Yeah, internet memes are a
great source of information... until you try to find the source data. This latest meme says that the source is the GAO (General Accounting Office), but as is the usual case for internet memes no link was provided to that supposed GAO report of U.S. military equipment now in the hands of the Taliban. The
"Taliban's new arsenal" as the meme headline calls it.
The key to internet memes is that you're
not supposed to try and verify the information. You're
supposed to swallow the bait whole and not ask questions. They are meant for eager and gullible ideologues to share thru viral social media posts or perhaps other internet gathering places (like this forum) or an email blast to all of your friends. I'm not that sort of gullible fish.
I started searching for some verification of that from the GAO website.
I tried keyword searching "Afghanistan"—no recent report on weapons left in Afghanistan there. I tried
reports and testimony chronologically or
narrowed from a month ago until now—still nothing.
So where is this GAO data and report for U.S. weapons which are now the
"Taliban's new arsenal"? They are numbers lifted from a report that's a year old. (Carnac the Magnificent at work again predicting the future.) They are numbers from an August 10, 2017 report to the House Committee on Armed Services which summarizes
all DOD procurements authorized by Congress
from 2002 thru the end of Fiscal Year 2017 for Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF). It covers about
15 years worth of procurement allocations.
An
important note is that these numbers are
only in regard to procurement allocations—not actual delivery; not how many are still in use; not how many have been destroyed or relocated; etc. More directly to the point, it is
not a report on equipment that was left behind or captured by the Taliban. How could it? It's a year old report. To quote from the report...
"We report key equipment data based on the fiscal years when DOD authorized the equipment for procurement or transfer. We did not assess the extent to which key equipment has been distributed to the ANDSF or is in use. As we have previously reported, it can take several years between the date DOD authorizes equipment for procurement and the date when the equipment is delivered to Afghanistan, and a number of additional months may pass before the ANDSF is ready to use the equipment. For example, DOD authorized the procurement of 20 light attack airplanes in fiscal year 2012 and, according to DOD documentation, the first of those aircraft were delivered to Afghanistan in 2016. As of March 2017, about 5 years after DOD authorized the procurement of the airplanes, DOD reported that the Afghan Air Force was using 12 of the airplanes in operations and that another 7 were being used for training at Moody Air Force Base in the United States."
So... some unknown person saw this public report from a year ago. They lifted the numbers from it and added some graphics. They added a headline of the
"Taliban's new arsenal". Then let it loose to float around the internet for some gullible fools to post and repost wherever they could find more fish to take the bait.
There's no doubt that the Taliban has captured equipment supplied by the U.S. to the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces. How much of the equipment procured
over 15 years was still in active service; was worn out and retired; or destroyed in combat; or intentionally destroyed to avoid capture; or relocated; who knows? If any one has an accounting as to what the "Taliban's new arsenal" consists of, I haven't seen it. A phony internet meme that purports to be an accounting is
not what I would choose as a reliable source. Then again, I'm not some eager and gullible zealot looking to score political points.
I wouldn't expect you to just take my word and leave you without a link. You're not that gullible. You can find the entire report that I referenced
here.
