Reason’s Eric Boehm writes, “When a group of Taliban fighters stormed the hastily abandoned presidential palace in Kabul, Afghanistan, earlier this week, they carried a powerful symbol of the changing times: American-issued M16 and M4 rifles.”

“It’s not just a propaganda coup,” Boehm continued. “As the Taliban swept into full control of Afghanistan this week, they also claimed a cornucopia of military gear, equipment, and weapons that had been supplied to the Afghan government by the United States. There’s no way to determine how much American military gear has ended up in the hands of Taliban fighters, but the ‘current intelligence assessment was that the Taliban are believed to control more than 2,000 armored vehicles, including U.S. Humvees, and up to 40 aircraft potentially including UH-60 Black Hawks, scout attack helicopters, and ScanEagle military drones,’ Reuters reported on Thursday, citing an unnamed U.S. official.”

Boehm added, “The aircraft and drones are probably useless without training and support staff. But the Humvees and small arms are exactly the sorts of things that a new regime could use to impose its will on the people of Afghanistan.”

“After nearly 20 years of fighting, the Taliban that America is leaving behind is almost certainly better-supplied than it was when the U.S. military invaded in October 2001,” Boehm noted.

Read the entire column here.

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The U.S. should stop sending arms into the Middle East

For years, Sen. Rand Paul has warned of the dangers of the U.S. continuously sending arms into the Middle East.

Sen. Paul wrote in 2019, “There is no great certainty that the arms we send into the Middle East will not one day be used against our soldiers. In fact, there is a real threat that someday our young soldiers will be sent to fight against the very weapons Congress sends today.”

Pentagon can’t say if it has plan to keep US weapons out of Taliban hands https://t.co/o3aWfwcjNJ pic.twitter.com/pLn7nBP8t7

— New York Post (@nypost) August 17, 2021

“It has happened,” Paul noted. “In Iran, to this day, the military still has some U.S. weapons left over from weapons the U.S. supplied to the shah. In Iraq, some of the weapons we gave the country to fight Iran were still there when we returned to fight Saddam Hussein.”

Paul added, “In Afghanistan, some of the weapons we gave the mujahedeen to fight the Russians were still there when we returned to fight the Taliban.”

On Tuesday, the Associated Press reported that “Billions spent on Afghan army ultimately benefitted Taliban.”

The AP reported, “Built and trained at a two-decade cost of $83 billion, Afghan security forces collapsed so quickly and completely — in some cases without a shot fired — that the ultimate beneficiary of the American investment turned out to be the Taliban. They grabbed not only political power but also U.S.-supplied firepower — guns, ammunition, helicopters and more.”

Guns, ammunition, vehicles, helicopters. The Taliban have grabbed not only political power but also U.S.-supplied firepower as they stand to benefit from the $83 billion American investment in the Afghan forces. https://t.co/hHSTzRkiUL

— The Associated Press (@AP) August 17, 2021

“The Taliban captured an array of modern military equipment when they overran Afghan forces who failed to defend district centers,” the report continued. “Bigger gains followed, including combat aircraft, when the Taliban rolled up provincial capitals and military bases with stunning speed, topped by capturing the biggest prize, Kabul, over the weekend.

The AP noted, “A U.S. defense official on Monday confirmed the Taliban’s sudden accumulation of U.S.-supplied Afghan equipment is enormous.”

Sen. Paul observed in 2019, “Proliferating arms in the midst of chaos is a recipe for disaster…Dreamers often longingly speak of a peace plan for the Middle East.”

“Maybe we should consider a peace plan that doesn’t include dumping more arms into a region aflame in civil unrest, civil war and anarchy,” Paul said.

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