(PatrioticPost.com)- The United States spent billions of dollars on the war in Afghanistan over the last 20 years. And now, the Taliban is directly benefitting from all that money.
In addition to taking over control of the government in Afghanistan, the Taliban is now in possession of billions of dollars of weapons that the U.S. supplied Afghan forces. This includes ammunition, guns and even helicopters.
As the Afghan forces were unable to hold back the Taliban fighters, the group that now controls the country was able to capture a load of modern military equipment that was left behind. This came after the Taliban captured military bases and, ultimately, Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul.
On Monday, an official with the U.S. Defense Department confirmed that the Taliban did indeed have control over an enormous amount of military equipment that America supplied to the former Afghan government.
As The Associated Press reported this week, the Afghan forces were heavily armed with modern military equipment, but they were unprepared and unable to hold back their enemy when confronted with an assault.
On Monday, John Kirby, who serves as the chief spokesman for Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, said:
“Money can’t buy will. You cannot purchase leadership.”
A retired lieutenant general from the Army echoed those comments. Doug Lute, who served in the Obama and George W. Bush administrations and helped direct the war strategy in Afghanistan, said the Afghans had plenty of tangible resources, but lacked important intangibles. He said:
“The principle of war stands — moral factors dominate material factors. Morale, discipline, leadership, unit cohesion are more decisive than numbers of forces and equipment As outsiders in Afghanistan, we can provide material, but only Afghans can provide the intangible moral factors.”
This has all been very clear over the last few months, as the Taliban started to make inroads by capturing important Afghan provincial capitals, capped by the successful capture of Kabul.
The Taliban had far fewer people fighting for them, far inferior weapons and no air support. However, they were easily able to overtake the Afghan fighters.
In the U.S., intelligence officials even underestimated the superiority of the Taliban fighters, according to the AP report. These officials didn’t even predict that the Taliban offensive would be so successful so quickly, even following President Joe Biden’s announcement in April that he would be pulling all U.S. forces from Afghanistan.
Former President Donald Trump’s acting secretary of defense, Chris Miller — who also fought in Afghanistan back in 2001 — commented:
“If we wouldn’t have used hope as a course of action … we would have realized the rapid drawdown of U.S. forces sent a signal to the Afghan national forces that they were being abandoned.”
Stephen Biddle, who once served as an adviser to American commanders stationed in Afghanistan, agreed with those comments, saying:
“The problem of the U.S. withdrawal is that it sent a nationwide signal that the jig is up — a sudden, nationwide signal that everyone read the same way.”
