With the world’s eyes on Afghanistan, how does the Taliban represent Islam?

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You make a very good point. The Vietnamese chose communism over capitalism in the end. Not that I like communism at all, but the Americans brought “freedom” mixed with napalm, agent Orange and moral depravity with them. In a way, defending America’s behaviour is a bit of a straw men in this discussion. It’s pretty clear that the poppy fields were not a target of American foreign policy!

My son once used to ask questions like “what would you rather, a staple in your finger or standing on a plug?” (And other variations!)

“Neither” would just annoy him and move him on to a fresh question!

My point in asking the questions I did at the beginning of this thread was to enquire whether any of the Muslims on this forum would stand with or against the Taliban (who claim authentic Islamic practice), and if they would speak up for or out against their actions.

It might be worth making a clear point (by way of caveat) - western media may indeed exaggerate the actions of the Taliban, pro-Islamic media may seek to reinterpret events in more favourable light etc etc.

That having been said, I suspect that as time goes by, certain facts may emerge which are clearly happening. It is these events (and the stance people take towards them) that will show much about the beliefs under discussion here.
I'd have to know a few things which I feel I don't - what do the Taliban believe and practice really? What do the people of the country in general think of this? Will the Taliban control Afghanistan or just two or three major cities at most, and the rest of the country will remain culturally distinct city states as they have always been
 
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Oceanic

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In the NT there are Israelites and gentiles. A gentile was a non Israelite. Allot of the NT speaks of salvation and a new covenant open to gentiles.

Oceanics ideas are pretty easy to refute.
Actually, the Jews are Gentiles too because they were scattered around the earth via slavery. We have two groups of Gentiles: It's you guys, and then it's my people because we're not in our original land. The Gentiles who is being offered salvation are the Jews because that's all Gods dealing with. Don't get mad at me for this, he specifically said he would choose the Jews over everyone else so you're going to have to direct your anger at him and not me. I wasn't the one that chose anything, that's all on him, just keeping it 100.
 
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Actually, the Jews are Gentiles too because they were scattered around the earth via slavery. We have two groups of Gentiles: It's you guys, and then it's my people because we're not in our original land. The Gentiles who is being offered salvation are the Jews because that's all Gods dealing with. Don't get mad at me for this, he specifically said he would choose the Jews over everyone else so you're going to have to direct your anger at him and not me. I wasn't the one that chose anything, that's all on him, just keeping it 100.
Is this all you think about? Why do you bring it up in random threads? And then when people prove you wrong you block them and refuse to debate. Your beliefs are a total fantasy. The Bible never says blacks are the chosen race, you just wrote yourself into the zionist lie. God has various covenants in the Bible, one with Adam, then with Noah, then with Abraham, then with David, then with Jesus. You are talking about one 3 covenants back and misinterpreting it, copy and pasting your identity onto it and saying we wuz da chozin whyte man bad dis relijin' is ezpz.
 

Lyfe

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Actually, the Jews are Gentiles too because they were scattered around the earth via slavery. We have two groups of Gentiles: It's you guys, and then it's my people because we're not in our original land. The Gentiles who is being offered salvation are the Jews because that's all Gods dealing with. Don't get mad at me for this, he specifically said he would choose the Jews over everyone else so you're going to have to direct your anger at him and not me. I wasn't the one that chose anything, that's all on him, just keeping it 100.
Actually, the Jews are Gentiles too because they were scattered around the earth via slavery. We have two groups of Gentiles: It's you guys, and then it's my people because we're not in our original land. The Gentiles who is being offered salvation are the Jews because that's all Gods dealing with. Don't get mad at me for this, he specifically said he would choose the Jews over everyone else so you're going to have to direct your anger at him and not me. I wasn't the one that chose anything, that's all on him, just keeping it 100.
Its sad that Satan has alienated you from fellowship with real christians and has you on some wild goose chase.
 
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Ignoring identity politics than, do you feel the kind of Islam epitomised by the Taliban is one Muhammed would endorse or reject?
I am simply asking those who know more about Islam than me to have the courage to speak up for or speak out against the Taliban. I hope my question I clear, I don’t know any other way I can ask it?


From your reply, I am guessing you reject the Taliban interpretation of Islam, but I don’t want to put words in your mouth @friend
My point in asking the questions I did at the beginning of this thread was to enquire whether any of the Muslims on this forum would stand with or against the Taliban (who claim authentic Islamic practice), and if they would speak up for or out against their actions.
What @Red Sky at Morning wants to know from Muslims is: do you reject the shari'ah; do you reject Islamic governance and the khilafah; do you reject the hijab and niqab; do you reject the hadd punishments; do you disassociate yourself from the Quran and the Sunnah of the Rasulullah صَلَّى ٱللَّٰهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ‎?

Then when he has done so, he will split the Muslims into two groups, the ones who he approves of, who are predictable and passive, who can be more easily brought under the thumb of occupation, those who would not lift a finger to fight against the aggressors who are determined to subjugate and destroy them; and the ones who he disapproves of, who he will scorn as being backwards and savage, followers of a cursed morality, crazed fundamentalists, and he will call on others to scorn and shun them alongside him.

To this I say the following:

- No, wallahi, by God, we will never reject it. We will not hide our religion to make you feel comfortable. Even if the whole world were against us, even if we were threatened by poverty, torture or death. We hold to Islam and monotheism, and we reject the trinity and atheism, we will never accept the equating of the creation with the One Who Created, though it be to the dismay and anger of the rejectors.

- This and more you will demand from us in righteous indignation, shedding tears and feigning concern, all the while looking on as the Palestinians are butchered by Israeli guns and bombs, uncaring that the Afghans were routinely gunned down by NATO soldiers and tortured in Abu Ghraib and Bagram. The War on Terror has been going on for twenty years, millions of lives have been destroyed in its grip, but it is only now, when one of the most violent and long-standing of its warfronts has been freed from the shackles of occupation, its people having a chance to rebuild their societies, that you will stand up in outrage. It is only now, when Bagram is shut down, its shackles and dark cells empty for the first time, that you are spurred into activism and condemnation. Your outrage is performative, your activism and empathy selective, your morality stoked only when David would dare to throw a rock at Goliath.

- I will repeat this again:
The standard is revelation. Quran and Sunnah.

1. If they deviate from it, there is a problem. In whatever capacity they deviate from it, they will be called out by the shuyukh and the people of knowledge. But the one who has submitted to the words of Allah but falls short in the endeavour of implementing it is more noble and virtuous than the one who denies God's word and worships other than him, in contravention of the tawheed ordained by Him, and espoused by all the Prophets of old. This is the greatest sin. Shirk. Killing people is not the greatest sin. Denying Allah is the greatest sin, He who gave you life, and gave you the hands by which you sin, and the mouth by which you announce your rejection of Him.

2. You do not espouse this standard.

3. Western govts do not espouse this standard.

Thus you will judge them according to your standard, where you think Israel is defending itself, and where twenty years of occupation by NATO is happy days and a fairy wonderland compared to one hour under the Taliban.

- Your understanding of Islam is incredibly poor. You have made no effort to study it or understand what shariah would entail beyond what you have gathered from mainstream narratives, untrained and unqualified amateurs, and popular orientalist caricatures impressed in the Western psyche. You trust them though they have not been trained in the Islamic sciences themselves, routinely lie to you, have a vested interest in demonizing Islam, derived monetary benefit from doing so, and their views are coloured by an assortment of prejudices and stereotypes. As a result of your reliance on these sources, you fail to investigate the claims they make further, and so fall for fictitious and deceptive reporting.

- You object to an Islamic system of governance in Afghanistan (and elsewhere), though the Afghans exhibit support for it, but have presented no alternative, nor given a standard against which Islamic governance is to be judged.
Either you could propose the liberal secular mode of governance as is present in much of the modern world, or, (you may claim to be the superior alternative) a Christian mode of governance.

(1) Liberal secular governance is morally atrophied, a failed system, the very system that from which such wars arise in the first place ("Bear in mind that arguing that liberalism is better than all of the other alternatives, or that it prevents conflict or bloodshed, or that it allows personal expression or anything else, are all arguments of convenience for the usefulness of liberalism. These are fine arguments to that effect. However, what should be established is that the corrigibility of the first principle of liberalism cannot allow us to make definitive or real moral judgements based on the liberal framework. Liberalism should be seen as an ideology of philosophical convenience that, if not adhered to, causes social problems, rather than as a measure of any kind of true morality.").

(2) A Christian mode of governance is a legal fiction since: (a) Christian theologians have not developed a system of governance derived from their scripture, any system one denomination may have agreed on has changed with time and place, and is is elastic, inconsistent and (mostly) obsolete; (b) Many Christians claim that there is no longer any need for a religious code of law under the "new covenant", thus they default to modern secular codes of law except in a few peripheral and superficial practices such as marriage and funeral ceremonies; (c) Christian codes of law, almost universally, organically evolved into separation of church and state and liberal secular governance, hence you will find only secular states in historically Christian lands. Additionally, under iterations of Christian governance in the past, religious minorities, including Muslims, have been burnt at the stake, imprisoned, executed, or otherwise ostracized, while under an Islamic system of governance, Christians and other faith groups hold, and have held, a protected status.

- The hadd punishments prescribed by Islamic law hold a basis in the Bible (though Christians will not implement them): punishments for idolatry, adultery, fornication, theft. Moreover, modesty and chastity, the like of which is practiced by Muslim women, is also encouraged by the Bible, and still practiced by certain denominations.
 
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Red Sky at Morning

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- The hadd punishments prescribed by Islamic law hold a basis in the Bible (though Christians will not implement them): punishments for idolatry, adultery, fornication, theft. Moreover, modesty and chastity, the like of which is practiced by Muslim women, is also encouraged by the Bible, and still practiced by certain denominations.
I can’t deal with the whole post as it’s late here, but it does highlight a key difference between the Islamic world view and a Christian one.

In Islam, Shariah law applies to everyone who lives in the country, whether they are Muslim or not. In a country with a Christian majority, certainly many of the laws of society may echo the commandments found in the Bible (as in the case of English law), but the state has nothing to do with religious practice and is supposed to uphold individuals right to choose.
 
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I can’t deal with the whole post as it’s late here, but it does highlight a key difference between the Islamic world view and a Christian one.

In Islam, Shariah law applies to everyone who lives in the country, whether they are Muslim or not. In a country with a Christian majority, certainly many of the laws of society may echo the commandments found in the Bible (as in the case of English law), but the state has nothing to do with religious practice and is supposed to uphold individuals right to choose.
(1) Liberal secular governance is morally atrophied, a failed system, the very system that from which such wars arise in the first place ("Bear in mind that arguing that liberalism is better than all of the other alternatives, or that it prevents conflict or bloodshed, or that it allows personal expression or anything else, are all arguments of convenience for the usefulness of liberalism. These are fine arguments to that effect. However, what should be established is that the corrigibility of the first principle of liberalism cannot allow us to make definitive or real moral judgements based on the liberal framework. Liberalism should be seen as an ideology of philosophical convenience that, if not adhered to, causes social problems, rather than as a measure of any kind of true morality.").
So Christians are morally acquiescent to laws that are based on the assumption that God doesn't exist. No one can seriously claim to be a theist, believing in the absolute truth and objectivity of their religion, and submit to such a state of affairs. It is another reason why Christianity is false. To truly believe in the sovereignty of God, above all else, before all things, to know that we were created for no other reason than to know Him, means to submit to His decree and authority in every matter, especially in the most important sense, in the rules and laws that govern people in their every day lives. Otherwise, what weight does your claim to belief in God have? It is just a nursery rhyme that your profess with your tongue, while in every way that matters, you are denying His sovereignty, denying the limits that has set of right and wrong, denying the rights that He holds over you as the Almighty Creator. One God in private, and another in public.

"A secular theist is someone who believes that the Creator was sufficient enough to set highly calculated mathematical and physical laws that organize planets in orbit but wasn’t sufficient enough to create laws that organize the human society."
 
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Oceanic

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It was you. The chosen race of God and youre telling lies? I dont know something seems fishy there
Whoever little lady is, isn't me. We apparently have the same beliefs though according to your history with her. Just because people have the same beliefs doesn't mean they're the same person. Again, with this logic, I can say you have multiple accounts because other people I talk to are christians. See how your logic doesn't make sense?

Is this all you think about? Why do you bring it up in random threads? And then when people prove you wrong you block them and refuse to debate.
I don't randomly bring it up, I only bring it up if someone spreads misinformation about it. Didn't Daze just tell me that Red claimed the Israeli people were a chosen race of God? Yet nobody reacted to that in a hostile way. However if black people are mentioned...it's a whole another story. How contradicting. I block people if they start to insult me for the truth because I don't have time to be dealing with people like that. Considering you still fail to understand what I'm saying and even falsely accuse me of being wrong, and having another identity, I should've been put you on ignore. In fact, I will. Please also put me on ignore so you too won't see what I have to say.

I'll never forget you spamming immature memes the last time we debated about this with Koncrete :rolleyes:

Anyway, adios.
 

Oceanic

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Its sad that Satan has alienated you from fellowship with real christians and has you on some wild goose chase.
You should do some research on how christianity came to be, maybe then you'll understand why I'm not a christian. Or perhaps not, since most people in this thread enjoy being in denial.
 
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Whoever little lady is, isn't me. We apparently have the same beliefs though according to your history with her. Just because people have the same beliefs doesn't mean they're the same person. Again, with this logic, I can say you have multiple accounts because other people I talk to are christians. See how your logic doesn't make sense?



I don't randomly bring it up, I only bring it up if someone spreads misinformation about it. Didn't Daze just tell me that Red claimed the Israeli people were a chosen race of God? Yet nobody reacted to that in a hostile way. However if black people are mentioned...it's a whole another story. How contradicting. I block people if they start to insult me for the truth because I don't have time to be dealing with people like that. Considering you still fail to understand what I'm saying and even falsely accuse me of being wrong, and having another identity, I should've been put you on ignore. In fact, I will. Please also put me on ignore so you too won't see what I have to say.

I'll never forget you spamming immature memes the last time we debated about this with Koncrete :rolleyes:

Anyway, adios.
Lol I know you’re littlelady because she did the same thing and talked in the same way. She would block everyone who disagreed with her, youd make threads back then under that user name and block literally everyone that replied to them lmao. Youe a young girl in LA right? thats little lady. You have the same way of speaking, not too good at hiding it. Before that you were faith and strength, that was before you were a black Hebrew Israelite though. Doesn’t matter, you know Im telling the truth and you are lying about it, that’s all that really counts.

everyone reacts negatively to Jewish zionism except a small few, it’s the same insane racist ideology you espouse, so that’s a non sequitor. you can’t “falsely accuse someone of being wrong” someone can say youre wrong and you have the opportunity to show why you’re not. Which you haven’t done because you’re beliefs are a total made up fantasy. As far as the bible goes, they ain’t there.
 

Lyfe

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You should do some research on how christianity came to be, maybe then you'll understand why I'm not a christian. Or perhaps not, since most people in this thread enjoy being in denial.
You need the Bible to support your conclusions. It doesnt. You would go so far as to say gentiles are really scattered jews which the Bible makes clear distinction that they arent. Your theology has too many glaring obstscles to overcome.
 

Red Sky at Morning

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So Christians are morally acquiescent to laws that are based on the assumption that God doesn't exist. No one can seriously claim to be a theist, believing in the absolute truth and objectivity of their religion, and submit to such a state of affairs. It is another reason why Christianity is false. To truly believe in the sovereignty of God, above all else, before all things, to know that we were created for no other reason than to know Him, means to submit to His decree and authority in every matter, especially in the most important sense, in the rules and laws that govern people in their every day lives. Otherwise, what weight does your claim to belief in God have? It is just a nursery rhyme that your profess with your tongue, while in every way that matters, you are denying His sovereignty, denying the limits that has set of right and wrong, denying the rights that He holds over you as the Almighty Creator. One God in private, and another in public.

"A secular theist is someone who believes that the Creator was sufficient enough to set highly calculated mathematical and physical laws that organize planets in orbit but wasn’t sufficient enough to create laws that organize the human society."
Matthew 13

The Parable of the Wheat and the Tares

24 Another parable He put forth to them, saying: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field; 25 but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way. 26 But when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared. 27 So the servants of the owner came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?’ 28 He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The servants said to him, ‘Do you want us then to go and gather them up?’ 29 But he said, ‘No, lest while you gather up the tares you also uproot the wheat with them. 30 Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but (A)gather the wheat into my barn.” ’ ”
 

recure

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everyone reacts negatively to Jewish zionism except a small few, it’s the same insane racist ideology you espouse, so that’s a non sequitor. you can’t “falsely accuse someone of being wrong” someone can say youre wrong and you have the opportunity to show why you’re not. Which you haven’t done because you’re beliefs are a total made up fantasy. As far as the bible goes, they ain’t there.
Black Hebrew Israelism is just Rabbinism for African-Americans. They just replace the Ashkenazis with the "so-called Blacks, Hispanics and Native Americans" as the "real Jews". Yet just like the Ashkenazi Jews, they hate white Christian Europeans who they believe is the devil and Esau.
 

irrationalNinja

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1. The Tractate Sanhedrin stipulates that this ruling only applies to Israelites, however, the Quran verse speaks of the whole of mankind.

Commentators explaining that the verse only applies to Israelites:

Rabbi Rabbi Samuel Edels (1555 – 1631 AD) comments on Sanhedrin 37a:
"‘One soul of Israel’ means EXCLUSIVELY AN ISRAELITE, who alone had, through Jacob, retained the Divine image, in which Adam was created. But other nations have not that image, but are like other creatures. Whoever, therefore, destroys a soul of them, does not destroy the whole replenished world, etc.”

Rabbi Efraim Shmueli on Sanhedrin 37a:

This question was debated in the Rabbinic culture, resulting in opinions that were generally unfavourable, sometimes downright harsh, to Gentiles, as for example, the words of Rabbi Samuel Eliezer Edels (1555 – 1631), whose famous commentary, Hidushei Halachot, accompanies most editions of the Talmud, in the commentary to San 37a: ‘This is intended to teach you that any man who saves one soul in Israel, and it is intentionally specified ‘one soul in Israel,’ in singular form, as this is the image of God, the Singular One of the world, and Jacob’s form [i.e. Israel] is His Likeness… but Kuttim [i.e. Gentiles] do not have the form of man, only the form of other creatures, and whoever brings about the loss of a soul among them does not lose the world, and whoever saves a soul among them neither adds nor diminishes anything in this world.

Kaleef Karim in studying both verses, concludes:

"The ‘Judaic principle’ from Sanhedrin 4:5 and Sanhedrin 37a, when held up in critical scrutiny we see that the quotes referenced only refer to the saving of Jewish lives, not all human beings (no gentiles). Hence, we see that Surah 5:32 and the quotes discussed – they have vast differences in their content and meaning. Furthermore, how could the Quran plagiarize from the Talmud, given the fact that there is not a shred of evidence that an extant copy of it existed during the life-time of Prophet Muhammad (صلى الله عليه وسلم)?"

(Tracts of the Talmud were only translated into Arabic starting in 2012.)

The Quran verse and Sanhedrin verse clearly contradict each other.

While Judaism disdains the value of the lives of non-Jews, in Islam, the existence of other religious groups is tolerated under its authority, as are treaties. Ibn al Qayyim al Jawziyyah, the Hanabli exegete and disciple of Ibn Taymiyyah, wrote a 2000-page treatise called Ahkaam ahl al Dhimmah to this effect, which gathers together the rulings on non-Muslims living under the covenant of the Islamic gov't as derived from the authoritative Islamic sources (the Quran, authentic hadith, example of the earliest generation of Muslims, and the opinions of the scholars in the schools of Islamic jurisprudence).




2. If you want play that game about the Quran being plagiarized from Judeo-Christian sources, you have a lot of verses to deal with. The Quran is filled with inter-textual and -linguistic links, polemics and puns. Bit of a problem though. The Biblical, extra-Biblical, apocryphal and other ancient texts with which the Quran displays a clear familiarity were not available in the 7th century Hijaz, never mind in Arabic, never mind to an illiterate society. The Quran references an Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Text that could not be deciphered until the discovery of the Rosetta stone in the 19th century.

View attachment 61655
View attachment 61654

And so We vary our signs to the extent that they will say, “You have studied ˹previous scriptures˺,” and We make this ˹Quran˺ clear for people who know. Quran 6:105
Judaism has been around for almost 3000 years longer than Islam.

Muhammad clearly misappropriated it. To try and say the quote from the Quran is contradictory to the Talmud is some anti-intellectual dumb-fuckery.
 

Red Sky at Morning

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I think this may be one of my last and possibly most important post to this particular thread. The Afghan people may not have wanted oppressive Taliban rule, but neither did they want Western cultural imperialism. Maybe, after Saigon 2.0 people will begin to think things through…

 

Daze

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You need the Bible to support your conclusions. It doesn't. ......Your theology has too many glaring obstacles to overcome.
Well said. But lets be honest, 90% of Christians hold beliefs in direct contradiction to the Bible.

Jesus spoke to a man who had called him ‘good,’ asking him, ‘Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone.’ (Luke 18:19)

Jesus ~ "Without God, i can do nothing"
90% ~ "No Jesus, You Are My god."
 

Cintra

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I think this may be one of my last and possibly most important post to this particular thread. The Afghan people may not have wanted oppressive Taliban rule, but neither did they want Western cultural imperialism. Maybe, after Saigon 2.0 people will begin to think things through…

That is cynical enough to be true.
The Nihilist in me likes that.
 
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I think this may be one of my last and possibly most important post to this particular thread. The Afghan people may not have wanted oppressive Taliban rule, but neither did they want Western cultural imperialism. Maybe, after Saigon 2.0 people will begin to think things through…

The guy in your video talks about Muslims like we're completely psychotic animalistic savages. And no, the US did not give the Taliban 88 billion USD worth of weapons and equipment.
A lot of the military equipment in Kabul was destroyed: they smashed up helicopters and jets, and burnt guns and other equipment. So this is unusable.

Video showing how the American and Afghan Unit 01 forces damaged the helicopters before evacuating Kabul airport.

Another video showing burnt out weapons and equipment at Kabul airport.

As of 31st August 2021, the Taliban have claimed the damaged and unflyable A-29s in Kabul. 9-10 Aircraft were left in Kabul, 6-7 of which were damaged and disabled inside a hangar.

View attachment 61647

The above infographic from the Sunday Times that shows the "Taliban's new arsenal" is based on a 2017 audit by US govt accounting body, so it reflects the entire military arsenal of the Afghan National Army in 2017, not what the Taliban have in 2021. A lot of helicopters were smuggled out during the takeover this month, while many helicopters were flows out to to Tajikistan and Uzbekistan by Afghan army pilots (Afghan army [ANA] being the soldiers trained against the Taliban by the US). The Taliban has a small fraction of what is claimed.

Note that this equipment was not given by the US to the Taliban, it was for the use of the 300,000 Afghan National Army soldiers who Biden relied on to prevent the Taliban's advance.

They will also need mechanics and technicians to maintain the equipment, as well as resources, and they aren't able to do so to the same extent as the US military, so while some will be usable, the rest will be cannibalized for parts, scrapped, or sold.

Dr. Jonathan Schroden's conclusions after deconstructing the myths about the Taliban's weapons and equipment is:
"- The #Taliban have a sizable new arsenal, but…
- It’s not worth $88B
- It’s not as large as people are saying
- They can’t use all of it
- They can use a lot of it
- They can maintain the bulk of it."


Explanation why the infographic about $88 billion in equipment and weapons is wrong.

Pentagon spokesman: "While seizing this equipment may be beneficial to the Taliban," Pahon said, "it does not represent a threat to the U.S., Allies or partners."

Washington Post: No, the Taliban did not seize $83 billion of U.S. weapons
Meanwhile, as the U.S. military wound down its mission, it turned over facilities and equipment to the Afghan security forces — which may have added to the total seized by the Taliban. But Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., head of U.S. Central Command, said that before leaving Kabul airport on Aug. 30, the military “demilitarized” 70 MRAPs, 27 Humvees and 73 aircraft. “Those aircraft will never fly again,” he said. “They’ll never be able to be operated by anyone.” (Demilitarized is a term that means damaging in place, sometimes with explosives.) “No one has any accounting of exactly what survived the last weeks of the collapse and fell into Taliban hands, and even before the collapse, SIGAR had publicly reported no accounting was possible in many districts,” said Anthony H. Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “In rough terms, however, if the ANDSF could not sustain it without foreign contractors, the Taliban will have very serious problems in operating it. That covers most aircraft and many electronics and heavier weapons.”

The Soviets similarly left behind a lot of weaponry, which the Taliban still use.
 
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