U.S. forces have recovered a huge cache of weapons that was given to Afghan security forces but wound up in the hands of the Taliban, a U.S. military review has found.
The Afghan army and national police have lost 13,000 weapons, 200,000 rounds of ammunition, 80 vehicles and one pair of night vision goggles, members of a U.S. task force told USA TODAY.
All the gear was bought for the Afghans by Americans, part of $330 million in weapons purchases.
Most of the weapons have been seized from the Taliban or other insurgent forces.
Hmmm. Much of the weaponry recovered from dead Taliban soldiers? A good deal of those lost weapons sold by the native Afghan soldiers and police to the enemy in that desperately impoverished region? That’s sad indeed, but perhaps not all that surprising. But I imagine this is one more debilitating factor that is feeding the low morale widely reported among our troops there.
And let’s not forget that we gave lots of arms to the Afghans when they were fighting the Soviets back during the Cold War days. Ironies abound in such confusing wars.
David Handy+
Why in heaven’s name would we ever give an Afghan night vision equipment?