The LA Times: What U.S.-supplied arms mean for the Taliban

Grove City OH

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When Taliban fighters rode triumphantly into Kabul airport early Tuesday, they did so on U.S.-supplied pickup trucks, wearing U.S.-supplied uniforms and brandishing U.S.-supplied M4 and M16 rifles. Then they spent hours examining the bonanza of materiel that American troops bequeathed them in what had been the U.S.' last redoubt in Afghanistan. This is ghaneema,” said one uniformed Taliban fighter: war booty. With a gloved hand, he snapped up the night-vision goggles on his ballistic helmet, looking like the very model of an Afghan soldier the U.S. had tried to help create to eliminate people like him. He walked inside a hangar and gawked with his squad mates at the U.S. Embassy helicopters gleaming under powerful overhead lights. The choppers were just part of the Taliban’s haul. The group’s blindingly fast sweep through most of Afghanistan netted it billions of dollars' worth of U.S. military equipment and weaponry given.