The Taliban began their final assault on Kabul at the very time the Biden presidency was pre-occupied with the Obama birthday bash planning and celebration. The Taliban has learned a lot fighting the Americans for twenty years. And the Russians before that.
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The Taliban - US Arms Deal
The Deal Of The Century
On another note, I've always said the Arabs are the best traders / dealers in the world. I know that from first-hand experience after spending years in Turkey. They know their stuff.
But, without question, the military deal the Taliban made with the US under the Biden administration was unprecedented.
Anyone who knows the story, knows that the Afghan army was heavily infiltrated by the Taliban. After twenty years, even the lowliest recruit had risen to the top of the organization.
Bagrum Air Base was perhaps one of the largest overseas bases maintained by the US military on July 1, 2021. Look how huge this base was. Just the food alone is probably enough to support the military for another year.
Unlike other wars, the US did not destroy equipment it left behind. In this case, the US turned over all equipment to the "Taliban" and not only that, one knows that the Afghanis that operate this equipment and know how to maintain this equipment quickly changed uniforms on August 15, 2021.
I'm waiting for a "freedom of information" request by the US mainstream media for a line-item list of what was handed over to the Taliban on July 1, 2021, at Bagrum.
Again, I think a lot of folks assumed the US military would destroy equipment left behind but in fact it was left in best condition possible so that the Afghanistan army would still be able to defend itself.
This is an incredible story: a US arms deal of unimaginable proportions.
Feel free to fact check this.
Here's the time line provided by The Guardian and USA Today:
- Friday 6: The Taliban shoot dead the head of the Afghan government’s media information centre at a mosque in the capital. They also capture their first Afghan provincial capital, the city of Zaranj in southwestern Nimroz, “without a fight”.
- Saturday 7: President Obama's 60th birthday party on Martha's Vineyard. The former president and his staffers pre-occupied with biggest birthday spectacular since The Great Gatsby; Afghanistan dropped off their radar scope, sometime in July, if not before.
- Monday 9: The northern city of Kunduz follows on Sunday 8 August and Monday 9th, along with Sheberghan, Sar-e-Pul, Taloqan, Aibak and Farah. In what becomes a familiar pattern, fighters reportedly swept into Aibak without meeting any resistance. The deputy chief of Samangan province confirmed that the local governor had withdrawn his soldiers in order to protect the civilian population.
- Despite the bloodshed and sweeping advances, US president Joe Biden gives no suggestion he will delay the troop withdrawal, which is to be completed by 31 August, ahead of the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.
- Wednesday 11: With the key besieged northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif the next Taliban target, Afghan president Ashraf Ghani flies up to rally his forces. But his visit is overshadowed by the surrender of hundreds of Afghan soldiers in nearby Kunduz and the overnight capture of a ninth provincial capital, Faizabad. Pul-e-Khumri, 140km north of Kabul, also falls.
- The US military warns that the whole of Afghanistan could fall “within 90 days.”
Within 90 days? Well, that was correct.
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This Technology Is Amazing
As usual, we were a bit late getting around to sending a wedding anniversary gift to our younger daughter. Not to worry. Ordered something from Amazon today; the gift will arrive tomorrow, and that is one day before the wedding anniversary. It may be the cleverest gift we've ever gotten them. LOL.
Verizon / iPhone: my wife bought a new iPhone a few days ago and established her own account, saving (remarkably) her existing phone number, at the same time. Today, on the day the switch-over officially began, her phone quit working. As in "quit working."
She had to use my phone to call Verizon. It was a complicated problem to describe, and the process took about ten minutes. During that entire ten-minute conversation, my wife never once spoke to a human being ... unless the human being was impersonating a robot .... the solution was incredibly simple, which my wife was able to accomplish on her own. I overheard a very little bit of the conversation and was completely amazed what Verizon AI (if one calls it that) was able to do.
My hunch: the robot answering my wife's questions was probably playing chess with another robot while listening to my wife. Or mining cryptocurrency.
Couple of things that worry me. Anything high tech will go to Russia and/or China to be reverse engineered. The Taliban solders mentality with growing up as terrorist solders for decades. My father spoke of the Natzi youth solders at the end of WW2. Solders fighting aged in thier mid teens would rather die than surrender unlike older solders.
ReplyDelete1. Probably not Russia. China, yes, but I doubt there was anything "really new" for the Chinese to reverse engineer.
Delete2. The big loser in all this: Iran. Iran hates the Taliban and vice versa. Iran will have their hands full at the border.
Will give them credit. OBL knew and understood, the significance of the #911 in our society. He did under-estimate the the level of fear it would result in. He understood the relevance of the Twin Towers as a financial center of the country. He misjudged the impact the loss would have on our economy.
ReplyDeleteBin Laden expected America to cower in fear and instead he got resolve.
The Japanese kicking the "Sleeping Giant" got the same result.
1. Their timing was impeccable. They pounced as soon as President Biden provided the enemy our "exit date."
ReplyDelete2. The arms deal was unprecedented. If one writes off the Taliban's cost over the past 20 years as a "sunk cost," they got a record amount of US military arms for $0.00.