So many images out of Afghanistan are troubling for everyday Americans, and others are flat out disgusting for our U.S. military members, who now have to see Taliban fighters wearing U.S. made gear, using equipment from the $82 billion worth of weapons and other necessary equipment we left when Biden ordered everyone out, and flaunting it shamelessly.
Videos posted this week by the Taliban show some of their fighters carrying U.S. weapons they stole from allied forces.
What’s even worse is an image the Taliban posted where they flat out mocked the iconic “Raising The Flag” World War II photo, where our brave and heroic troops raised an American flag on Iwo Jima.
The Taliban fighters that are wearing the American military uniforms are apparently calling themselves Badri 313 Battalion according to a Fox News report. In Taliban propaganda releases they are described as a “special operations unit” that has been deployed throughout Afghanistan.
According to that same report, between 2002 and 2017 the U.S. gave the Afghan military roughly $28 billion in weaponry. It all belongs to the Taliban now, and this isn’t just guns and ammo. We’re talking about advanced aircraft, missiles, equipment, bombs, uniforms, tanks and more.
There is no evidence to suggest the Taliban is capable of using the equipment they stole effectively, but it does provide a propaganda too to create the allusion that they are elite fighters. Here’s a quote Elias Yousif, deputy director fo the Center for International Policy’s Security Assistance Monitor gave to The Hill.
“Clearly, this is an indictment of the U.S. security cooperation enterprise broadly. It really should raise a lot of concerns about what is the wider enterprise that is going on every single day, whether that’s in the Middle East, Sub-Saharan Africa, East Asia.”
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