What I am not sure of is how much of that was equipment for the Afghan army and how much was simply abandoned.
The US trained and armed their military. Which in a way compounds the issue.
Perhaps the worst aspect of the Afghan military folding is that there are many in the country who have been trained to use these tools properly.
The reason I am somewhat sceptical about the messaging I guess is highlighted by the line about having more Black Hawk helicopters than 85% of the world. To achieve this that means 1.
It’s a clusterfuck but not sure he is painting true picture. Inheriting weapons from collapse of military and simply being abandoned are different things. I have doubts distinctions are made.
Ok some of that equipement will remain useful. However much of it will become ineffective/redundant fairly quickly. The planes particularly followed by the helicopters.
What should be highlighted i feel is how the organisation and intelligence networks were left. Are they saying none of this was destroyed (particularly the intelligence)?
I mean the most optimistic forecast was that the Afgan Army would hold out for a year this had been cut to less than 6 months by the time the logistics services had been pulled out. So why weren’t the sensitive data bases destroyed or taken out with the staff?
FFS this seems so basic to me and points at a complete disfunction from bottom up.
The hardware wont stay in Afghanistan. It’ll go straight to Pakistan and then a part of it will go to China for them to reverse engineer.
Or Russia, or North Korea, or Saudi Arabia, or Iran
Why didn’t the US allies moved in when US decided to leave Afghanistan? UK, France, Australia, India, Saudi Arabia, UAE could have provided considerable forces.
Without the US it wouldn’t have been particularly viable. And Saudi Arabia and the UAE?! 
Why should SA, UAE and India provide forces? They weren’t part of the initial coalition that invaded Afghanistan.
Really sad to see
i know a couple of Afgans (one i worked with, the other just a worker in a business i have seen maybe 3-4 times) i spoke to them both and relayed my sympaty for thier families still over there who told me of their families issues over the last few dyas/weeks…
both were full of praise for Australia and its people which i must admit i was a little suprised with but they were genuinely of that opinion.
i truely hope the best for all.
from a military viewpoint…if “we” have been over there for twenty years training thier military and supplying weaponry…for it to just crumble at the first hurdle…you have to ask whether its the training and supply thats the issue, or if it was all just a waste of time…i mean…its not like a 2 year posting…we are talking twenty years here…basically most of their militaryu wont have known anything else but our training …
whats the go there?..
I just think they were being trained to fight under US command once that command was withdrawn there was noone to step in (particularly in such a short time span)…An army with no command structure, supply chains and intelligence (particularly in a complex situation like defending against essentially a militia) just isn’t an army.
Add to that training or not for 20 years they had only been there covering the arses of foriegn troops, dug in on surveillance duty (the same troops often guarding the same area for years). They just weren’t mobile enough anyway even if they had had a command structure to speak of.
Another aspect was the level of ‘desertions’ which by all accounts were phenomenal and due to many factors. Will, low pay, being far from familly for extremely extended periods, lack of and poor nourishment …
I know you want to keep it simple and have someone to blame but I just don’t feel it’s that simple and why would/should it be. It’s a country of 36 million that was controlled by a super power.
no i dont.
Fantastic American propaganda
You think? It looks kind of pathetic to me
No I was being sarcastic. It’s very obviously staged.
Why would he have his weapon out when boarding a plane? 
I can’t imagine what it would be like to be the last US military person in Afghanistan, but I think I’d probably have my weapon ready in case of attack.
If it was posed wouldn’t it be in focus at least?
Even if it’s not genuine, it still carries symbolic weight like the images of helicopters in Saigon.
It is a picture of defeat for the most powerful nation on earth and thus noteworthy.
This is not a military defeat the same way it was in Vietnam. This is something so much bigger…it is a defeat of militarism itself. The US achieved military victory in Afghanistan in a matter of months. The issue is over what that achieved, which is essentially fuck all except suffering and making a small number of people very rich.