peteblue
Welcome back Wayne
Having been in a senior role in the arms industry (UK and USA) for a number of years, I too know just a little bit about this shiz……….
Current Affairs Afghanistan
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Having been in a senior role in the arms industry (UK and USA) for a number of years, I too know just a little bit about this shiz……….
right, so you'll know the the figure you gave isn't the value of the "kit" the US Army left behind.
You'll also know there's a difference between the hardware left behind by the US and the arms surrendered by the Afghans.
You'll also know that alot of the military hardware was rendered useless by the US before leaving it.
None of this is untrue.
peteblue
Welcome back Wayne
ah, in that case, I'm glad you're the spokesperson.
It's a big job Pete
But one I’m more than happy to take on….
Anyway what did you think of Bidens address today.…powerful or self serving ?
A bit of both.
I'm convinced this guy doesn't give a bleep what he says, who has said what, what they've done, as long as it aligns with his worldview right now.
Like he just insinuated that he agreed the election was stolen, then blows by that and just wants you to focus on the part that agrees with him.
As if it serves to reinforce or support his views, not make them look more ridiculous.
So these people served, I thank them for that, but that doesn't necessarily key word necessarily Pete, make them qualified to speak on everything. If someone thinks the election was stolen I'm discrediting anything and everything they have to say. Those people's judgment should not be trusted or valued at all.
What we are being told or what you want to see?
A lot of what I have read is that some arms undoubtedly fell into there hands. M4's, other assault rifles, night vision technology.
However, the higher end weapons and technology it has been reported they do not know how to use it, can't even complete maintenence on it, had components removed rendering them useless or were destroyed in controlled explosions.
I believe the figure was half of the Afghanistan airforce defected to Uzbekistan a day or two before Kabul fell to the Taliban.
A more powerful military gifted to the taliban than their neighbors is simply untrue.
Martin Alvito
Player Valuation: £50m
Think for a second about what has happened here. Trump decided to withdraw. He handed Biden a poisoned chalice, should Trump lose the election. If things go well, Trump gets credit. If not, Biden is in a bind. Adhere to Trump's deal in principle, and this is where we land. Back out, and Biden tells countries around the world that agreements with the President of the United States can't be trusted if they span administrations, which is a dangerous precedent to set.
Machiavellian foreign policy for domestic political gain at its finest, really, with foreign citizens who therefore don't vote as the stakes.
Machiavellian foreign policy for domestic political gain at its finest, really, with foreign citizens who therefore don't vote as the stakes.
peteblue
Welcome back Wayne
Now obviously they won’t have all of the kit on this graphic. But the humvees, personnel carriers, SUV’s, trucks, machine guns, assault rifles, radios, etc etc, will all be perfectly usable. Unless the USA destroyed the air equipment including Blackhawks these may well be snapped up for little or no cost by China or Iran. I’ve not heard anyone from the USA government saying that all this equipment or even most of it has been destroyed, which considering It was meant to arm 300,000 afghans, is somewhat worrying.
tsubaki
Player Valuation: £90m
TBF that precedent has been set already repeatedly - just in the past fifteen years we’ve had the Iran deal, and the deal that “normalised” relations with Libya.
peteblue
Welcome back Wayne
I think you give Trump far too much credit. Trump made the initial error but Biden agreed with him. All this rubbish about Presidents must honour previous presidents agreements is just a smokescreen. Biden could have easily changed the policy but he didn’t want to and that’s it. So without doubt tweedledum and tweedledee managed to agree on a policy. We all have our views, but history will be the final judge. But the bit that is inexcusable is the manner of withdrawal and the myriad of mistakes made in its operation. That is all down to Biden and again history will be the judge, but for my money it will not judge him well….but it’s now done and is over…
Martin Alvito
Player Valuation: £50m
I would argue that the Iran deal is one of the various fences Trump kicked over that Biden is trying to mend. An institutionalist like Biden would see abrogating his predecessor's deal right off the bat as running counter to his objective to re-establish the U.S. at the forefront of diplomacy.
Nations abrogate treaties all the time. It took the U.S. less than ten years after the signing of the Constitution to break one. Aberrations at the upper levels of diplomacy, such as Wilson working to haggle out the Treaty of Versailles and then having Congress balk, are noteworthy because they are infrequent. What was noteworthy about Trump was the degree to which he walked out on commitments, and not the fact that he did it at all.
Martin Alvito
Player Valuation: £50m
This is not how diplomacy works on the big-ticket items. It's founded on trust. World leaders don't take their commitments lightly, because if they do other world leaders will take theirs lightly. You don't need a contract between democratic states if the terms of the deal are in current leadership's mutual best interest. You just shake, and do it. The whole point of writing it down is to bind prospective successors to the deal. It looks bad if the thing falls apart quickly without cause after a peaceful transition of power. It looks political. This makes it hard to make further deals, which is precisely what an isolationist like Trump wanted.
I wouldn't give Trump the credit either for what I laid out, but I would also imagine that his advisors might well have been smart enough to influence the exact timing of the withdrawal in such a manner.
You're still failing to separate the equipment the US military left behind during the withdrawal and the equipment the Afghan army surrendered to the Taliban.
The smaller arms and munitions surrendered by the Afghan army will be of use to the Taliban. This is the unfortunate outcome of war. I'm not sure what you expect Biden to do (or what you think Trump would have done differently).
The larger hardware abandoned by the US military will be, for the most part, pretty useless to the taliban. Yea, they have a load of old humvees now but I'll bet any money they'll still use toyota pickups which are a fraction of the cost to maintain and operate.
Also, have you anything to back up your claim that China, Russia and Iran will be buying second hand blackhawks off the Taliban. Seems a bit far fetched.
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