In yet another scandal hitting the US military, it has become apparent that over half of the $76 billion worth of US military aid sent to Afghan security forces since 2002 has ended up in the hands of private militias and criminals. It would be reasonable to assume that this may well ultimately include insurgents and terrorist groups.
The $76 billion in military aid should have been enough to last Afghanistan for 40 years, but not even half of it was left as of August 2017, according to a former Afghan intelligence operative.
The damning aspect is not only the financial impact to the US military, which has been plagued with threats of cuts in expenditure, but that the majority of the US aid given to local armies and militias, who subsequently turned out to be endemically corrupt, had undertaken poor or non-existent training and where desertion and human rights abuses were commonplace.
What makes this all the more significant is that Afghanistan is not the only example of a nation that has received massive volumes of US-made weapons since 9/11. The US has shipped enormous amounts of weaponry and equipment to numerous countries across the Middle East and Africa and to this day has mostly no idea in whose hands these weapons have ended up.
One might easily come to the conclusion that, at least in part, their inability to track the whereabouts of weapons and equipment was because they were intended to end up in the hands of proxy groups being armed, trained and financed by rogue intelligence agency operatives. We should also point out that it would be unfair to assume that it was only the US guilty of such lax or otherwise of auditing where and to whom all their arms and ancillary equipment end up. However, it is something that needs addressing urgently because it is deeply damaging to the reputation, in this case, of the US military and the US government.
It's interesting to think that so many people are unaware of this type of action of the US/US military and if told they would most likely dismiss it as conspiracy. Paul & Lisa, you must come across this all the time. It seems that the missing money/unaccounted weapons is just a drop in the bucket.
I was in Marrakech this month and my Moroccan friend stated, quite naturally, what most Americans/westerners would dismiss as absurd.
It's great to keep highlighting these things, but when will the other shoe drop? Maybe it never will and the USA will simple become irrelevant when other powers start to dominate and all of the nefarious activities will simply be forgotten.
Of course we all just want to get on with it and put an end to the craziness but of course, people would love to see these criminals held accountable for what they have done.
I find it very interesting to watch it all unfold. Thank you for your insights