Former President Trump has said this Monday that the United States should demand all equipment back from the Taliban, “or we will bomb the hell out of it,” in a comment emailed to his supporters.
“Never in our history has a withdrawal been done so incompetently or terribly as Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan,” Donald Trump stated. “On top of the obvious, EVERY PIECE OF EQUIPMENT must be demanded quickly returned to the United States, and that includes every cent of our $85 billion dollars. If it is not given back, we should go in with complete Military force and retrieve it, or we should at least bomb it. No one ever believed such stupidity, as this withdrawal was even possible!”
According to news reports, billions of dollars of our equipment and weapons have went into the hands of the Taliban since they swept through the nation. Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan stated previously that “We do not have an overall picture, obviously, of where every piece of defense hardware has gone to, but certainly a fair amount has found its way into the hands of the Taliban. And obviously, we do not have a sense they are going to give it over at the airport.”
“When a group gets ahold of American weapons, it is like a status symbol for them. It’s like a mental win,” said Elias Yousif, director of the Center for Intl. Policy’s Security.
“Clearly, this goes against the United States security cooperation enterprise more broadly,” he said. “It really should cause a lot of worries about the larger enterprise and what is going on elsewhere, whether that is in the Middle East, Africa, or East Asia.”
Reporter Asawin Suebsaeng said in reply to Trump via Twitter: “the Trump comment speaking about reinvasion so we can get equipment reminds me of how while Trump was on his campaign in 2015 about ‘getting out’ of the Iraq war, he would accidentally say we should reinvade Iraq”
He added: “This helps to explain some of broader Republican proposal incongruence, because they are partly following Donald Trump’s lead, and there is no actual proposal there more than ‘I guess this is as good maybe in this moment.’”
Author: Scott Dowdy
