Bagram’s new Taliban masters uncover horrors of US jail in Afghanistan | Hacker News Reader

Bagram’s new Taliban masters uncover horrors of US jail in Afghanistan

thetimes.co.uk

24 pointsigravious10 comments

There's one thing I don't understand: when I did my mandatory military service in the French army a long time ago we were taught how to destroy our kit in case of imminent capture / evacuation.

I understand they wouldn't have the time to destroy everything but why didn't they destroy at least the planes and helicopters (especially the Blackhawks)?

Tactically Optimal != Diplomatically Optimal

The US Army gave the equipment to the Afghanistan National Army and the Afghanistan National Army walked away from it. The alternative would have been for the US Army to take the equipment with it or destroy the equipment, which would have been met with a media narrative ranging from "US abandons ANA" to "US steals from ANA" or even "US destroys ANA."

> The alternative would have been for the US Army to ... destroy the equipment, which would have been met with a media narrative ranging from "US abandons ANA" to "US steals from ANA" or even "US destroys ANA."

But that's basically what happened. They left the helicopters but took the maintenance contractors, which rendered the helicopters useless (IIRC military aircraft need a huge amount of regular maintenance to be flyable).

They were aid to the Afghan government right, and the Taliban took over. We have some sort of peace deal signed with the Taliban. Destroying this stuff probably would have caused retaliation on our evacuation process, or at least that would have been a reasonable fear.

I had the same thought. Everyone on an air assault team knew where the TH3's were, and when to use them. That was the whole point...if at some point there is even the remote possibility of the craft being disabled or captured, thermite grenades are used to prevent that.

I have no idea why those assets were not destroyed. From the outside looking in, it makes no sense at all.

Perhaps so that they would need to be replaced by US troops now and destroyed later by US troops when they return, resulting in more money for the defense contractors? Arguably that’s essentially what the last 18 years of that war was about.

I'm not sure how easily they could have struck Afghan bases when they maybe weren't sure who was or wasn't there anymore.... while at the same time securing assurances to get people out / with the Taliban's cooperation.

They probably prioritized getting people out.

Coalition forces trained and equipped the Afghan army but it turns out they were being propped up more than we knew.

The US left, the kit the that the Taliban have now is all the stuff that was left to the Afghan forces – when the Afghan forces folded like a shit poker hand all their equipment fell straight into the Taliban's hands.

I couldn't understand it either until I googled it. In addition, any kit that the Yanks themselves had that they no longer wanted to take the trouble of bringing back they quote demilitarised unquote, piles of useless junk that lined defence contractors pockets.

Makes you wonder though.

More importantly, that's what you got from this article? – not the widespread torture and horrific prisoner conditions?

https://archive.is/eRemL

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