REUTERS
"Biden says Afghanistan exit marks the end of U.S nation-building"
By Reuters Staff
AUGUST 30, 2021
(Reuters) - Facing sharp criticism over the tumultuous U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, President Joe Biden said on Tuesday it was the best available option to end both the United States’ longest war and decades of fruitless efforts to remake other countries through military force.
Biden portrayed the chaotic exit as a logistical success that would have been just as messy even if it had been launched weeks earlier, while staying in the country would have required committing more American troops.
“I was not going to extend this forever war,” he said in a speech from the White House.
Earlier in the day, the Taliban, who seized control of Afghanistan in a lightning advance this month, celebrated their victory.
They fired guns into the air, paraded coffins draped in U.S. and NATO flags and set about enforcing their rule after the last U.S. troops withdrew.
In his first remarks since the final pullout on Monday, Biden said 90% of Americans who wanted to leave were able to do so, and that Washington had leverage over the Islamist militants to ensure 100 to 200 others could also depart if they wanted to.
He said Washington would continue to target militants in the country who posed a threat to the United States, but would no longer use its military to try to build cohesive, democratic societies in places that have never had them.
“This decision about Afghanistan is not just about Afghanistan."
"It’s about ending an era of major military operations to remake other countries,” he said.
The Taliban now control more territory than when they last ruled before they were ousted in 2001 at the start of America's longest war here, which took the lives of nearly 2,500 U.S. troops and an estimated 240,000 Afghans, and cost some $2 trillion.
More than 123,000 people were evacuated from Kabul in a massive but chaotic airlift by the United States and its allies over the past two weeks, but many of those who helped Western nations during the war were left behind.
Biden said the only other option would have been to step up the fight and continue a war that Americans soured on long ago.
Starting the withdrawal in June or July, as some have suggested, would only have hastened the Taliban’s victory, he said.
But Biden’s decision is far from popular: 51% of Americans disapprove of his approach to the pullout and only 38% support it, according to Reuters/Ipsos polling.
U.S. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said the departure had abandoned Americans behind enemy lines.
“We are less safe as a result of this self-inflicted wound,” he said in his home state of Kentucky.
ELATION AND FEAR
In Afghanistan, there was a mixture of triumph and elation on the one side as the Taliban celebrated their victory, and fear on the other.
“We are proud of these moments, that we liberated our country from a great power,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said at Kabul airport after a C-17 aircraft took the last U.S. troops out a minute before midnight.
While crowds lined the streets of the eastern city of Khost for a mock funeral with coffins draped with Western flags, long lines formed in Kabul outside banks closed since the fall of the capital.
“I had to go to the bank with my mother but when I went, the Taliban (were) beating women with sticks,” said a 22-year-old woman who spoke on condition of anonymity because she feared for her safety.
She said the assault occurred among a crowd outside a branch of the Azizi Bank next to the Kabul Star Hotel in the centre of the capital.
“It’s the first time I’ve seen something like that and it really frightened me.”
Biden has said the world would hold the Taliban to their commitment to allow safe passage for those wanting to leave Afghanistan in future, and to uphold human rights.
The U.S. invasion in 2001 after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States stopped Afghanistan from being used by al Qaeda as a base to attack the United States and ended a period of Taliban rule from 1996 in which women were oppressed and opponents crushed.
Mujahid said the group wanted to establish diplomatic relations with the world, but Germany reiterated that the Taliban needed to set up an inclusive government.
“Anyone who expects the international community to help ... must also see that the international community also demands certain prerequisites for this,” German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said.
Destruction from recent fighting and a hiatus in administration and the foreign aid on which many Afghans depend have left the country in a precarious state and the Taliban do not have complete control.
At least seven Taliban fighters were killed in clashes in the Panjshir valley north of the capital on Monday night, two members of the main anti-Taliban opposition group said.
Several thousand anti-Taliban fighters, from local militias as well as remnants of army and special forces units, have gathered in the valley under the command of regional leader Ahmad Massoud.
Thousands of Afghans have already fled the country, fearing Taliban reprisals.
LEFT BEHIND
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said the U.S. military was not concerned with images of Taliban members walking through Kabul airport holding weapons and sizing up U.S. helicopters.
But he said the “threat environment” remained high and the United States was concerned about the potential for Taliban retribution and mindful of the threat that ISIS-K continues to pose inside Afghanistan.
ISIS-K is the Islamic State affiliate that claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing outside Kabul airport on Thursday that killed 13 U.S. service members and scores of Afghan civilians.
The U.S. Senate passed legislation to provide aid to Americans returning from Afghanistan, while European Union countries proposed to step up assistance to Afghanistan and its neighbours.
Reporting by Reuters bureaus; Writing by Andy Sullivan and Philippa Fletcher; Editing by Mark Heinrich and Peter Cooney
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-afgh ... SKBN2FW07I
AFGHANISTAN
Re: AFGHANISTAN
THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
"Nearly 90 retired generals and admirals call on Lloyd Austin and Mark Milley to resign"
Zachary Faria
31 AUGUST 2021
Nearly 90 retired generals and admirals have called on Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley to resign after overseeing the debacle that was President Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan.
The letter, released by the group Flag Officers 4 America, states that “the hasty retreat has left an unknown number of Americans stranded in dangerous areas controlled by a brutal enemy.”
The group’s letter notes that Austin and Milley “were the top two military officials in a position to recommend against the dangerous withdrawal,” and that even if they did all they could to prevent Biden from going forward with it, they should still resign out of conscience.
Two weeks ago, Austin said that the Defense Department would move everyone we possibly can out of Afghanistan “until the clock runs out or we run out of capability.”
This was not such a hard promise to keep, yet it has already been broken even though the clock has not run out.
Moreover, the greatest military in the world should not “run out of capability” at all when it comes helping Americans stranded in a country controlled by the Taliban.
Ultimately, anywhere from 100 to 200 Americans who wanted to leave the country were stranded by the Biden administration, by its own numbers.
Austin also confirmed that the Taliban was preventing some Americans from getting to the airport.
Milley has apparently spent more time studying “white rage” than he has spent on Afghanistan.
Like Biden, he contended that the Taliban’s takeover was unexpected.
He also, like Biden, blamed the situation on the Afghan army, which has taken more casualties fighting the Taliban in 2021 alone than the U.S. has taken since the war began.
This despite the fact that the Biden administration pulled their air support and the contractors who serviced the Afghan air force.
Aside from Biden himself, Austin and Milley bear the most responsibility for the botched withdrawal.
They either failed to understand what was happening in Afghanistan or they failed to convince Biden to see it.
Either way, they failed.
There is no way either of them should continue in this administration.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/ne ... d=msedgntp
"Nearly 90 retired generals and admirals call on Lloyd Austin and Mark Milley to resign"
Zachary Faria
31 AUGUST 2021
Nearly 90 retired generals and admirals have called on Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley to resign after overseeing the debacle that was President Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan.
The letter, released by the group Flag Officers 4 America, states that “the hasty retreat has left an unknown number of Americans stranded in dangerous areas controlled by a brutal enemy.”
The group’s letter notes that Austin and Milley “were the top two military officials in a position to recommend against the dangerous withdrawal,” and that even if they did all they could to prevent Biden from going forward with it, they should still resign out of conscience.
Two weeks ago, Austin said that the Defense Department would move everyone we possibly can out of Afghanistan “until the clock runs out or we run out of capability.”
This was not such a hard promise to keep, yet it has already been broken even though the clock has not run out.
Moreover, the greatest military in the world should not “run out of capability” at all when it comes helping Americans stranded in a country controlled by the Taliban.
Ultimately, anywhere from 100 to 200 Americans who wanted to leave the country were stranded by the Biden administration, by its own numbers.
Austin also confirmed that the Taliban was preventing some Americans from getting to the airport.
Milley has apparently spent more time studying “white rage” than he has spent on Afghanistan.
Like Biden, he contended that the Taliban’s takeover was unexpected.
He also, like Biden, blamed the situation on the Afghan army, which has taken more casualties fighting the Taliban in 2021 alone than the U.S. has taken since the war began.
This despite the fact that the Biden administration pulled their air support and the contractors who serviced the Afghan air force.
Aside from Biden himself, Austin and Milley bear the most responsibility for the botched withdrawal.
They either failed to understand what was happening in Afghanistan or they failed to convince Biden to see it.
Either way, they failed.
There is no way either of them should continue in this administration.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/ne ... d=msedgntp
Re: AFGHANISTAN
"Saratoga County woman desperate to get sister out of Afghanistan"
Steve Hughes, Albany, New York Times Union
Sep. 2, 2021
Updated: Sep. 2, 2021 8:12 a.m.
Razia believed in the United States’ work in Afghanistan, dedicating herself to the mission of women’s education and promoting democracy in her country.
Today, she can’t leave her home in Kabul out of fear that her work and trust in the U.S. government’s efforts to rebuild Afghanistan will get her killed.
Meanwhile, her youngest sister, Tahira, the only family member in America, is working desperately to get Razia and the rest of the family out of Afghanistan.
Razia was just 12 when the Taliban regime fell in 2001.
She is among the generation of women who grew up with freedoms few Afghan women had known previously.
Through her school, she got a job with the U.S. Agency for International Development working for a program that promoted democracy and women’s education.
She went door to door asking families if they had young girls who weren’t in school.
Thanks to her efforts, between 200 and 250 young girls received an education.
She also worked as the editor of a news agency and was the sole provider for her disabled father, mother and two sisters.
Now the family is running short on food and medicine and Razia is one of thousands of Afghans who were unable to flee the country as the Afghan government collapsed in the face of a Taliban resurgence last month.
On Wednesday, a senior State Department official admitted to the Wall Street Journal that the U.S. left behind the majority of Afghan allies who had applied for visas to escape reprisal from the Taliban.
Since the evacuation of U.S. forces and the fall of the Afghan government, the 32-year-old woman goes into hiding every time someone knocks on the door to her family’s home.
She fears that Taliban soldiers are there to take her away for working with the U.S. government.
The Times Union is withholding her last name due to safety concerns.
Her family believes she will be killed outright or forced into marriage with a Taliban soldier if she is found.
Her youngest sister, Tahira, lives in a Saratoga County suburb.
Along with her in-laws, Tahira is desperately trying to find a way to get Razia and the rest of the family out of the country.
In an interview translated by her brother-in-law Reza, Tahira said she feels hopeless.
“I can’t focus, I can’t take care of my daughter."
"I’ve lost track of time, track of sleep,” Tahira said.
Tahira came to America three years ago to marry her now-husband.
The rest of the family talked about trying to emigrate to the United States but Razia wanted to stay.
She believed in her civil-rights activism and work to make sure young Afghan girls got an education.
“She was interested in staying in Kabul to make changes there, she was not interested in coming overseas,” Reza said.
Now it's unclear if Tahira will ever see her sister again.
The family has plenty of reasons to fear the Taliban, according to Reza and Tahira.
In addition to Razia’s work with USAID and the news agency, their family is Shia Muslim.
The Taliban follow an extremist version of Sunni Islam, the religion's dominant sect, and refuse to tolerate religious minorities.
Last month, Razia’s brother and his wife were attacked while visiting a family friend’s home.
They haven’t been seen since.
The family has tried everything.
Tahira's mother and nephew twice tried to brave Taliban checkpoints to reach the Kabul airport in hopes of finding a way to get the family on a flight out of the country.
They couldn’t get through.
On one trip, Taliban soldiers beat her mother with sticks.
Tahira and her in-laws have called the State Department, left messages with a hotline for Afghans who worked with the United States and reached out to Sen. Chuck Schumer’s office.
But messages aren’t returned or they are not offered assistance.
Schumer’s office essentially told them there was nothing that could be done, Reza said.
Tahira is close to despondent.
She talks to her family in Afghanistan once a day to make sure they’re still alive.
She spends most of her days glued to her phone and news, waiting to hear of their fate.
“At times (Tahira) doesn’t know what to do, she’s just crying,” Reza said.
“Because everytime we’re trying to reach somewhere, everybody says, ‘We can’t do anything, we can’t do anything.’”
The family is also in touch with attorney Seth Leech, a partner at Whiteman Osterman & Hanna, who works on immigration issues.
Leech said the family doesn’t have many options.
Razia might qualify for a Special Immigrant Visa but those visas typically are for Afghans directly involved with U.S. military efforts in the country.
Making matters more complicated is that the U.S. has withdrawn its embassy staff, making visa applications difficult, if not impossible.
“I don’t know what could be done for her,” he said.
“She’s one of those people who basically said, ‘Wow, the U.S. here."
"Now I feel protected to be a women’s rights advocate,’… and now we’re gone, and that protection is gone.”
Another option is if the family can somehow find its way across the border to neighboring Pakistan, she could apply for refugee status to the United States, Leech said.
“But that’s really, really super risky for her to try and get from Kabul to Pakistan,” he said.
Leech said the family’s best hope is likely for high-level negotiations between the U.S. government and the Taliban to allow people like Razia to leave the country safely.
The U.S. government’s failure to protect Afghans like Razia who supported the U.S. and promoted civil rights in Afghanistan is inexplicable, he said.
“We have an absolute responsibility to help these people because our pullout has essentially deprived them of the safety that allowed them to pursue these efforts,” he said.
Meanwhile, Tahira and her husband's family scramble to find a way.
They’ve reached out to Canadian officials and are researching European countries that might still have a presence in Afghanistan and be able to help.
“Right now, my family is living every day like it’s going to be their last day,” Tahira said.
“They can’t make plans for tomorrow or the day after."
"They just want to live somewhere where they can be free.”
https://www.timesunion.com/news/article ... 09a3f12c1f
Steve Hughes, Albany, New York Times Union
Sep. 2, 2021
Updated: Sep. 2, 2021 8:12 a.m.
Razia believed in the United States’ work in Afghanistan, dedicating herself to the mission of women’s education and promoting democracy in her country.
Today, she can’t leave her home in Kabul out of fear that her work and trust in the U.S. government’s efforts to rebuild Afghanistan will get her killed.
Meanwhile, her youngest sister, Tahira, the only family member in America, is working desperately to get Razia and the rest of the family out of Afghanistan.
Razia was just 12 when the Taliban regime fell in 2001.
She is among the generation of women who grew up with freedoms few Afghan women had known previously.
Through her school, she got a job with the U.S. Agency for International Development working for a program that promoted democracy and women’s education.
She went door to door asking families if they had young girls who weren’t in school.
Thanks to her efforts, between 200 and 250 young girls received an education.
She also worked as the editor of a news agency and was the sole provider for her disabled father, mother and two sisters.
Now the family is running short on food and medicine and Razia is one of thousands of Afghans who were unable to flee the country as the Afghan government collapsed in the face of a Taliban resurgence last month.
On Wednesday, a senior State Department official admitted to the Wall Street Journal that the U.S. left behind the majority of Afghan allies who had applied for visas to escape reprisal from the Taliban.
Since the evacuation of U.S. forces and the fall of the Afghan government, the 32-year-old woman goes into hiding every time someone knocks on the door to her family’s home.
She fears that Taliban soldiers are there to take her away for working with the U.S. government.
The Times Union is withholding her last name due to safety concerns.
Her family believes she will be killed outright or forced into marriage with a Taliban soldier if she is found.
Her youngest sister, Tahira, lives in a Saratoga County suburb.
Along with her in-laws, Tahira is desperately trying to find a way to get Razia and the rest of the family out of the country.
In an interview translated by her brother-in-law Reza, Tahira said she feels hopeless.
“I can’t focus, I can’t take care of my daughter."
"I’ve lost track of time, track of sleep,” Tahira said.
Tahira came to America three years ago to marry her now-husband.
The rest of the family talked about trying to emigrate to the United States but Razia wanted to stay.
She believed in her civil-rights activism and work to make sure young Afghan girls got an education.
“She was interested in staying in Kabul to make changes there, she was not interested in coming overseas,” Reza said.
Now it's unclear if Tahira will ever see her sister again.
The family has plenty of reasons to fear the Taliban, according to Reza and Tahira.
In addition to Razia’s work with USAID and the news agency, their family is Shia Muslim.
The Taliban follow an extremist version of Sunni Islam, the religion's dominant sect, and refuse to tolerate religious minorities.
Last month, Razia’s brother and his wife were attacked while visiting a family friend’s home.
They haven’t been seen since.
The family has tried everything.
Tahira's mother and nephew twice tried to brave Taliban checkpoints to reach the Kabul airport in hopes of finding a way to get the family on a flight out of the country.
They couldn’t get through.
On one trip, Taliban soldiers beat her mother with sticks.
Tahira and her in-laws have called the State Department, left messages with a hotline for Afghans who worked with the United States and reached out to Sen. Chuck Schumer’s office.
But messages aren’t returned or they are not offered assistance.
Schumer’s office essentially told them there was nothing that could be done, Reza said.
Tahira is close to despondent.
She talks to her family in Afghanistan once a day to make sure they’re still alive.
She spends most of her days glued to her phone and news, waiting to hear of their fate.
“At times (Tahira) doesn’t know what to do, she’s just crying,” Reza said.
“Because everytime we’re trying to reach somewhere, everybody says, ‘We can’t do anything, we can’t do anything.’”
The family is also in touch with attorney Seth Leech, a partner at Whiteman Osterman & Hanna, who works on immigration issues.
Leech said the family doesn’t have many options.
Razia might qualify for a Special Immigrant Visa but those visas typically are for Afghans directly involved with U.S. military efforts in the country.
Making matters more complicated is that the U.S. has withdrawn its embassy staff, making visa applications difficult, if not impossible.
“I don’t know what could be done for her,” he said.
“She’s one of those people who basically said, ‘Wow, the U.S. here."
"Now I feel protected to be a women’s rights advocate,’… and now we’re gone, and that protection is gone.”
Another option is if the family can somehow find its way across the border to neighboring Pakistan, she could apply for refugee status to the United States, Leech said.
“But that’s really, really super risky for her to try and get from Kabul to Pakistan,” he said.
Leech said the family’s best hope is likely for high-level negotiations between the U.S. government and the Taliban to allow people like Razia to leave the country safely.
The U.S. government’s failure to protect Afghans like Razia who supported the U.S. and promoted civil rights in Afghanistan is inexplicable, he said.
“We have an absolute responsibility to help these people because our pullout has essentially deprived them of the safety that allowed them to pursue these efforts,” he said.
Meanwhile, Tahira and her husband's family scramble to find a way.
They’ve reached out to Canadian officials and are researching European countries that might still have a presence in Afghanistan and be able to help.
“Right now, my family is living every day like it’s going to be their last day,” Tahira said.
“They can’t make plans for tomorrow or the day after."
"They just want to live somewhere where they can be free.”
https://www.timesunion.com/news/article ... 09a3f12c1f
Re: AFGHANISTAN
StarTribune
"Afghans face hunger crisis, adding to Taliban's challenges"
By KATHY GANNON and RAHIM FAIEZ Associated Press
SEPTEMBER 1, 2021 — 1:00PM
KABUL, Afghanistan — Food could run out this month in Afghanistan, a senior U.N. official warned Wednesday, threatening to add a hunger crisis to the challenges facing the country's new Taliban rulers as they endeavor to restore stability after decades of war.
About one third of the country's population of 38 million is facing "emergency" or "crisis" levels of food insecurity, according to Ramiz Alakbarov, the local U.N. humanitarian coordinator.
With winter coming and a severe drought ongoing, more money is needed to feed the population, he said.
The U.N.'s World Food Program has brought in food and distributed it to tens of thousands of people in recent weeks.
But of the $1.3 billion needed for aid efforts, only 39% has been received, he said.
"The lean winter season is fast approaching, and without additional funding, food stocks will run out at the end of September," Alakbarov said.
The Taliban, who seized control of the country ahead of the withdrawal of American forces this week, now must govern a nation that relies heavily on international aid and is in the midst of a worsening economic crisis.
In addition to the concerns about food supplies, civil servants haven't been paid in months and the local currency is losing value.
Most of Afghanistan's foreign reserves are held abroad and currently frozen.
Mohammad Sharif, a shopkeeper in the capital of Kabul, said that shops and markets there have supplies, but a major concern is rising food prices.
"If the situation continues like this and there is no government to control the prices, that will cause so many problems for local people," he said.
In the wake of the U.S. pullout, many Afghans are anxiously waiting to see how the Taliban will rule.
When they were last in power, before being driven out by the U.S.-led invasion in 2001, they imposed draconian restrictions, refusing to allow girls to go to school, largely confining women to their homes and banning television, music and even photography.
But more recently, their leaders have sought to project a more moderate image.
Schools have reopened to boys and girls, though Taliban officials have said they will study separately.
Women are out on the streets wearing Islamic headscarves — as they always have — rather than the all-encompassing burqa the Taliban required in the past.
The challenges the Taliban face in reviving the economy could give Western nations leverage as they push the group to fulfill a pledge to form an inclusive government and guarantee women's rights.
The Taliban say they want to have good relations with other countries, including the United States.
Many Afghans fear the Taliban won't make good on those pledges and also are concerned that the nation's economic situation holds little opportunity.
Tens of thousands sought to flee the country as a result in a harrowing airlift.
But thousands who had worked with the U.S. and its allies, as well as up to 200 Americans, remained in the country after the efforts ended with the last U.S. troops flying out of Kabul international airport just before midnight Monday.
President Joe Biden later defended his handling of the chaotic withdrawal and evacuation efforts, which saw spasms of violence, including a suicide bombing last week that killed 13 American service members and 169 Afghans.
He said it was inevitable that the final departure from two decades of war would be difficult.
He said he remains committed to getting the Americans left behind out if they want.
The Taliban have said they will allow people with legal documents to travel freely, but it remains to be seen whether any commercial airlines will be willing to offer service.
Bilal Karimi, an official member in the Taliban spokesman's office, said Wednesday that a team of Turkish and Qatari technicians arrived in Kabul to help get the airport up and running again.
The Taliban also have to contend with the threat from the Islamic State group, which is far more radical and claimed responsibility for the bombing at the airport.
The Taliban have pledged they won't allow Afghanistan to be used as a base for attacks on other countries — a key U.S. demand since the militants once harbored the al-Qaida leaders who orchestrated the 9/11 attacks.
In the wake of last week's bombing, American officials said drone strikes targeted the Islamic State group's affiliate in Afghanistan, and Biden vowed to keep up airstrikes.
Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Wednesday that it was "possible" that the U.S. will have to coordinate with the Taliban on any counterterrorism strikes in Afghanistan in the future.
___
Faiez reported from Istanbul. Associated Press writers Tameem Akhgar in Istanbul and Lolita C. Baldor in Washington contributed.
https://www.startribune.com/afghans-fac ... 600092838/
"Afghans face hunger crisis, adding to Taliban's challenges"
By KATHY GANNON and RAHIM FAIEZ Associated Press
SEPTEMBER 1, 2021 — 1:00PM
KABUL, Afghanistan — Food could run out this month in Afghanistan, a senior U.N. official warned Wednesday, threatening to add a hunger crisis to the challenges facing the country's new Taliban rulers as they endeavor to restore stability after decades of war.
About one third of the country's population of 38 million is facing "emergency" or "crisis" levels of food insecurity, according to Ramiz Alakbarov, the local U.N. humanitarian coordinator.
With winter coming and a severe drought ongoing, more money is needed to feed the population, he said.
The U.N.'s World Food Program has brought in food and distributed it to tens of thousands of people in recent weeks.
But of the $1.3 billion needed for aid efforts, only 39% has been received, he said.
"The lean winter season is fast approaching, and without additional funding, food stocks will run out at the end of September," Alakbarov said.
The Taliban, who seized control of the country ahead of the withdrawal of American forces this week, now must govern a nation that relies heavily on international aid and is in the midst of a worsening economic crisis.
In addition to the concerns about food supplies, civil servants haven't been paid in months and the local currency is losing value.
Most of Afghanistan's foreign reserves are held abroad and currently frozen.
Mohammad Sharif, a shopkeeper in the capital of Kabul, said that shops and markets there have supplies, but a major concern is rising food prices.
"If the situation continues like this and there is no government to control the prices, that will cause so many problems for local people," he said.
In the wake of the U.S. pullout, many Afghans are anxiously waiting to see how the Taliban will rule.
When they were last in power, before being driven out by the U.S.-led invasion in 2001, they imposed draconian restrictions, refusing to allow girls to go to school, largely confining women to their homes and banning television, music and even photography.
But more recently, their leaders have sought to project a more moderate image.
Schools have reopened to boys and girls, though Taliban officials have said they will study separately.
Women are out on the streets wearing Islamic headscarves — as they always have — rather than the all-encompassing burqa the Taliban required in the past.
The challenges the Taliban face in reviving the economy could give Western nations leverage as they push the group to fulfill a pledge to form an inclusive government and guarantee women's rights.
The Taliban say they want to have good relations with other countries, including the United States.
Many Afghans fear the Taliban won't make good on those pledges and also are concerned that the nation's economic situation holds little opportunity.
Tens of thousands sought to flee the country as a result in a harrowing airlift.
But thousands who had worked with the U.S. and its allies, as well as up to 200 Americans, remained in the country after the efforts ended with the last U.S. troops flying out of Kabul international airport just before midnight Monday.
President Joe Biden later defended his handling of the chaotic withdrawal and evacuation efforts, which saw spasms of violence, including a suicide bombing last week that killed 13 American service members and 169 Afghans.
He said it was inevitable that the final departure from two decades of war would be difficult.
He said he remains committed to getting the Americans left behind out if they want.
The Taliban have said they will allow people with legal documents to travel freely, but it remains to be seen whether any commercial airlines will be willing to offer service.
Bilal Karimi, an official member in the Taliban spokesman's office, said Wednesday that a team of Turkish and Qatari technicians arrived in Kabul to help get the airport up and running again.
The Taliban also have to contend with the threat from the Islamic State group, which is far more radical and claimed responsibility for the bombing at the airport.
The Taliban have pledged they won't allow Afghanistan to be used as a base for attacks on other countries — a key U.S. demand since the militants once harbored the al-Qaida leaders who orchestrated the 9/11 attacks.
In the wake of last week's bombing, American officials said drone strikes targeted the Islamic State group's affiliate in Afghanistan, and Biden vowed to keep up airstrikes.
Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Wednesday that it was "possible" that the U.S. will have to coordinate with the Taliban on any counterterrorism strikes in Afghanistan in the future.
___
Faiez reported from Istanbul. Associated Press writers Tameem Akhgar in Istanbul and Lolita C. Baldor in Washington contributed.
https://www.startribune.com/afghans-fac ... 600092838/
Re: AFGHANISTAN
BUSINESS INSIDER
"PHOTOS: The Taliban flew a Black Hawk helicopter over a parade of military equipment captured when it overran Afghanistan"
rpickrell@businessinsider.com (Ryan Pickrell)
2 SEPTEMBER 2021
Taliban forces paraded captured military equipment in the city of Kandahar on Wednesday.
Photos from the event show Humvees, multi-purpose trucks, and even a Black Hawk helicopter.
The Taliban captured an arsenal of weaponry when it defeated the Afghan army and overran Afghanistan.
The Taliban held a military parade in the southern city of Kandahar on Wednesday, showing off American-made weapons of war captured when the group defeated the Afghan army and overran the country, according to multiple reports.
Taliban fighters flew their white-and-black flag atop US-made Humvees, multi-purpose trucks, and armored vehicles.
In addition to the military vehicles, the parade also featured what appear to be captured police vehicles.
The group even had a captured Black Hawk helicopter adorned with its flag fly over the event, CNN reported.
When Taliban forces, many of whom were outfitted with what looks like American-made weapons and gear, entered Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul on Tuesday following the end of evacuation operations there and the departure of the last US forces, they found abandoned ground vehicles and aircraft.
The US military insists that these assets were permanently disabled, and videos that surfaced online suggest this was the case.
"They can look at them, they can walk around," Pentagon press secretary John Kirby told CNN.
"But they can't fly them."
"They can't operate them."
Restating remarks made by Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie, head of US Central Command, on Monday, he said that the military made sure all the military ground vehicles and aircraft that were left at the airport were "unusable."
But while assets left behind at the airport in Kabul may be inoperable, there is an arsenal of rifles, military gear, and vehicles that the Taliban seized from the Afghan army - which the US spent billions of dollars arming and equipping - that is still operational, as was demonstrated at Wednesday's victory parade in Kandahar.
The Biden administration has come under fire for its handling of the rapid Afghanistan pullout, including the fall of US-made weapons into the hands of the Taliban, which the administration has acknowledged.
"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," Jake Sullivan, the White House national security advisor, said just a few days after the fall of the Afghan capital.
The administration has also faced criticism for not anticipating the collapse of the Afghan army, forfeiting strategic positions like Bagram Air Base, and not acting fast enough to evacuate US citizens and vulnerable Afghans.
Though the Taliban managed to capture an arsenal of weapons, not all of it will be operational for long if the group is unable to develop the capabilities to adequately maintain them.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/ph ... hp&pc=U531
"PHOTOS: The Taliban flew a Black Hawk helicopter over a parade of military equipment captured when it overran Afghanistan"
rpickrell@businessinsider.com (Ryan Pickrell)
2 SEPTEMBER 2021
Taliban forces paraded captured military equipment in the city of Kandahar on Wednesday.
Photos from the event show Humvees, multi-purpose trucks, and even a Black Hawk helicopter.
The Taliban captured an arsenal of weaponry when it defeated the Afghan army and overran Afghanistan.
The Taliban held a military parade in the southern city of Kandahar on Wednesday, showing off American-made weapons of war captured when the group defeated the Afghan army and overran the country, according to multiple reports.
Taliban fighters flew their white-and-black flag atop US-made Humvees, multi-purpose trucks, and armored vehicles.
In addition to the military vehicles, the parade also featured what appear to be captured police vehicles.
The group even had a captured Black Hawk helicopter adorned with its flag fly over the event, CNN reported.
When Taliban forces, many of whom were outfitted with what looks like American-made weapons and gear, entered Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul on Tuesday following the end of evacuation operations there and the departure of the last US forces, they found abandoned ground vehicles and aircraft.
The US military insists that these assets were permanently disabled, and videos that surfaced online suggest this was the case.
"They can look at them, they can walk around," Pentagon press secretary John Kirby told CNN.
"But they can't fly them."
"They can't operate them."
Restating remarks made by Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie, head of US Central Command, on Monday, he said that the military made sure all the military ground vehicles and aircraft that were left at the airport were "unusable."
But while assets left behind at the airport in Kabul may be inoperable, there is an arsenal of rifles, military gear, and vehicles that the Taliban seized from the Afghan army - which the US spent billions of dollars arming and equipping - that is still operational, as was demonstrated at Wednesday's victory parade in Kandahar.
The Biden administration has come under fire for its handling of the rapid Afghanistan pullout, including the fall of US-made weapons into the hands of the Taliban, which the administration has acknowledged.
"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," Jake Sullivan, the White House national security advisor, said just a few days after the fall of the Afghan capital.
The administration has also faced criticism for not anticipating the collapse of the Afghan army, forfeiting strategic positions like Bagram Air Base, and not acting fast enough to evacuate US citizens and vulnerable Afghans.
Though the Taliban managed to capture an arsenal of weapons, not all of it will be operational for long if the group is unable to develop the capabilities to adequately maintain them.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/ph ... hp&pc=U531
Re: AFGHANISTAN
NEWSWEEK
"Vladimir Putin Says After Afghanistan 'Catastrophe' U.S. And West Still Have Not Learned"
Brendan Cole
3 SEPTEMBER 2021
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said the U.S. left behind a "humanitarian catastrophe" in Afghanistan and that he hoped for a quick integration of the Taliban into the international community to avoid the country's further collapse.
Addressing the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Putin also said that he believed despite a legacy of failure following the 20-year conflict in Afghanistan, "the West" had not learned any lessons about intervention in other countries.
"It is a catastrophe."
"It is true."
"It's not just my words."
"These are remarks made by American analysts," Putin said on Friday, according to news agency Tass, about the U.S. presence in the country and its rapid withdrawal.
"It is a catastrophe because Americans, very pragmatic people, spent more than $1.5 trillion for this whole campaign and what is the result?"
"Looking at the number of people who worked for the collective West, the U.S. and their allies, and are now left behind in Afghanistan, it is also a humanitarian catastrophe," he added.
His comments echo those made this week in which he said that the U.S. had achieved "zero" in Afghanistan as he criticized U.S. attempts to "civilize the people who live there."
On Friday, Putin continued with the theme, saying, "Is this an end to some hegemony of the West?" adding that "lessons [...] should be correctly understood to make changes to real policy."
"They say about Afghanistan: 'we got into there and made a lot of mistakes.'"
"However, they continue doing the same in relation to other countries," Putin said, before referring to sanctions as an example of Western countries "imposing their standards."
The U.S. has imposed a number of sanctions on Russia over, for instance, the SolarWinds cyber hack and election interference.
Moscow was involved in a 10-year conflict in Afghanistan which culminated in a withdrawal in 1989.
Unlike the U.S. and its Western allies, Russia has retained its diplomatic staff in Kabul following the American exit.
Moscow has reached out to the feuding Afghan factions, including the Taliban, which it labels a terrorist organization but which Putin said he hoped would be recognized internationally.
"You need to think about the fact that the sooner the Taliban enters, so to speak, the community of civilized nations, the easier it will be to enter into contact, communicate and somehow influence and ask some questions," Putin said on Friday.
Meanwhile, as Newsweek earlier reported, the National Resistance Front, which is continuing to hold out against the Taliban, has said if it were defeated, the U.S. would lose its last ally in Afghanistan, making the country ripe to "become a hotbed for international terrorism."
"We are fighting international terrorism right now, all alone, for which we feel abandoned," the group's spokesman Ali Nazari told Newsweek.
National Resistance Front forces are now besieged by the Taliban in the Panjshir valley.
Newsweek has contacted the U.S. State Department for comment.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/vl ... d=msedgntp
"Vladimir Putin Says After Afghanistan 'Catastrophe' U.S. And West Still Have Not Learned"
Brendan Cole
3 SEPTEMBER 2021
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said the U.S. left behind a "humanitarian catastrophe" in Afghanistan and that he hoped for a quick integration of the Taliban into the international community to avoid the country's further collapse.
Addressing the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Putin also said that he believed despite a legacy of failure following the 20-year conflict in Afghanistan, "the West" had not learned any lessons about intervention in other countries.
"It is a catastrophe."
"It is true."
"It's not just my words."
"These are remarks made by American analysts," Putin said on Friday, according to news agency Tass, about the U.S. presence in the country and its rapid withdrawal.
"It is a catastrophe because Americans, very pragmatic people, spent more than $1.5 trillion for this whole campaign and what is the result?"
"Looking at the number of people who worked for the collective West, the U.S. and their allies, and are now left behind in Afghanistan, it is also a humanitarian catastrophe," he added.
His comments echo those made this week in which he said that the U.S. had achieved "zero" in Afghanistan as he criticized U.S. attempts to "civilize the people who live there."
On Friday, Putin continued with the theme, saying, "Is this an end to some hegemony of the West?" adding that "lessons [...] should be correctly understood to make changes to real policy."
"They say about Afghanistan: 'we got into there and made a lot of mistakes.'"
"However, they continue doing the same in relation to other countries," Putin said, before referring to sanctions as an example of Western countries "imposing their standards."
The U.S. has imposed a number of sanctions on Russia over, for instance, the SolarWinds cyber hack and election interference.
Moscow was involved in a 10-year conflict in Afghanistan which culminated in a withdrawal in 1989.
Unlike the U.S. and its Western allies, Russia has retained its diplomatic staff in Kabul following the American exit.
Moscow has reached out to the feuding Afghan factions, including the Taliban, which it labels a terrorist organization but which Putin said he hoped would be recognized internationally.
"You need to think about the fact that the sooner the Taliban enters, so to speak, the community of civilized nations, the easier it will be to enter into contact, communicate and somehow influence and ask some questions," Putin said on Friday.
Meanwhile, as Newsweek earlier reported, the National Resistance Front, which is continuing to hold out against the Taliban, has said if it were defeated, the U.S. would lose its last ally in Afghanistan, making the country ripe to "become a hotbed for international terrorism."
"We are fighting international terrorism right now, all alone, for which we feel abandoned," the group's spokesman Ali Nazari told Newsweek.
National Resistance Front forces are now besieged by the Taliban in the Panjshir valley.
Newsweek has contacted the U.S. State Department for comment.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/vl ... d=msedgntp
Re: AFGHANISTAN
THE INDEPENDENT
"Biden staff break ranks over Afghanistan: ‘I am absolutely appalled’"
John Bowden
3 SEPTEMBER 2021
President Joe Biden is facing the most serious test of his first year in office as broad swaths of the American public say they disapprove of the way he handled the US withdrawal from Afghanistan.
That criticism of his administration’s management of the evacuations reportedly exists inside the White House as well.
Two White House officials signalled their dismay over the end result of Mr Biden’s efforts to extract Americans and vulnerable Afghan civilians from the country in interviews with Politico published on Thursday; one of the officials told the news outlet that they were “absolutely appalled and literally horrified” that more than 100 Americans remained in the country after the last flight departed Hamid Karzai International Airport, including some who had said they wanted to leave.
“It was a hostage rescue of thousands of Americans in the guise of a NEO [noncombatant evacuation operations], and we have failed that no-fail mission,” that official added to Politico.
A second official characterised the US mission in Afghanistan as unaccomplished as long as any Americans who wanted to leave remained in the country.
Their remarks come after the president’s most forceful defense of his management of the situation thus far, which came in the form of a national address on Tuesday in which Mr Biden said that he was not willing to keep troops in the country indefinitely to continue extracting Americans.
“I was not going to extend this forever war, and I was not extending a forever exit,” Mr Biden said.
“The bottom line, 90 per cent of Americans who were in Afghanistan who wanted to leave were able to leave,” the president continued, adding of those still there: “We remain committed to getting them out if they want to get out.”
The president has been on the defensive in the face of both Republican and Democratic figures on Capitol Hill criticising the White House over the chaos that unfolded as Afghanistan’s capital fell to the Taliban, while many are wondering how the US intelligence apparatus was apparently caught by surprise in regard to the speed with which the Taliban overran the entire country.
Not helping the situation for Mr Biden are his own statements from July, when he expressed confidence in the ability of Afghanistan’s ousted government to defeat the Taliban, and new reports claiming that he asked former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani to make similar statements regardless of whether they reflected the reality of the situation.
US evacuations from the country concluded just hours after US officials announced that a second attempted terrorist attack on the airport by suspected Isis-k militants had been thwarted with a drone strike.
It was revealed later in local media reports, however, that the strike led to the deaths of more civilians, including seven children, than it killed suspected militants after either a rocket from the drone itself or the secondary explosion of a vehicle-borne IED completely destroyed a nearby house and killed an entire family.
A steady majority of Americans has supported a withdrawal from Afghanistan for years.
Over the course of the US’s nearly 20-year war in the country, more than 171,000 Afghans including tens of thousands of civilians as well as roughly 2,500 US service members were killed.
The US signed an agreement with Taliban officials last year to begin a withdrawal from the country under former President Donald Trump, a process that was continued and extended from May to the end of August by Mr Biden after he took office.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/bi ... d=msedgntp
"Biden staff break ranks over Afghanistan: ‘I am absolutely appalled’"
John Bowden
3 SEPTEMBER 2021
President Joe Biden is facing the most serious test of his first year in office as broad swaths of the American public say they disapprove of the way he handled the US withdrawal from Afghanistan.
That criticism of his administration’s management of the evacuations reportedly exists inside the White House as well.
Two White House officials signalled their dismay over the end result of Mr Biden’s efforts to extract Americans and vulnerable Afghan civilians from the country in interviews with Politico published on Thursday; one of the officials told the news outlet that they were “absolutely appalled and literally horrified” that more than 100 Americans remained in the country after the last flight departed Hamid Karzai International Airport, including some who had said they wanted to leave.
“It was a hostage rescue of thousands of Americans in the guise of a NEO [noncombatant evacuation operations], and we have failed that no-fail mission,” that official added to Politico.
A second official characterised the US mission in Afghanistan as unaccomplished as long as any Americans who wanted to leave remained in the country.
Their remarks come after the president’s most forceful defense of his management of the situation thus far, which came in the form of a national address on Tuesday in which Mr Biden said that he was not willing to keep troops in the country indefinitely to continue extracting Americans.
“I was not going to extend this forever war, and I was not extending a forever exit,” Mr Biden said.
“The bottom line, 90 per cent of Americans who were in Afghanistan who wanted to leave were able to leave,” the president continued, adding of those still there: “We remain committed to getting them out if they want to get out.”
The president has been on the defensive in the face of both Republican and Democratic figures on Capitol Hill criticising the White House over the chaos that unfolded as Afghanistan’s capital fell to the Taliban, while many are wondering how the US intelligence apparatus was apparently caught by surprise in regard to the speed with which the Taliban overran the entire country.
Not helping the situation for Mr Biden are his own statements from July, when he expressed confidence in the ability of Afghanistan’s ousted government to defeat the Taliban, and new reports claiming that he asked former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani to make similar statements regardless of whether they reflected the reality of the situation.
US evacuations from the country concluded just hours after US officials announced that a second attempted terrorist attack on the airport by suspected Isis-k militants had been thwarted with a drone strike.
It was revealed later in local media reports, however, that the strike led to the deaths of more civilians, including seven children, than it killed suspected militants after either a rocket from the drone itself or the secondary explosion of a vehicle-borne IED completely destroyed a nearby house and killed an entire family.
A steady majority of Americans has supported a withdrawal from Afghanistan for years.
Over the course of the US’s nearly 20-year war in the country, more than 171,000 Afghans including tens of thousands of civilians as well as roughly 2,500 US service members were killed.
The US signed an agreement with Taliban officials last year to begin a withdrawal from the country under former President Donald Trump, a process that was continued and extended from May to the end of August by Mr Biden after he took office.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/bi ... d=msedgntp
Re: AFGHANISTAN
THE ATLANTIC
"Biden Is Betting Americans Will Forget About Afghanistan - People in and around the White House are relying on Americans’ notoriously short-term memory."
By Peter Nicholas
AUGUST 20, 2021
Call it the white house’s dream scenario: In the end, the voters don’t blame Joe Biden.
The president’s withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan simply aligns him with everyone else who has given up on the notion that the military could mold a fractious country into a stable democratic ally.
The administration is hoping that grisly images of desperate Afghans clinging to a C-17 fade, replaced by collective relief that no more Americans will die in a murky, brutal war that spanned two decades and four presidencies.
Despite the Taliban’s rapid takeover of Afghanistan, White House officials and people close to Biden don’t foresee his decision hurting Democrats in next year’s midterm elections, nor in the presidential race that follows.
Their argument is that the nation should be reassured that a president who vowed during the 2020 campaign to end “forever wars” made good on the promise.
Will it work?
Biden’s allies are betting so.
“A big majority of the American people want us out of Afghanistan,” Ted Kaufman, a Biden confidant since the 1970s and a former Democratic senator from Delaware, told me this week.
“And that will be a key message — the key point for the American people is our troops are out,” he said.
“It’s fine for us to sit in Washington and talk about what’s wrong in Afghanistan."
"We’re not bearing the brunt of this war."
"It’s another thing if you have a son or daughter or father over there.”
Biden’s handling of the biggest foreign-policy crisis on his watch to date is unfolding on two tracks: short- and long-term.
In recent days, the White House has privately sent talking points to supporters that sought to blunt the ferocious backlash over the Taliban victory by deflecting responsibility onto a useful target.
On his way out the door, Donald Trump left Biden with two bad choices: “indefinite war in Afghanistan” or a troop drawdown and potential Taliban victory, a White House communications aide wrote in an email obtained by The Atlantic.
That binary formulation ignores all the other options that were open to Biden: at minimum, leaving sufficient troops in place so that a fleeing Afghan didn’t perish inside the wheel well of a departing plane.
Not all Democratic partisans are sold on the idea that Trump boxed in Biden when he negotiated a troop withdrawal from Afghanistan set for this spring.
After taking office, Biden quickly recommitted to the Paris climate accord and the Iranian nuclear deal that Trump had abandoned.
“This one they chose not to reverse,” Donna Brazile, a former Democratic National Committee chair, told me.
“If you don’t reverse it, you own it.”
Looking ahead, Biden’s team is focused on preventing any revival of a terrorist threat from Afghanistan.
His national-security team said it is better positioned to quash terrorism emanating from nations with no U.S. military presence than was the case 20 years ago, when Osama bin Laden oversaw the 9/11 attacks from his sanctuary in Afghanistan.
But if an attack happens on Biden’s watch, one of his campaign fundraisers said, Americans won’t necessarily rally behind a president who left Afghanistan in the hands of extremists.
A natural reaction among voters will be “We didn’t want you in Afghanistan, but you should have kept this from happening and now there are dead Americans, and you have to explain that, and you have to go to their funeral,” said this person, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk more freely.
The cable networks are showing chaos, tears, and dead bodies on an airport tarmac, yet some of the living are already writing the scenes off as “the cost of war.”
Afghanistan was a war that Americans have clearly wanted to end for a while.
In a poll taken 10 years ago, voters largely predicted the messy outcome that’s unfolding today.
More than 70 percent believed that the U.S. would eventually withdraw its troops and leave Afghanistan without a functioning democratic government.
A Quinnipiac survey in May found that by a margin of 62 percent to 29 percent, Americans approved of Biden’s plan to pull out all troops.
Military households approved by a 23-point margin: 59 percent to 36 percent.
“I don’t believe Americans are going to evaluate Joe Biden on whether Afghanistan is a stable democracy,” Jeff Horwitt, a Democratic pollster with Hart Research, told me.
“They’re much more focused on whether America is a stable democracy."
"And, sad to say, we have our work to do there these days as well.”
For all the intense focus in Washington on the Taliban’s resurgence, the broader public seems more preoccupied with other issues, like the still-raging coronavirus pandemic.
Ruben Gallego, a Marine Corps veteran who served in Iraq and is now a Democratic representative from Arizona, tweeted last weekend, “What I am feeling and thinking about the situation in Afghanistan, I can never fit on Twitter."
"But one thing that is definitely sticking out is that I haven’t gotten one constituent call about it and my district has a large veteran population.”
One former Biden campaign aide told me, “It’s tough to imagine that in the midterm elections or certainly in 2024 that the Afghanistan withdrawal will be front and center."
"These things often seem urgent, and the implications seem enormous in the moment."
"But at the end of the day, voters care about things that affect them and their families.”
But even some Biden allies fear he has given the opposition a cudgel they can use for as long as he’s in power.
The frenzied exodus from Kabul carries an eerie echo of Americans hastily boarding a helicopter from a rooftop when Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese in 1975.
Republicans are already trying to capitalize on the idea that Biden “lost” Afghanistan and will bear direct responsibility should the Taliban execute Afghans who tried to assist the U.S. war effort.
“Where this potentially hurts is the Republicans being able to say, ‘Well, you fucked up Afghanistan,’” the Biden fundraiser told me.
When it comes to America’s longest war, Biden has long been a skeptic — though in 2001 he did vote for a Senate resolution authorizing then-President George W. Bush to use military force against nations that planned or aided the September 11 attacks.
Nine years later, as vice president, he committed a revealing gaffe as the war neared its second decade.
The U.S. would be “totally out” of Afghanistan in 2014, “come hell or high water,” he said in an interview.
At the time, that wasn’t the White House’s position: Barack Obama hadn’t planned a wholesale military departure by that date.
Biden later backed off a statement that didn’t jibe with official policy, yet foreshadowed the steps he’d take after becoming commander in chief.
Although Biden’s critics allege that he merely wants to be on the right side of public opinion, his opposition to maintaining an American troop presence in Afghanistan may be rooted in something more personal.
He’s long displayed empathy for combat troops deployed in far-flung theaters.
When raising his young family, he’d circle Memorial Day on the calendar and take his children to events in Delaware, Kaufman told me.
I asked him if Biden’s resolve to get out may have been shaped by his late son, Beau, who served a tour in Iraq in the decade before dying of brain cancer at the age of 46.
Kaufman said the reverse is true: Beau Biden joined the Delaware National Guard because of his father’s veneration of the military when he was growing up.
As president, Biden typically ends his speeches with the phrase “May God protect our troops.”
Trump had moved the prisoner-of-war/missing-in-action flag to a less visible spot on the White House grounds; Biden returned it to the pole atop the building.
How forcefully Biden pushed to wind down the war over the years isn’t so clear.
During a Democratic-primary debate last year, Biden said he was “totally opposed to the whole notion of nation-building in Afghanistan.”
Yet that’s not the way some diplomats who worked in the region remember it.
It is undoubtedly true that most people don’t remember this 2002 statement from Biden, which he directly contradicts today: “History is going to judge us very harshly, I believe, if we allow the hope of a liberated Afghanistan to evaporate because we are fearful of the phrase ‘nation-building.’”
Ryan crocker reopened the U.S. embassy in Kabul in 2002 and said his first congressional visitor was Biden, then a senator.
They visited a girls’ school in Kabul that was up and running after U.S. forces had ousted the Taliban from power.
“He was a big supporter of the stuff we were trying to get off the ground,” Crocker told me.
When Crocker returned for another stint as U.S. ambassador to the country in 2011, he said Biden “just wasn’t visible on Afghanistan."
"I didn’t hear from him, nor did I feel his weight."
"We had occasional National Security Council meetings, and I don’t recall him ever saying anything of note.”
Part of Biden’s pitch as a 2020 candidate was that he would restore competence to a White House sorely in need of it.
He’d hire seasoned experts; he’d bring to bear all the experience he’d gathered as a onetime chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a two-term vice president.
For critics of the withdrawal such as Crocker, the new scenes of Taliban fighters beating people trying to flee the country following the abrupt collapse of the American-backed Afghan government undercut that image.
“I always had great admiration for [Biden],” Crocker told me.
“He was a decent person in higher politics, an internationalist."
"Frankly, this raises questions of competence.”
Back in 2011, I was part of a small pool of reporters who traveled to Afghanistan with Biden aboard Air Force Two.
I remember the way he’d come to the back of the plane and schmooze with the press corps, bracing himself against the seats during bouts of turbulence, while worried aides stood nearby ready to steady him if he lost his balance.
Wearing his trademark sunglasses and bomber jacket, he toured a 22,000-acre military training center and watched an exercise in which Afghan soldiers seized a building.
Speaking at the presidential palace, he said, “It is not our intention to govern or to nation-build.”
That, he added, is “the responsibility of the Afghan people, and they are fully capable of it.”
Memories being short, voters may eventually forget the tumult at the Kabul airport.
Biden might get political credit for ending American involvement in an unpopular war, as people in his orbit predict.
But what happens next isn’t only the Afghan people’s responsibility; it’s also the president’s.
If a terrorist attack originates in Afghanistan, Biden might also take the blame.
“More than the awful things that may happen in Afghanistan to our interpreters and to women and girls, I fear for the damage to America’s leadership, which he vowed he would restore,” Crocker told me.
“I just feel kind of sick.”
Peter Nicholas is a staff writer at The Atlantic, where he covers the White House.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... ms/619838/
"Biden Is Betting Americans Will Forget About Afghanistan - People in and around the White House are relying on Americans’ notoriously short-term memory."
By Peter Nicholas
AUGUST 20, 2021
Call it the white house’s dream scenario: In the end, the voters don’t blame Joe Biden.
The president’s withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan simply aligns him with everyone else who has given up on the notion that the military could mold a fractious country into a stable democratic ally.
The administration is hoping that grisly images of desperate Afghans clinging to a C-17 fade, replaced by collective relief that no more Americans will die in a murky, brutal war that spanned two decades and four presidencies.
Despite the Taliban’s rapid takeover of Afghanistan, White House officials and people close to Biden don’t foresee his decision hurting Democrats in next year’s midterm elections, nor in the presidential race that follows.
Their argument is that the nation should be reassured that a president who vowed during the 2020 campaign to end “forever wars” made good on the promise.
Will it work?
Biden’s allies are betting so.
“A big majority of the American people want us out of Afghanistan,” Ted Kaufman, a Biden confidant since the 1970s and a former Democratic senator from Delaware, told me this week.
“And that will be a key message — the key point for the American people is our troops are out,” he said.
“It’s fine for us to sit in Washington and talk about what’s wrong in Afghanistan."
"We’re not bearing the brunt of this war."
"It’s another thing if you have a son or daughter or father over there.”
Biden’s handling of the biggest foreign-policy crisis on his watch to date is unfolding on two tracks: short- and long-term.
In recent days, the White House has privately sent talking points to supporters that sought to blunt the ferocious backlash over the Taliban victory by deflecting responsibility onto a useful target.
On his way out the door, Donald Trump left Biden with two bad choices: “indefinite war in Afghanistan” or a troop drawdown and potential Taliban victory, a White House communications aide wrote in an email obtained by The Atlantic.
That binary formulation ignores all the other options that were open to Biden: at minimum, leaving sufficient troops in place so that a fleeing Afghan didn’t perish inside the wheel well of a departing plane.
Not all Democratic partisans are sold on the idea that Trump boxed in Biden when he negotiated a troop withdrawal from Afghanistan set for this spring.
After taking office, Biden quickly recommitted to the Paris climate accord and the Iranian nuclear deal that Trump had abandoned.
“This one they chose not to reverse,” Donna Brazile, a former Democratic National Committee chair, told me.
“If you don’t reverse it, you own it.”
Looking ahead, Biden’s team is focused on preventing any revival of a terrorist threat from Afghanistan.
His national-security team said it is better positioned to quash terrorism emanating from nations with no U.S. military presence than was the case 20 years ago, when Osama bin Laden oversaw the 9/11 attacks from his sanctuary in Afghanistan.
But if an attack happens on Biden’s watch, one of his campaign fundraisers said, Americans won’t necessarily rally behind a president who left Afghanistan in the hands of extremists.
A natural reaction among voters will be “We didn’t want you in Afghanistan, but you should have kept this from happening and now there are dead Americans, and you have to explain that, and you have to go to their funeral,” said this person, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk more freely.
The cable networks are showing chaos, tears, and dead bodies on an airport tarmac, yet some of the living are already writing the scenes off as “the cost of war.”
Afghanistan was a war that Americans have clearly wanted to end for a while.
In a poll taken 10 years ago, voters largely predicted the messy outcome that’s unfolding today.
More than 70 percent believed that the U.S. would eventually withdraw its troops and leave Afghanistan without a functioning democratic government.
A Quinnipiac survey in May found that by a margin of 62 percent to 29 percent, Americans approved of Biden’s plan to pull out all troops.
Military households approved by a 23-point margin: 59 percent to 36 percent.
“I don’t believe Americans are going to evaluate Joe Biden on whether Afghanistan is a stable democracy,” Jeff Horwitt, a Democratic pollster with Hart Research, told me.
“They’re much more focused on whether America is a stable democracy."
"And, sad to say, we have our work to do there these days as well.”
For all the intense focus in Washington on the Taliban’s resurgence, the broader public seems more preoccupied with other issues, like the still-raging coronavirus pandemic.
Ruben Gallego, a Marine Corps veteran who served in Iraq and is now a Democratic representative from Arizona, tweeted last weekend, “What I am feeling and thinking about the situation in Afghanistan, I can never fit on Twitter."
"But one thing that is definitely sticking out is that I haven’t gotten one constituent call about it and my district has a large veteran population.”
One former Biden campaign aide told me, “It’s tough to imagine that in the midterm elections or certainly in 2024 that the Afghanistan withdrawal will be front and center."
"These things often seem urgent, and the implications seem enormous in the moment."
"But at the end of the day, voters care about things that affect them and their families.”
But even some Biden allies fear he has given the opposition a cudgel they can use for as long as he’s in power.
The frenzied exodus from Kabul carries an eerie echo of Americans hastily boarding a helicopter from a rooftop when Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese in 1975.
Republicans are already trying to capitalize on the idea that Biden “lost” Afghanistan and will bear direct responsibility should the Taliban execute Afghans who tried to assist the U.S. war effort.
“Where this potentially hurts is the Republicans being able to say, ‘Well, you fucked up Afghanistan,’” the Biden fundraiser told me.
When it comes to America’s longest war, Biden has long been a skeptic — though in 2001 he did vote for a Senate resolution authorizing then-President George W. Bush to use military force against nations that planned or aided the September 11 attacks.
Nine years later, as vice president, he committed a revealing gaffe as the war neared its second decade.
The U.S. would be “totally out” of Afghanistan in 2014, “come hell or high water,” he said in an interview.
At the time, that wasn’t the White House’s position: Barack Obama hadn’t planned a wholesale military departure by that date.
Biden later backed off a statement that didn’t jibe with official policy, yet foreshadowed the steps he’d take after becoming commander in chief.
Although Biden’s critics allege that he merely wants to be on the right side of public opinion, his opposition to maintaining an American troop presence in Afghanistan may be rooted in something more personal.
He’s long displayed empathy for combat troops deployed in far-flung theaters.
When raising his young family, he’d circle Memorial Day on the calendar and take his children to events in Delaware, Kaufman told me.
I asked him if Biden’s resolve to get out may have been shaped by his late son, Beau, who served a tour in Iraq in the decade before dying of brain cancer at the age of 46.
Kaufman said the reverse is true: Beau Biden joined the Delaware National Guard because of his father’s veneration of the military when he was growing up.
As president, Biden typically ends his speeches with the phrase “May God protect our troops.”
Trump had moved the prisoner-of-war/missing-in-action flag to a less visible spot on the White House grounds; Biden returned it to the pole atop the building.
How forcefully Biden pushed to wind down the war over the years isn’t so clear.
During a Democratic-primary debate last year, Biden said he was “totally opposed to the whole notion of nation-building in Afghanistan.”
Yet that’s not the way some diplomats who worked in the region remember it.
It is undoubtedly true that most people don’t remember this 2002 statement from Biden, which he directly contradicts today: “History is going to judge us very harshly, I believe, if we allow the hope of a liberated Afghanistan to evaporate because we are fearful of the phrase ‘nation-building.’”
Ryan crocker reopened the U.S. embassy in Kabul in 2002 and said his first congressional visitor was Biden, then a senator.
They visited a girls’ school in Kabul that was up and running after U.S. forces had ousted the Taliban from power.
“He was a big supporter of the stuff we were trying to get off the ground,” Crocker told me.
When Crocker returned for another stint as U.S. ambassador to the country in 2011, he said Biden “just wasn’t visible on Afghanistan."
"I didn’t hear from him, nor did I feel his weight."
"We had occasional National Security Council meetings, and I don’t recall him ever saying anything of note.”
Part of Biden’s pitch as a 2020 candidate was that he would restore competence to a White House sorely in need of it.
He’d hire seasoned experts; he’d bring to bear all the experience he’d gathered as a onetime chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a two-term vice president.
For critics of the withdrawal such as Crocker, the new scenes of Taliban fighters beating people trying to flee the country following the abrupt collapse of the American-backed Afghan government undercut that image.
“I always had great admiration for [Biden],” Crocker told me.
“He was a decent person in higher politics, an internationalist."
"Frankly, this raises questions of competence.”
Back in 2011, I was part of a small pool of reporters who traveled to Afghanistan with Biden aboard Air Force Two.
I remember the way he’d come to the back of the plane and schmooze with the press corps, bracing himself against the seats during bouts of turbulence, while worried aides stood nearby ready to steady him if he lost his balance.
Wearing his trademark sunglasses and bomber jacket, he toured a 22,000-acre military training center and watched an exercise in which Afghan soldiers seized a building.
Speaking at the presidential palace, he said, “It is not our intention to govern or to nation-build.”
That, he added, is “the responsibility of the Afghan people, and they are fully capable of it.”
Memories being short, voters may eventually forget the tumult at the Kabul airport.
Biden might get political credit for ending American involvement in an unpopular war, as people in his orbit predict.
But what happens next isn’t only the Afghan people’s responsibility; it’s also the president’s.
If a terrorist attack originates in Afghanistan, Biden might also take the blame.
“More than the awful things that may happen in Afghanistan to our interpreters and to women and girls, I fear for the damage to America’s leadership, which he vowed he would restore,” Crocker told me.
“I just feel kind of sick.”
Peter Nicholas is a staff writer at The Atlantic, where he covers the White House.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... ms/619838/
Re: AFGHANISTAN
FORBES
"Staggering Costs – U.S. Military Equipment Left Behind In Afghanistan"
Adam Andrzejewski, Senior Contributor
Aug 23, 2021
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.
Putting price tags on American military equipment still in Afghanistan isn’t an easy task.
In the fog of war – or withdrawal – Afghanistan has always been a black box with little sunshine.
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.
#1. Government Accountability Office (GAO) audit of U.S. provided military gear in Afghanistan (August 2017): reposted report (dead link: report).
#2. Special Inspector General For Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) audit of $174 million in lost ScanEagle drones (July 2020): reposted report (dead link: report).
U.S. taxpayers paid for these audits and the U.S.-provided equipment and should be able to follow the money.
After publication, the GAO spokesman responded to our request for comment, “the State Department requested we temporarily remove and review reports on Afghanistan to protect recipients of US assistance that may be identified through our reports and thus subject to retribution.”
However, these reports only have numbers and no recipient information.
Furthermore, unless noted, when estimating “acquisition value,” our source is the Department Logistics Agency (DLA) and their comprehensive databases of military equipment.
Vehicles and airplanes
Between 2003 and 2016, the U.S. purchased and provided 75,898 vehicles and 208 aircraft, to the Afghan army and security forces, according to a Government Accountability Office report.
Here is a breakdown of estimated vehicle costs:
Armored personnel carriers such as the M113A2 cost $170,000 each and recent purchases of the M577A2 post carrier cost $333,333 each.
Mine resistant vehicles ranges from $412,000 to $767,000.
The total cost could range between $382 million to $711 million.
Recovery vehicles such as the ‘truck, wrecker’ cost between for the base model $168,960 and $880,674 for super strength versions.
Medium range tactical vehicles include 5-ton cargo and general transport trucks were priced at $67,139.
However, the family of MTV heavy vehicles had prices ranging from $235,500 to $724,820 each.
Cargo trucks to transport airplanes cost $800,865.
Humvees – ambulance type (range from $37,943 to $142,918 with most at $96,466); cargo type, priced at $104,682.
Utility Humvees were typically priced at $91,429.
However, the 12,000 lb. troop transport version cost up to $329,000.
Light tactical vehicles: Fast attack combat vehicles ($69,400); and passenger motor vehicles ($65,500).
All terrain 4-wheel vehicles go up to $42,273 in the military databases.
This month, the Taliban seized Black Hawk helicopters and A-29 Super Tucano attack aircraft.
As late as last month, Afghanistan’s Ministry of Defense posted photos on social media of seven newly arrived helicopters from the U.S., Reuters reported.
Black Hawk helicopters can cost up to $21 million.
In 2013, the U.S. placed an order for 20 A-29 Super Tucano attack aircraft for $427 million – that’s $21.3 million for each plane.
Other specialized helicopters can cost up to $37 million each.
The Afghan air force contracted for C-208 light attack airplanes in March 2018: seven planes for $84.6 million, or $12.1 million each.
The airplanes are very sophisticated and carry HELLFIRE missiles, anti-tank missiles and other weaponry.
The PC-12 intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance airplanes use the latest in technology.
Having these planes fall into Taliban control is disconcerting.
Civilian models sell new for approximately $5 million each and the military planes could sell for many times that price.
Basic fixed-wing airplanes range in price from $3.1 million to $22 million in the DLA database.
Of course, helicopter prices also range widely depending on the technology, purpose, and equipment.
For example, according to the DLA, general purpose helicopters range in price from $92,000 to $922,000.
Observation helicopters can cost $92,000 and utility helicopters up to $922,000.
Even if the Taliban can’t fly our planes, the parts are very valuable.
For example, just the control stick for certain military planes has an acquisition value of $17,808 and a fuel tank sells for up to $35,000.
Lost drones
In 2017, the U.S. military lost $174 million in drones that were part of the attempt to help the Afghan National Army (ANA) defend itself.
But the ANA didn’t immediately use the drones and then lost track of them.
This week, the SIGAR audit on the $174 million drone loss disappeared from its website.
Weapons, communications equipment, and night vision googles
Since 2003 the U.S. gave Afghan forces at least 600,000 infantry weapons, including M16 rifles, 162,000 pieces of communication equipment, and 16,000 night-vision goggle devices, according to the GAO report.
The howitzer is the modern cannon for the U.S. military and each unit can cost up to $500,000; however most are in the $200,000 price range.
At the higher end, there’s GPS guidance on fired shells.
A common price of a M16 rifle is $749, according to DLA.
Adding a grenade launcher can push the price of the M16 to $12,032.
M4 carbine rifles are slightly more expensive with unit prices as high as $1,278.
Just the sights on night-vision sniper rifle scopes can run as high as $35,000, however, most vary in price between $5,000 and $10,000.
Here are the costs of other types of weaponry provided to Afghan forces:
Machine guns, i.e. the M240 model, were priced between $6,600 and $9,000 each.
Grenade launchers cost between $1,000 and $5,000 each; however, in 2020, the manufacture sold 53 for $15,000 each.
Army shotguns were acquired for only $150 each, according to DLA.
Military pistols cost $320 each, such as the .40 caliber Glock Generation 3.
Each Aerostat surveillance balloon costs $8.9 million.
Each ScanEagle drone costs approximately $1.4 million according to recent procurement news.
Even as late at 2021, U.S. appropriations for the Wolfhounds radio monitoring systems approached $874,000.
Night vision devices: The total cost for the 16,000 night-vision goggles alone could run as high as $80 million.
Individually, the high-tech goggles were priced between $2,742 and $5,000 by the DLA.
Other equipment like image intensifiers are commonly priced at $10,747 each; however, sophisticated models run as high as $66,000 each.
Radio equipment: the cost of equipment adds up – receiver-transmitters ($210,651); sophisticated radio sets ($61,966); amplifiers ($28,165); repeater sets ($28,527); and deployment sets to identify frequencies run up to $18,908.
However, if the Taliban doesn’t have the expertise or technologies to program the equipment, it will become obsolete quickly.
Or it could be sold off to other countries who wanted to acquire U.S. technology.
And there’s more… years 2017 through 2019
From 2017 to 2019, the U.S. also gave Afghan forces 7,035 machine guns, 4,702 Humvees, 20,040 hand grenades, 2,520 bombs and 1,394 grenade launchers, according to the since removed 2020 SIGAR report, reported by The Hill.
An unnamed official told Reuters that current intelligence assessment was that the Taliban took control of more than 2,000 armored vehicles, including American Humvees, and as many as 40 aircraft that may include UH-60 Black Hawks, scout attack helicopters and ScanEagle military drones.
Crucial quote
“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 said Tuesday, The Hill reported.
“And obviously, we don't have a sense that they are going to readily hand it over to us at the airport.”
Critic
Republican Senators have demanded that there be a full count of U.S. military equipment left in Afghanistan.
In a letter to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, the lawmakers said they were "horrified" to see photos of Taliban militants taking hold of military equipment, including Black Hawk helicopters.
"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 lawmakers said in the letter.
"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."
https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamandrze ... 0c3d8e41db
"Staggering Costs – U.S. Military Equipment Left Behind In Afghanistan"
Adam Andrzejewski, Senior Contributor
Aug 23, 2021
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.
Putting price tags on American military equipment still in Afghanistan isn’t an easy task.
In the fog of war – or withdrawal – Afghanistan has always been a black box with little sunshine.
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.
#1. Government Accountability Office (GAO) audit of U.S. provided military gear in Afghanistan (August 2017): reposted report (dead link: report).
#2. Special Inspector General For Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) audit of $174 million in lost ScanEagle drones (July 2020): reposted report (dead link: report).
U.S. taxpayers paid for these audits and the U.S.-provided equipment and should be able to follow the money.
After publication, the GAO spokesman responded to our request for comment, “the State Department requested we temporarily remove and review reports on Afghanistan to protect recipients of US assistance that may be identified through our reports and thus subject to retribution.”
However, these reports only have numbers and no recipient information.
Furthermore, unless noted, when estimating “acquisition value,” our source is the Department Logistics Agency (DLA) and their comprehensive databases of military equipment.
Vehicles and airplanes
Between 2003 and 2016, the U.S. purchased and provided 75,898 vehicles and 208 aircraft, to the Afghan army and security forces, according to a Government Accountability Office report.
Here is a breakdown of estimated vehicle costs:
Armored personnel carriers such as the M113A2 cost $170,000 each and recent purchases of the M577A2 post carrier cost $333,333 each.
Mine resistant vehicles ranges from $412,000 to $767,000.
The total cost could range between $382 million to $711 million.
Recovery vehicles such as the ‘truck, wrecker’ cost between for the base model $168,960 and $880,674 for super strength versions.
Medium range tactical vehicles include 5-ton cargo and general transport trucks were priced at $67,139.
However, the family of MTV heavy vehicles had prices ranging from $235,500 to $724,820 each.
Cargo trucks to transport airplanes cost $800,865.
Humvees – ambulance type (range from $37,943 to $142,918 with most at $96,466); cargo type, priced at $104,682.
Utility Humvees were typically priced at $91,429.
However, the 12,000 lb. troop transport version cost up to $329,000.
Light tactical vehicles: Fast attack combat vehicles ($69,400); and passenger motor vehicles ($65,500).
All terrain 4-wheel vehicles go up to $42,273 in the military databases.
This month, the Taliban seized Black Hawk helicopters and A-29 Super Tucano attack aircraft.
As late as last month, Afghanistan’s Ministry of Defense posted photos on social media of seven newly arrived helicopters from the U.S., Reuters reported.
Black Hawk helicopters can cost up to $21 million.
In 2013, the U.S. placed an order for 20 A-29 Super Tucano attack aircraft for $427 million – that’s $21.3 million for each plane.
Other specialized helicopters can cost up to $37 million each.
The Afghan air force contracted for C-208 light attack airplanes in March 2018: seven planes for $84.6 million, or $12.1 million each.
The airplanes are very sophisticated and carry HELLFIRE missiles, anti-tank missiles and other weaponry.
The PC-12 intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance airplanes use the latest in technology.
Having these planes fall into Taliban control is disconcerting.
Civilian models sell new for approximately $5 million each and the military planes could sell for many times that price.
Basic fixed-wing airplanes range in price from $3.1 million to $22 million in the DLA database.
Of course, helicopter prices also range widely depending on the technology, purpose, and equipment.
For example, according to the DLA, general purpose helicopters range in price from $92,000 to $922,000.
Observation helicopters can cost $92,000 and utility helicopters up to $922,000.
Even if the Taliban can’t fly our planes, the parts are very valuable.
For example, just the control stick for certain military planes has an acquisition value of $17,808 and a fuel tank sells for up to $35,000.
Lost drones
In 2017, the U.S. military lost $174 million in drones that were part of the attempt to help the Afghan National Army (ANA) defend itself.
But the ANA didn’t immediately use the drones and then lost track of them.
This week, the SIGAR audit on the $174 million drone loss disappeared from its website.
Weapons, communications equipment, and night vision googles
Since 2003 the U.S. gave Afghan forces at least 600,000 infantry weapons, including M16 rifles, 162,000 pieces of communication equipment, and 16,000 night-vision goggle devices, according to the GAO report.
The howitzer is the modern cannon for the U.S. military and each unit can cost up to $500,000; however most are in the $200,000 price range.
At the higher end, there’s GPS guidance on fired shells.
A common price of a M16 rifle is $749, according to DLA.
Adding a grenade launcher can push the price of the M16 to $12,032.
M4 carbine rifles are slightly more expensive with unit prices as high as $1,278.
Just the sights on night-vision sniper rifle scopes can run as high as $35,000, however, most vary in price between $5,000 and $10,000.
Here are the costs of other types of weaponry provided to Afghan forces:
Machine guns, i.e. the M240 model, were priced between $6,600 and $9,000 each.
Grenade launchers cost between $1,000 and $5,000 each; however, in 2020, the manufacture sold 53 for $15,000 each.
Army shotguns were acquired for only $150 each, according to DLA.
Military pistols cost $320 each, such as the .40 caliber Glock Generation 3.
Each Aerostat surveillance balloon costs $8.9 million.
Each ScanEagle drone costs approximately $1.4 million according to recent procurement news.
Even as late at 2021, U.S. appropriations for the Wolfhounds radio monitoring systems approached $874,000.
Night vision devices: The total cost for the 16,000 night-vision goggles alone could run as high as $80 million.
Individually, the high-tech goggles were priced between $2,742 and $5,000 by the DLA.
Other equipment like image intensifiers are commonly priced at $10,747 each; however, sophisticated models run as high as $66,000 each.
Radio equipment: the cost of equipment adds up – receiver-transmitters ($210,651); sophisticated radio sets ($61,966); amplifiers ($28,165); repeater sets ($28,527); and deployment sets to identify frequencies run up to $18,908.
However, if the Taliban doesn’t have the expertise or technologies to program the equipment, it will become obsolete quickly.
Or it could be sold off to other countries who wanted to acquire U.S. technology.
And there’s more… years 2017 through 2019
From 2017 to 2019, the U.S. also gave Afghan forces 7,035 machine guns, 4,702 Humvees, 20,040 hand grenades, 2,520 bombs and 1,394 grenade launchers, according to the since removed 2020 SIGAR report, reported by The Hill.
An unnamed official told Reuters that current intelligence assessment was that the Taliban took control of more than 2,000 armored vehicles, including American Humvees, and as many as 40 aircraft that may include UH-60 Black Hawks, scout attack helicopters and ScanEagle military drones.
Crucial quote
“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 said Tuesday, The Hill reported.
“And obviously, we don't have a sense that they are going to readily hand it over to us at the airport.”
Critic
Republican Senators have demanded that there be a full count of U.S. military equipment left in Afghanistan.
In a letter to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, the lawmakers said they were "horrified" to see photos of Taliban militants taking hold of military equipment, including Black Hawk helicopters.
"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 lawmakers said in the letter.
"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."
https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamandrze ... 0c3d8e41db
Re: AFGHANISTAN
THE LOS ANGELES TIMES
"Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin says Al Qaeda may seek a comeback in Afghanistan"
BY ROBERT BURNS ASSOCIATED PRESS
SEP. 9, 2021 7:25 AM PT
KUWAIT CITY — U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III said Thursday that Al Qaeda, which used Afghanistan as a staging base to attack the U.S. 20 years ago, might attempt to regroup there following the withdrawal of Western forces.
Austin spoke to a small group of reporters in Kuwait City at the conclusion of a four-day tour of Persian Gulf states.
He said the United States is prepared to prevent a comeback by Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, which is once again under Taliban rule.
“The whole community is kind of watching to see what happens and whether or not Al Qaeda has the ability to regenerate in Afghanistan,” he said.
“The nature of Al Qaeda and [Islamic State] is they will always attempt to find space to grow and regenerate, whether it’s there, whether it’s in Somalia or whether it’s in any other ungoverned space."
"I think that’s the nature of the organization.”
During its 1996-2001 rule of Afghanistan, the Taliban provided Al Qaeda with sanctuary.
The U.S. invaded and overthrew the Taliban after it refused to turn over Al Qaeda leaders following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
During the course of the 20-year U.S. war, Al Qaeda was vastly diminished, but questions have arisen about its future prospects with the Taliban back in Kabul.
“We put the Taliban on notice that we expect them to not allow that to happen,” Austin said, referring to the possibility of Al Qaeda using Afghanistan as a base in the future.
In a February 2020 agreement with the Trump administration, Taliban leaders pledged not to support Al Qaeda or other extremist groups that would threaten the United States.
But U.S. officials believe the Taliban maintains ties to Al Qaeda, and many nations, including Gulf Arab states, are concerned that the Taliban’s return to power could open the door to a resurgence of Al Qaeda influence.
Austin has asserted that the U.S. military is capable of containing Al Qaeda or any other extremist threat to the U.S. emanating from Afghanistan by using surveillance and strike aircraft based elsewhere, including in the Persian Gulf.
He also has acknowledged that it will be more difficult without U.S. troops and intelligence teams based in Afghanistan.
Austin, a retired Army general, has a deep network of contacts in the region based in part on his years commanding U.S. and coalition troops in Iraq and later as head of U.S. Central Command, which oversees U.S. military operations in the Middle East.
This week’s trip to the Persian Gulf was his first to the region since he took office in January.
Austin had been scheduled to visit Saudi Arabia on Thursday as the final stop on his gulf tour.
But on Wednesday evening, his spokesman, John Kirby, announced that that visit had been dropped because of “scheduling issues.”
Kirby offered no further explanation but said Austin looked forward to rescheduling.
Austin indicated that his visit was postponed at the Saudis’ request.
“The Saudis have some scheduling issues; I can’t speak to exactly what they were,” he said.
The Saudi stop was to happen two days before the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 people.
Fifteen of the men who hijacked commercial airliners and crashed them into the twin towers of the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field were Saudis, as was Osama bin Laden, whose Al Qaeda network plotted the attack from its base in Afghanistan.
Last week, President Biden directed the declassification of certain documents related to the attacks, a gesture to victims’ families who have long sought the records in hopes of implicating the Saudi government.
Public documents released in the last two decades, including by the 9/11 Commission, have detailed numerous Saudi entanglements but have not proved government complicity.
The Saudi government denies any culpability.
On Wednesday, the Saudi Embassy in Washington released a statement welcoming the move to declassify and release more documents, saying: “No evidence has ever emerged to indicate that the Saudi government or its officials had previous knowledge of the terrorist attack or were in any way involved in its planning or execution.”
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/st ... fghanistan
"Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin says Al Qaeda may seek a comeback in Afghanistan"
BY ROBERT BURNS ASSOCIATED PRESS
SEP. 9, 2021 7:25 AM PT
KUWAIT CITY — U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III said Thursday that Al Qaeda, which used Afghanistan as a staging base to attack the U.S. 20 years ago, might attempt to regroup there following the withdrawal of Western forces.
Austin spoke to a small group of reporters in Kuwait City at the conclusion of a four-day tour of Persian Gulf states.
He said the United States is prepared to prevent a comeback by Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, which is once again under Taliban rule.
“The whole community is kind of watching to see what happens and whether or not Al Qaeda has the ability to regenerate in Afghanistan,” he said.
“The nature of Al Qaeda and [Islamic State] is they will always attempt to find space to grow and regenerate, whether it’s there, whether it’s in Somalia or whether it’s in any other ungoverned space."
"I think that’s the nature of the organization.”
During its 1996-2001 rule of Afghanistan, the Taliban provided Al Qaeda with sanctuary.
The U.S. invaded and overthrew the Taliban after it refused to turn over Al Qaeda leaders following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
During the course of the 20-year U.S. war, Al Qaeda was vastly diminished, but questions have arisen about its future prospects with the Taliban back in Kabul.
“We put the Taliban on notice that we expect them to not allow that to happen,” Austin said, referring to the possibility of Al Qaeda using Afghanistan as a base in the future.
In a February 2020 agreement with the Trump administration, Taliban leaders pledged not to support Al Qaeda or other extremist groups that would threaten the United States.
But U.S. officials believe the Taliban maintains ties to Al Qaeda, and many nations, including Gulf Arab states, are concerned that the Taliban’s return to power could open the door to a resurgence of Al Qaeda influence.
Austin has asserted that the U.S. military is capable of containing Al Qaeda or any other extremist threat to the U.S. emanating from Afghanistan by using surveillance and strike aircraft based elsewhere, including in the Persian Gulf.
He also has acknowledged that it will be more difficult without U.S. troops and intelligence teams based in Afghanistan.
Austin, a retired Army general, has a deep network of contacts in the region based in part on his years commanding U.S. and coalition troops in Iraq and later as head of U.S. Central Command, which oversees U.S. military operations in the Middle East.
This week’s trip to the Persian Gulf was his first to the region since he took office in January.
Austin had been scheduled to visit Saudi Arabia on Thursday as the final stop on his gulf tour.
But on Wednesday evening, his spokesman, John Kirby, announced that that visit had been dropped because of “scheduling issues.”
Kirby offered no further explanation but said Austin looked forward to rescheduling.
Austin indicated that his visit was postponed at the Saudis’ request.
“The Saudis have some scheduling issues; I can’t speak to exactly what they were,” he said.
The Saudi stop was to happen two days before the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 people.
Fifteen of the men who hijacked commercial airliners and crashed them into the twin towers of the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field were Saudis, as was Osama bin Laden, whose Al Qaeda network plotted the attack from its base in Afghanistan.
Last week, President Biden directed the declassification of certain documents related to the attacks, a gesture to victims’ families who have long sought the records in hopes of implicating the Saudi government.
Public documents released in the last two decades, including by the 9/11 Commission, have detailed numerous Saudi entanglements but have not proved government complicity.
The Saudi government denies any culpability.
On Wednesday, the Saudi Embassy in Washington released a statement welcoming the move to declassify and release more documents, saying: “No evidence has ever emerged to indicate that the Saudi government or its officials had previous knowledge of the terrorist attack or were in any way involved in its planning or execution.”
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/st ... fghanistan