Trump tells the US to invade and ‘bomb the hell’ out of Afghanistan again if the Taliban doesn’t return billions in US weapons and equipment
- Trump said that all US weaponry must be returned, and if not ‘we should go in with unequivocal force and get it’
- ‘Nobody ever thought such stupidity, as this feeble-brained withdrawal, was possible!’ Trump said of Biden’s handling of the withdrawal
- Last week, Rep. Jim Banks warned that the Taliban now had access to $85 billion in US weaponry
- NSA Jake Sullivan said that the US ‘doesn’t have a complete picture’ of where its weaponry in Afghanistan has gone
Former President Trump said Monday that the US should demand all equipment be handed over from the Taliban, or otherwise ‘bomb the hell out of it.’
‘Never in history has a withdrawal from war been handled so badly or incompetently as the Biden Administration’s withdrawal from Afghanistan,’ Trump said in a statement.
‘In addition to the obvious, ALL EQUIPMENT should be demanded to be immediately returned to the United States, and that includes every penny of the $85 billion dollars in cost. If it is not handed back, we should either go in with unequivocal Military force and get it, or at least bomb the hell out of it. Nobody ever thought such stupidity, as this feeble-brained withdrawal, was possible!’
As the Taliban took over Afghanistan and the US evacuated, they plundered billions worth of US military equipment, according to reports, showing off not only US rifles but armored vehicles, helicopters, planes and other heavy weapons.
Lack of training and spare parts could keep Taliban from ever lifting more complicated US aircraft off the ground, but videos circulating social media of Taliban fighters posing proudly next to UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters show these spoils are serving as key propaganda tools.
‘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,’ National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan admitted earlier this month.
The hundreds of thousands of weapons, vehicles, aircraft and uniforms left behind for the Taliban
Taliban fighters, dressed eerily similar to US troops, patrol the street in Kabul
The United States has spent an estimated $83 billion training and equipping Afghan security forces over the last two decades
The United States has spent an estimated $83 billion training and equipping Afghan security forces over the last two decades.
The US sent nearly 76,000 vehicles, 600,000 weapons systems and 208 aircraft to the Afghan Security Forces just between 2013 and 2016, according to a 2017 report by the Government Accountability Office.
In the last few years the Defense Department has sent Afghan forces more than 7,000 machine guns, over 4,700 Humvees and more than 20,000 grenades, according to a recent Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) analysis.
Last week, Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind., a former Navy SEAL, warned that the Taliban now has access to $85 billion of American military equipment.
‘The Taliban now has more Blackhawk helicopters than 85% of the countries in the world,’ he said in a press conference. He said the Taliban also had access to biometric devices containing data to track down Afghan interpreters who assisted the US in the war.
‘This administration still has no plan to get this military equipment or supplies back,’ Banks said.
Fresh critique has also been directed at Trump’s February 2020 peace agreement with the Taliban, where he promised to withdraw US troops and release 5,000 Taliban prisoners if they did not attack US or harbor terrorists.
But Trump said he never would have allowed the Taliban to invade Kabul.
Trump told radio host Hugh Hewitt last week he would have ‘bombed the hell out of the Taliban’ had they violated the peace agreement and ‘they never would have come into Kabul.’
‘They just wouldn’t do it.’
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