{"id":241998,"date":"2021-09-02T07:05:53","date_gmt":"2021-09-02T07:05:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=241998"},"modified":"2021-09-03T06:32:48","modified_gmt":"2021-09-03T06:32:48","slug":"how-america-lost-control","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=241998","title":{"rendered":"How America lost control"},"content":{"rendered":"

TOM LEONARD has previously voiced a nation’s fears over the Afghan withdrawal. But even he couldn’t have predicted the damage this surrender would inflict on us all.<\/h3>\n

Tom Leonard in New York \u2013 Daily Mail Sept 1, 2021<\/strong><\/h1>\n

To\u00a0the victor, the spoils \u2013 and they don\u2019t come more glittering than those left behind by the Americans in\u00a0Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

As the last US soldier, Major General Chris Donahue, was photographed walking up the ramp of a US transport plane on Monday night, the Taliban wasted no time in highlighting the scale of America\u2019s downfall by flaunting their acquisitions.<\/p>\n

Journalists were given tours of airports, prisons and military bases by Taliban guides who obligingly mugged up for photo opportunities.<\/p>\n

Within minutes of the US leaving, Taliban troops were filmed entering a Kabul airport hangar containing four large Boeing Sea Knight cargo helicopters.<\/p>\n

They clambered around the cockpit of a huge C-130 Hercules transport plane and tried out the controls of other military choppers, some fitted with missile launchers in hangars strewn with discarded US flak jackets, helmets, ammunition and grenades.<\/p>\n

Indeed, for a time it looked as if not all US troops had yet departed as a group of men lined up on the runway in full combat gear, M16 assault rifles at the ready. They were in fact the Taliban\u2019s \u2018Badri 313\u2019 special forces, fully kitted out in captured equipment.<\/p>\n

\u2018Allah Akhbar!\u2019 \u2013 God is Great! \u2013 they chanted defiantly for the cameras under the watchful eye of officials as they paraded under the dangerously deceptive Taliban white flag.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Taliban fighter inside the cockpit of an Afghan Air Force plane at Kabul Airport<\/p><\/div>\n

The speed of America\u2019s chaotic and bloody retreat from its 20-year, $2trillion war has allowed its enemy to swap their sandals, turbans and battered Kalashnikov guns for state-of-the-art weaponry and protective gear that will allow them to continue their jihad with far greater effectiveness.<\/p>\n

Just when America thought it could not get any worse, here in these astonishing images was the visceral, swaggering proof of the extent to which the Taliban has humbled the US.<\/p>\n

From senior leaders to rank and file Taliban members, their incredulity at overwhelming a superpower with \u2018just our Kalashnikovs\u2019 was expressed over and over.<\/p>\n

And yet the military parade on the runway was just one of many humiliations for America as it ended its \u2018longest war\u2019 with the contempt of their ragtag opponents ringing in their ears not to mention the fury of Britain and other allies.<\/p>\n

Last night, President Biden addressed the US nation and, incredibly, insisted the Kabul airlift was an \u2018extraordinary success\u2019. He maintained everything apart from the Afghan army\u2019s collapse had gone to plan.<\/p>\n

\u2018This is the way the mission was designed. It was designed to operate under severe stress and attack, and that\u2019s what it did,\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n

Will his voters swallow that? Americans may have told pollsters they wanted to end the conflict, but few can have imagined it was going to be as ignominious as this \u2013 chased out in the dark by the Taliban, leaving not only citizens and support workers behind \u2013 but also their military and their moral reputation, as some of the horrors of the detention centre at the US Bagram Air Base started to be revealed.<\/p>\n

\u2018Congratulations to Afghanistan… this victory belongs to us all,\u2019 Zabihullah Mujahid, the group\u2019s chief spokesman announced, calling the day a \u2018big lesson for other invaders and for our future generation\u2019.<\/p>\n

He said his group wanted \u2018good relations with the US and the world\u2019, words that sat unconvincingly against a grim Taliban procession of three coffins \u2013 draped in the flags of the US, Britain and France \u2013 accompanied by fireworks and tracer fire through streets in the south eastern city of Khost.<\/p>\n

However, it is the Taliban\u2019s haul of cutting-edge military equipment that underlines the depth of their victory, a haul that goes well beyond beyond combat boots, helmets and rifles.<\/p>\n

In Kandahar, a \u00a34million Black Hawk helicopter was filmed circling the city with a Taliban pilot at the controls and an unidentified man, probably a Taliban soldier, suspended beneath it.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

A Black Hawk. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n

The US had obligingly delivered seven more of the helicopters, long an enduring symbol of American military might, into Taliban hands as recently as July.<\/p>\n

As Kabul fell and the evacuation got underway, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken insisted the US departure was nothing like its ignominious withdrawal from Saigon at the end of the Vietnam War in 1975.<\/p>\n

He was right. Back then, choppers were ditched in the sea to avoid them falling into the hands of North Vietnam.<\/p>\n

And despite claims that all remaining military vehicles had been demobilised, the Taliban found several, including a special forces dune buggy, that they drove jubilantly around the runway yesterday.<\/p>\n

The US estimates it has provided \u00a360billion worth of equipment and training to Afghan security forces since 2001.<\/p>\n

Now dozens of abandoned helicopters, armoured vehicles and ground attack planes \u2013 many with their controls smashed and insides ripped out by US troops and looters \u2013 are testament to that investment in what now seems a pointless conflict in which 170,000 people including 2,400 American troops and 457 British military personnel died.<\/p>\n

The US insists its forces had disabled 150 American and Afghan military vehicles, including armoured cars such as Humvees and MRAPs (\u2018Mine-Resistant, Ambush-Protected\u2019) and 73 aircraft, to ensure they were never used again.<\/p>\n

Last night a Pentagon spokesman insisted he wasn\u2019t \u2018overly concerned about these images\u2019 of the Taliban in cockpits, saying: \u2018They can inspect all they want\u2026 they can\u2019t operate them.\u2019<\/p>\n

But he conceded there is a \u2018lethality component\u2019 to some of what has been left.<\/p>\n

While the humiliation of this surrender \u2013 for that is what it feels like \u2013 has largely fallen on the Americans, the presence of a British bobby\u2019s helmet alongside a US state trooper\u2019s hat on a desk surrounded by grim-faced Taliban fighters at the former regime\u2019s police training base was a stark reminder of the UK\u2019s role in trying to prop up Afghanistan against the insurgents.<\/p>\n

The headgear had been left behind as gifts by former trainers to Afghan police who, like their military comrades, capitulated rapidly to the Taliban.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Taliban special forces in a Kabul hangar<\/p><\/div>\n

The terror group was even happier to show off a far more disturbing and damning reminder of the US presence out at Bagram Air Base 40 miles north of Kabul.<\/p>\n

The US abandoned its main Afghan operational base, turning off water and electricity, and slipping out so quietly on the night of July 1 that it didn\u2019t even warn Afghan forces left to defend it, substantially fuelling the collapse of their morale.<\/p>\n

That decision now stands as one of the Biden administration\u2019s worst errors in its calamitous withdrawal.<\/p>\n

Bagram, which is vast, offered far more capacity and security for an evacuation than the Hamid Khazi International Airport in Kabul \u2013 where last week IS-affiliated suicide bombers broke through the Taliban security cordon and killed 13 US troops and 170 Afghans.<\/p>\n

Biden has claimed he abandoned Bagram on advice from his generals although they counter that, given his insistence they prioritise protecting the US embassy in Kabul, they had no alternative.<\/p>\n

The US lavished billions on Bagram, spending \u00a350million alone on its 3,600-metre double runway.<\/p>\n

Lounging in the airfield control tower and picking up phones to give imaginary launch orders to its 100 holding bays for fighter jets, Taliban troops said they\u2019d been there ten days.<\/p>\n

\u2018Never in our wildest dreams could we have believed we could beat a superpower like America with just our Kalashnikovs,\u2019 their leader, Maulawi Hafiz Mohibullah Muktaz, told The Times.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Taliban in an Afghan Army Humvee. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n

Ominously, he added: \u2018On the back of victory, I hope we can use use Bagram as a place to spread jihad further into the region and Muslim world.\u2019<\/p>\n

That jihad has been given not only a physical boost from the US hardware left behind but also a huge morale advantage courtesy of the notoriously grim detention centre at Bagram.<\/p>\n

It is proving a propaganda goldmine for the Taliban who freed hundreds of prisoners \u2013 including scores of members of Isis-K, Islamic State\u2019s ultra-vicious Afghan offshoot \u2013 from the prison after the Afghan army abandoned the base two weeks ago.<\/p>\n

For the moment, the Taliban will no doubt be happy to keep the detention centre, built in 2009 and holding as many as 3,000 prisoners, as a bleak monument to the brutality and ruthlessness of their opponents (without, of course, mentioning why its even more ruthless inmates were kept there).<\/p>\n

The Afghan government took over the prison in 2012 and America\u2019s General Stanley McChrystal, former commander of US and NATO forces in the country, had condemned the detention centre as a breeding ground for terror by mixing petty criminals with Islamist extremists for long periods without charge because of a lack of personnel to interrogate them.<\/p>\n

Former inmates were on hand yesterday to expound on the inhumanity of the detention centre and point out the cages where they were kept under overhead spotlights to stop them sleeping, and interrogation rooms still littered with handcuffs, riot gear and leather limb and finger restraints.<\/p>\n

Taliban were able to brandish large strings of handcuffs and piles of watches and other personal effects taken from the prisoners.<\/p>\n

In some cells, the walls were covered in finger marks in ash, in an apparent attempt by inmates to keep track of how many days they\u2019d been there.<\/p>\n

Taliban commander Maulawi Ahmed Shah claimed he was tortured \u2013 hosed naked with cold water and hanged in chains and beaten.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the Biden administration\u2019s desperate attempts to gloss over the biggest US foreign policy catastrophe for decades continues. Antony Blinken confirmed that the US Embassy will remain closed.<\/p>\n

And yet, he insisted, the military departure had opened a \u2018new chapter of America\u2019s engagement with Afghanistan\u2026 in which we will lead with our diplomacy\u2019.<\/p>\n

The administration that had prided itself on its humanitarian values \u2018will be driven by one thing only: our vital national interests\u2019 in its future dealings with the Taliban, said Blinken.<\/p>\n

It was yet another retreat for Biden, given he insisted four weeks ago that the US intended to keep the embassy open and gushed that \u2018our partnership with the people of Afghanistan will endure long after our service members have departed\u2019.<\/p>\n

Even more shaming is the fact that with 200 US citizens and tens of thousands of Afghans who worked with coalition forces left behind, yet another Biden pledge \u2013 to get every American out \u2013 appears to have bitten the Central Asian dust.<\/p>\n

Source <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The US estimates it has provided \u00a360billion worth of equipment and training to Afghan security forces since 2001. Now much of that equipment is in the Taliban\u2019s hands<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[60,61],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-241998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Afghanistan","category-Commentary"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=241998"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241998\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":242065,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241998\/revisions\/242065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=241998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=241998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=241998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}