NASHVILLE — For better or worse, former President George W. Bush will be remembered for a program called No Child Left Behind.
For worse, and worse alone, President Joe Biden will go down in history as the architect of Every Weapon Left Behind.
While scrambling wildly out of Afghanistan, Biden bequeathed to America’s enemies the Arsenal of Anti-Democracy. Atop seizing Afghanistan in a veritable coup d’état, the Taliban inherited a staggering array of war supplies. The grimy, dusty terrorist scum who hosted Osama bin Laden have become a formidable regional power. And they have Joe Biden to thank.
Biden’s generosity blessed the Taliban with a cornucopia of weapons. This bonanza is jaw-dropping for its assortment and abundance. These armaments were shipped from the U.S. to Afghanistan starting in fall 2001. According to estimates in The Times (UK), the BBC, and The U.S. Sun, this haul includes:
- U.S. military combat uniforms
- Lightweight helmets, designed to ease communication
- Bulletproof, carbon/graphite body armor
- Four C-130 transport planes
- 33 UH 60 Blackhawk helicopters
- 634 M117 Armored Security Vehicles
- 8,000 large trucks
- 16,035 night-vision goggles
- 22,174 Humvees
- 25,327 grenade launchers
- 42,000 pickup trucks and SUVs
- 64,363 machine guns
- 126,295 pistols, including .40 caliber Glocks
- 162,043 radios
- 358,530 assault rifles
And much more.
“We found a federal audit that detailed up to $200 million worth of drones that had disappeared,” said transparency advocate Adam Andrzejewski, president of Open The Books, on whose advisory board I serve. (Ironically, the “pro-transparency” Biden Administration suddenly scrubbed from the Internet several reports on this topic.) Andrzejewski added: “We’ve made the Taliban into a major U.S. arms dealer for the next decade.”
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One British Army officer summed this up with disturbing candor: “The Taliban have got a plan, high morale, proper equipment, and they’re winning.”
Potentially much worse, the Taliban surely lacks the good taste to keep these deadly goods to themselves. Americans should prepare to thank Biden when American arms land in the hands of Hamas, Hezbollah, the Iranian Republican Guard, MS-13, or any number of very, very bad guys.
These villains include al-Qaeda, whose killers are salivating over Biden’s virtual hand delivery of this mega-armory. The United Nations Security Council, hardly the Vatican of U.S. peace through strength, warned on June 1 of the enduring links between the Taliban and al-Qaeda, the vicious Islamofascist terrorists behind the September 11, 2001, attacks — 20 years ago yesterday.
Page 12 of the Twelfth report of the Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team states: “... the Taliban and Al-Qaida remain closely aligned and show no indication of breaking ties. Member States report no material change to this relationship, which has grown deeper as a consequence of personal bonds of marriage and shared partnership in struggle, now cemented through second generational ties.”
Chillingly, this official document warns of “a longer-term Al-Qaida core strategy of strategic patience for a period of time before it would seek to plan attacks against international targets again.”
Team Biden surely saw this U.N. Security Council assessment. And yet, as the Taliban advanced, with al-Qaeda lurking in the wings, Joe Biden and his minions neither shipped these weapons home nor destroyed them, perhaps with flamethrowers and steamrollers, so they could not be deployed against America and her friends.
These frightful developments have enraged security experts, lawmakers, and veterans.
“The massive arsenal and technologically advanced equipment the Biden Administration left for the Taliban means a terrorist group has NATO-member weaponry,” former Director of National Intelligence Ric Grenell tells me. “It’s infuriating because it means US taxpayer-funded arms will be used to kill US citizens and American allies.” Via Twitter, Grenell scoffed derisively at an ostrich-like NBC News story that trivialized this menace.
Rep. Jim Banks (R - Indiana) shares Grenell’s disgust.
“One thing many don’t realize yet is that we didn’t just hand the Taliban hundreds of thousands of advanced weapons, ground vehicles, and aircraft. We also handed them the biometric data of nearly every Afghan who helped us during the last 20 years,” says Banks, chairman of the U.S. House Republican Study Committee. The Taliban now also possesses some 7,000 biometric scanners that can scrutinize things like the irises of former interpreters who assisted America’s mission.
As a U.S. Navy Reserve Supply Corps officer who served in Afghanistan, Banks knows his weapons. “So we handed the Taliban the blueprint and tools to carry out a war crime against our allies. When Americans turn on the news and hear stories about the Taliban going door to door and executing families in the street, those are likely family members of individuals who served us as translators, etc. Biden has facilitated these murders by letting this data fall into the hands of this bloodthirsty, medieval group.”
“Will the Taliban use their new arsenal against Americans?” Banks wonders. “The Americans whom Biden left stranded in Afghanistan are at extreme risk. I have no doubt the Taliban is using our equipment to monitor and threaten them. And perhaps, God forbid, do worse.”
Before joining the Commentariat, Fox News contributor Rob Smith was a Specialist in the U.S. Army’s Fourth Infantry Division. His military duty has left him gravely concerned about this fiasco.
“One of the most shocking and infuriating things about the mess Biden has made in Afghanistan is the reported billions of dollars in US grade military equipment that is now in the hands of the Taliban,” Smith says. “We’re talking assault rifles, tanks, machine guns. As a combat veteran who served in Iraq, one of the few sources of comfort you get on the ground is knowing that the enemy isn’t as well-equipped as you. Now, thanks to Biden’s blunder, if America is ever to re-enter Afghanistan in a combat situation against the Taliban, we will be fighting an enemy that has our own equipment. This is a travesty and something that is not discussed nearly as much as it should be.”
The German word for this wholistic catastrophe is Waffengeschenk. Joe Biden’s weapons gift to the Taliban sounds no better in English.
Deroy Murdock is a Manhattan-based Fox News Contributor, a contributing editor with National Review Online, and a senior fellow with the London Center for Policy Research.
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