and armored vehicles.

That’s interesting. It’s not that the Taliban don’t know what was left behind, thus needing secrecy.

 

[TeddyValentineDidNothingWrong]

Damn, so all that equipment will go from doing absolutely nothing good for our country or the world to...the exact same thing.

Clutch those pearls, boomers.

 

[BuilderBob6]

Bob, I didn't say anything about the weapons. I thought we should not abandon Bagram in case we needed it to evacuate people, which we obviously did, and in case we needed it to a launch air strikes - and if we wanted to bring more people in to launch rescues outside of Kabul.

I thought it was incredibly dumb to give it up before we needed to. Bleed didn't agree, and I wondered if he would now man up and admit he was wildly wrong. Not surprisingly, he is hiding.

How would you get the people to Bagram? Not by the roads, the Taliban would cut off access easier than they did to Kabul airport. Is it safe to send choppers out to fly Americans back to Bagram? I don't know the answer but I think it's safe to assume there were elements in the countryside able and willing to shoot them down. At the time, we didn't know some of the Taliban would actually assist us in getting people out. Did ISIS K have surface to air missiles that would shoot them down? Would the Taliban have done it.......especially if they knew we were ferrying Afghans to be evacuated?

At the time, we were still under the assumption that the Afghan Army would hold.......and I don't think anyone wanted to send troops back into Afghanistan. Call it an intelligence failure, call it wishful think about the Afghan Army and it's capabilities......which happens many times in these situations. Happened in Iraq, in Vietnam, in Korea.

I don't think we wanted to launch airstrikes unless things really went to hell. Attacking the people who could react by kidnapping or killing Americans while trying to evacuate is a worst case scenario.

Imo Biden and the Pentagon were slow to react to what was clearly happening on the ground. The decision to bring in troops should have been made much earlier.

The timeline was silly. Sure, the Taliban wanting us out was a concern and had to be taken seriously. But we still had some cards to play and we folded.

The next withdrawal that goes smoothly will be the first one, especially after being there for 20 years. People were going to die, people were going to get left behind.

Personally I believe that the closing of Bagram was the final straw for the Afghan Army. When they fought alongside us they always had air power, air supremacy. When they realized they had to take the Taliban one-on-one, with no Americans beside them and no Americans flying overhead, they lost their will.

 

[Riveting]

How would you get the people to Bagram? Not by the roads, the Taliban would cut off access easier than they did to Kabul airport. Is it safe to send choppers out to fly Americans back to Bagram? I don't know the answer but I think it's safe to assume there were elements in the countryside able and willing to shoot them down. At the time, we didn't know some of the Taliban would actually assist us in getting people out. Did ISIS K have surface to air missiles that would shoot them down? Would the Taliban have done it.......especially if they knew we were ferrying Afghans to be evacuated?

At the time, we were still under the assumption that the Afghan Army would hold.......and I don't think anyone wanted to send troops back into Afghanistan. Call it an intelligence failure, call it wishful think about the Afghan Army and it's capabilities......which happens many times in these situations. Happened in Iraq, in Vietnam, in Korea.

I don't think we wanted to launch airstrikes unless things really went to hell. Attacking the people who could react by kidnapping or killing Americans while trying to evacuate is a worst case scenario.

Imo Biden and the Pentagon were slow to react to what was clearly happening on the ground. The decision to bring in troops should have been made much earlier.

The timeline was silly. Sure, the Taliban wanting us out was a concern and had to be taken seriously. But we still had some cards to play and we folded.

The next withdrawal that goes smoothly will be the first one, especially after being there for 20 years. People were going to die, people were going to get left behind.

Personally I believe that the closing of Bagram was the final straw for the Afghan Army. When they fought alongside us they always had air power, air supremacy. When they realized they had to take the Taliban one-on-one, with no Americans beside them and no Americans flying overhead, they lost their will.

I haven't heard anyone seriously argue that abandoning Bagram before we needed to wasn't a massive blunder, other than you. Here is a good example from a native Afg who apparently worked as a US intell guy there for several years. Let me know if you disagree with him.

What is the gravest mistake the U.S. has made?​

"We evacuated Bagram Airfield, which was the dumbest thing anybody could have ever done. At what point do you believe abandoning one of the largest airfields in the world is a good thing knowing that you still needed to move Americans and our allies out of the country?

That will be the original sin of this evacuation. Closing Bagram meant losing access to a secure airfield. This limited the number of air resources as they were moved to other areas outside Afghanistan and resulted in a delayed ability to move personnel. In addition, the evacuation needed to depart from the Kabul Airport, a location the U.S. did not control, which resulted in a chaotic scramble of U.S. personnel and allies out of the country."

A former US intelligence officer breaks down the mistakes in Afghanistan

The United States evacuation from Afghanistan has the makings of a human and political disaster—and it didn’t have to end this way, says Khushal Safi, who heads the international safety office at Northeastern. “You have a more savvy Taliban. It's the Taliban that were in Doha negotiating with...

news.northeastern.edu

 

[Riveting]

Corrrection, BleedinHeart also made the argument, but has been in hiding on the topic ever since he as seen the disastrous results.

 

[BoilerMadness]

How were you going to defend Bagram? Six square miles of military base? 2500 troops in the entire country......and 700 were in Kabul.

How were you going to get people to Bagram to fly them out? Kabul is 30 miles away. There's like three roads going in and the Taliban could have cut them off easier than they cut off Kabul airport. You gonna bring troops back in country to defend a base that civilians can't get to? Maybe bomb the Taliban to open the roads and escalate tensions during the withdrawal?

What about the American civilian contractors working there.......at least twice as many as there were troops. You gonna leave them in harm's way?

Gosh, one would think that if the objective was to get all our people out, perhaps they could have actually put a viable plan together. Instead, we got an ad hoc panic departure that Biden spawned, so he could spike the political football on 9/11.

SecDef, Milley & McKenzie should have all tendered their resignations, if Biden insisted on going forward with this ridiculous idea. It borders on criminal negligence that they didn't.

They hadn't vetted the Afghani interpreters/assistants or knew how many we were extracting. They seemed to have no idea how many civilians were in Afghanistan. They didn't seem to know that the Taliban had been gobbling up large parts of Afghanistan for the previous few months. Yet they said, "Yes Sir" and launched an endeavor that was doomed to failure from the beginning. There's a reason over 90 Admirals & Generals demanded those three resign. They were supposed to protect Biden from being stupid and putting our people in harm's way. They failed terribly.

 

[BoilerMadness]

You know what? It was actually pretty successful. A few people aren't out yet, but by and large the withdrawal worked OK. The terrorist bombing was obviously not good, but there was no scenario in which this withdrawal was going to be flawless.

The point of this post is pure idiocy. The equipment was provided to the Afghan military to defend itself. They didn't. End of story.

Nice job trying to put lipstick on this pig. You can go ahead and kiss it all you want, but it's still a monumental FusterCluck. A lot of people died, who didn't need to and a lot more may yet die, for trusting us. That Biden is trying to pass this off as a success is despicable and shows how totally clueless he is.

He'll get a lot more opportunities to look at his watch as the death toll increases.

 

[SDBoiler1]

I haven't heard anyone seriously argue that abandoning Bagram before we needed to wasn't a massive blunder, other than you. Here is a good example from a native Afg who apparently worked as a US intell guy there for several years. Let me know if you disagree with him.

What is the gravest mistake the U.S. has made?​

"We evacuated Bagram Airfield, which was the dumbest thing anybody could have ever done. At what point do you believe abandoning one of the largest airfields in the world is a good thing knowing that you still needed to move Americans and our allies out of the country?

That will be the original sin of this evacuation. Closing Bagram meant losing access to a secure airfield. This limited the number of air resources as they were moved to other areas outside Afghanistan and resulted in a delayed ability to move personnel. In addition, the evacuation needed to depart from the Kabul Airport, a location the U.S. did not control, which resulted in a chaotic scramble of U.S. personnel and allies out of the country."

A former US intelligence officer breaks down the mistakes in Afghanistan

The United States evacuation from Afghanistan has the makings of a human and political disaster—and it didn’t have to end this way, says Khushal Safi, who heads the international safety office at Northeastern. “You have a more savvy Taliban. It's the Taliban that were in Doha negotiating with...

news.northeastern.edu

But, but, but “it’s all the Orange Man’s Fault!”

 

[tjreese]

Nice job trying to put lipstick on this pig. You can go ahead and kiss it all you want, but it's still a monumental FusterCluck. A lot of people died, who didn't need to and a lot more may yet die, for trusting us. That Biden is trying to pass this off as a success is despicable and shows how totally clueless he is.

He'll get a lot more opportunities to look at his watch as the death toll increases.

you forgot that there is video showing an estimated 2-3 billion in Franklins left behind as well. Seeing that reminded me of Kerry taking the previously held money from Iran back to Iran and forfeiting any leverage that it may have provided from future terrorist acts to ???? Seems like the Dems treat terrorists much better than the Pubs for some reason? The FusterCluck extends well beyond the Afghan debacle.

 

[tjreese]

But, but, but “it’s all the Orange Man’s Fault!”

Well, there were people that thought the orange man did mean tweets. You know the saying...Sticks and Stones may or may not hurt me (depending on my geographical location on earth), but words always hurt...

 

[BoilerMadness]

I won't speak for him about Bagram, I gave my own views. But if you read what he said.......research it for yourself........the 83 billion number includes a hell of a lot more than weapons.......and some of the weapons given to the Afghans is not even available now. But yet you guys are obsessed with the topic, despite the fact that any weapons left behind WON'T BE KILLING AMERICAN SOLDIERS. Isn't that the important issue given your outrage at 13 soldiers being killed by a terrorist attack Who gives a rat's ass?It's a just an argument against Biden......and a dumb one considering the reasonable ones available.

Are you mad we spent the money in the first place.......and now you want a refund or the merchandise returned? That argument should have happened long before now.

It's incredible how you can rationalize everything that Biden screws up and condemn everything that Trump did.

The fact that our State Department still doesn't know how many American civilians are still in Afghanistan. The fact that we extracted over 100K Afghanis to the states and don't know who most of them are, yet we left most of the interpreters behind. The fact that this was just a half assed Biden ploy for a political victory, since he's had none since his inauguration. And the fact that we continued this absurd extraction, even when we knew it was going South should have a lot of people unemployed now.

If they had put it off for a year and actually had a real plan for the extraction, it probably could have been pulled off without a hitch, no one would have died and our Allies would still trust & respect us. Biden would have had a beautiful spike the football moment on 9/11/22, which would have helped the Dems in the midterm elections. As is his nature, Joe couldn't wait, did a half assed job and F'd it up completely. Gotta give Joe credit. He's consistent.

 

[purdave]

https://www.forbes.com/sites/adaman...eports-from-federal-websites/?sh=3408e8ad16ba

The scrubbed audits and reports included detailed accounting of what the U.S. had provided to Afghan forces, down to the number of night vision devices, hand grenades, Black Hawk helicopters, and armored vehicles.

U.S. taxpayers paid for these audits and the U.S.-provided equipment, and citizens should be able to follow the money and hold the Biden administration accountable.

Really not a lot to say here. Imagine this happening 2-3 years ago.

This is a sport topic message board. Take your crazy right wing propaganda somewhere else.

 

[FreedomWins]

This is a sport topic message board. Take your crazy right wing propaganda somewhere else.

So you support left wing propaganda being posted? It wasn't an insurrection. Where are the arrests for inciting an insurrection? Sorry that facts hurt your feelings so much.

 

[BoilerMadness]

Damn, so all that equipment will go from doing absolutely nothing good for our country or the world to...the exact same thing.

Clutch those pearls, boomers.

Do you have to work at it, or are you just naturally that ignorant?

 

[TeddyValentineDidNothingWrong]

Do you have to work at it, or are you just naturally that ignorant?

Don't you have some horse paste to eat?