Biden’s Lost Moral Authority: Weapons Left to the Taliban in Afghanistan Were Used by Hamas to Murder Israelis

By
Larry Keane
-
92

President Joe Biden’s got a gun problem – one that’s much bigger than the federal charges his son Hunter Biden faces in court.

The surprise terror attacks by Hamas into Israel were made possible, in part, because of U.S. arms left behind in Afghanistan by the Biden administration. Those arms have found their way to another battlefield. Startling images showed Hamas terrorists rampaging through Israeli villages.

Some images appeared to show Hamas terrorists armed with U.S.-made military arms. Some of the hundreds of thousands of small arms abandoned to Taliban terrorists in 2021 have been smuggled to Hamas terrorists and were used to kill innocent men, women and children.

President Biden has been myopically focused on stripping gun rights from law-abiding American citizens. Meanwhile, his own failed policies, coupled with diplomatic mistakes, are proving deadly.

Joe Biden angry point gesture
(AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

President Biden has surrendered his authority to wag his finger from Rose Garden podiums at the firearm industry. His lies that the firearm industry is responsible for illegal international arms smuggling with Mexican narco-terrorists were always untrue. Now, however, the entire world can see.

The gun control industry’s favorite president, who gave them an office in The White House, is also America’s biggest illicit arms trafficker. His deadly mistakes have cost American lives and hundreds of lives of America’s closest ally in the Middle East while empowering terrorists who chant “Death to America.”

Setting the Stage

Just a little more than two years ago, President Biden pulled the last U.S. forces out of Afghanistan. Within moments of the last American C-17 lifting off from Kabul International Airport, Taliban forces were seen on international television collecting military weapons – from helicopters and armored vehicles to hundreds of thousands of small arms.

One report described the seizure of U.S.-supplied guns as “enormous.” Taliban fighters swapped worn AK-47s for U.S.-made M4s and M16s.

Taliban fighters hold their new American weapons as they stand atop a building at the Kart-e-Sakhi shrine in Kabul, Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Ahmad Halabisaz)

Later reports detailed that The White House left $7 billion in weapons and equipment in the wake of the ill-fated Afghanistan withdrawal. That consisted of 600,000 weapons – including 350,000 M4 and M16 rifles, 60,000 machine guns and 25,000 grenade launchers.

That’s on top of the 23,825 Humvees left in Afghanistan, including armored gun truck variants and nearly 900 combat vehicles, all of which are now in the hands of the Taliban, a terror organization that is the avowed enemy of the United States.

Some of them were used by Hamas terrorists who invaded from Gaza this weekend to kill Israeli civilians an d soldiers and forced hundreds of Israelis into captivity as hostages.

As recently as June, Palestinian news agencies admitted that U.S. arms captured by Taliban forces were smuggled into Gaza and were being used by terrorists there. NBC News reported on the illicit arms supply to terrorists in Pakistan in January 2023 and Middle East Monitor reported in June that U.S. and Israeli intelligence were aware that U.S. arms were being carried by terrorists in Gaza.

Newsweek also reported in June that U.S. arms seized by Taliban forces were arriving in Gaza, along with U.S.-made missiles reportedly being smuggled back to Iran to potentially supply both Hamas and Hezbollah.

Trading Gun Smuggler

This isn’t the first time President Biden and his gun control allies have been duplicitous when it comes to denying Americans their Second Amendment rights, but playing fast-and-loose with supplying arms to America’s sworn enemies, mercenaries and terrorists who target the US and its allies.

In October, 2022, President Biden made a prisoner swap deal with Russia. In exchange for the freedom of Brittney Griner, a WNBA star arrested in Russia on drug charges, the president authorized his State Department to free Viktor Bout, a convicted Russian international arms smuggler also known as “The Merchant of Death.”

Viktor Bout, who the Biden administration swapped for WNBA star Brittney Griner (Aleksandr Sivov, Press Service of Liberal Democratic Party of Russia via AP)

Bout is a former Soviet-era military officer who was arrested in 2008 in Thailand by U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents in a sting for proposing a sale of tens of millions of dollars to the Colombian narco-terrorist group Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. The illicit sale was for $20 million worth of “a breathtaking arsenal of weapons — including hundreds of surface-to-air missiles, machine guns and sniper rifles — 10 million rounds of ammunition and five tons of plastic explosives.”

Bout’s history, though, runs much deeper. He was identified as an illicit arms dealer by the United Nations in 2000. He was moving arms to African warlords, Middle East dictators and Central American narco-terrorist groups.

His attempt to arm the FARC was what ultimately put him in prison for charges of conspiracy to kill U.S. nationals, U.S. officers and employees, conspiracy to acquire missiles to destroy aircraft, and conspiracy to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization.

Senate Corruption

President Biden’s longtime Capitol Hill gun control ally, U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), was just indicted for a corrupt bribery scheme involving, among other things, greasing the skids for small-arms sales to Egypt, which has its own troubled history of support for Hamas terrorists. Sen. Menendez is accused of taking hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes in cash, gold bars, a Mercedes-Benz C-300 convertible and home mortgage payments.

Senator Robert Menendez New Jersey
Allegedly corrupt New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez

Sen. Menendez has been a critic of the U.S. Munition List to Commerce Control List (USML-CCL) export reforms that were finalized under the Trump administration that put greater safeguards around defense items and ensured end-to-end verifications for U.S. manufacturers exporting firearms.

President Biden started out his presidential campaign by calling the firearm industry “the enemy.” NSSF said at the time that the comment was appalling. It was then and it still is.

Joe Biden angry speech
(AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

His presidency has focused on demagoguing the industry that continues to support law-abiding Americans who exercise their right to keep and bear arms. This industry equips law enforcement to keep communities safe and arms our military to protect the United States against enemies. Meanwhile, arms Biden blithely abandoned in Afghanistan are being wielded against U.S. allies.

President Biden has surrendered his moral authority to lecture the firearm industry when he lets arms slip into the hands of terrorists.

 

Larry Keane is SVP for Government and Public Affairs, Assistant Secretary and General Counsel of the National Shooting Sports Foundation.

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92 COMMENTS

  1. Moral authority? biden? What brand of super crack are you smoking?

    We are in desperate need of a Nuremberg 2.0.

    • Glad to read another calling for Nuremberg 2.0. I, personally would like the executions televised and at least a ten location gallows. We could even probably even get ChatGPT to do the job so no human would feel guilty!

      I had Covid almost before it had a name courtesy of living in a university town at the time, and avoided the jab because I had the background to detect the lies, but consider both Covid and the Vax individually were genocides on an unprecedented scale! Then there has been a lot of treason as well.

  2. No doubt many of them will be used against us on our own soil. Bidens actions have very directly been shown to lend aid and comfort to the enemy.

      • Biden’s ‘Handlers’ are the enemy. He is nothing more than a Manchurian Candidate and the tradeoff made by the Liberal/Progressive Demoncrat leadership. For allowing an old man with Dementia, to live out his dream of being president.

    • Prndll,

      Those exact same key words were ringing in my mind before I read them in your comment. That is treason, no ifs, ands, or buts. I can only imagine that Congress of 60 years ago would have impeached and removed Joe from office and then issued the harshest penalty that law allows for treason. Alas, all the Democrats care about is expanding power and control and thus they will allow a Democrat in the Oval Office to stay in the Oval Office.

      And before anyone claims that it was too difficult or expensive to ship all of those weapons back to the United States, there is a simple solution that was available then and now: pack all of the small arms into a single 53-foot long shipping container and damage (beyond repair) all of the vehicles before leaving them behind. Very simple and very inexpensive. Net result: we get all of the small arms back and the Taliban gets no usable weapons nor vehicles.

      • Exactly although bad in it’s own right, What Nixon did doesn’t hold a candle to the corruption and treason being perpetrated by Biden and his crime family.

      • No argument, but don’t give the ANA a pass- that kit was supposed to be used against the Taliban. *Someone* didn’t foresee the ANA evaporating and leaving their people to the mercy of the merciless.

  3. I find myself wondering what was on the menu at the recent WH barbecue.

    Only pork? No pork? Secular meat mix?

  4. Well, it was the Obama Biden administration that sent guns to a mexican gangsters. And they did help to arm the Paris France terrorist bombers.

  5. The Taliban were the first recipients of Biden’s ‘Build back Better’ tax payer funded program.

  6. But this doesn’t matter. Because the Biden voters want their legal butt sex and drugs.
    They want the “free” condoms. The “free” sex change operations. The “free” abortions the “free” medical marijuana.
    And a “free” government doctor to monitor them in the injection centers. So that they won’t overdose and die from the drugs.
    They voluntarily put into their bodies.

  7. “the Taliban, a terror organization that is the avowed enemy of the United States.” – But, curiously no mention of Trump’s deal with the Taliban behind the Afghan government’s back to finally get the US out of the quagmire.

    • When everyone hands are dirty. Then, questions are never asked, from the “independent” or “corporate” press.

    • Because Biden’s Build Back Better offerings to the Taliban. Overshadowed anything accomplished by Trump. Also remember Biden’s full scale retreat for Afghanistan cost 13 American service personnel their lives. Unnecessarily…

  9. In any other lifetime everything remaining would be blown up, burned, and unusable. Biden got cash for the stash.

  10. We really need to stop messing around in other countries.
    We keep getting shot in the foot by the weapons we leave, the aid we send, the assets we train, the revolts we support, etc…

    We’re kinda like the FBI, responsible for all the crimes it stops or pretends to attempt to stop.

  13. It’s time for regular, principled people to take office and remove their communities from Federal Occupation. This government deserves no support and hasn’t since the early 1800s

    • It’s of my opinion that “regular ” people dont have the $$$ or the connections to be an elected official.
      Hip waders dont help when the swamp is as deep as it runs.

  14. The irony is that next November 2024, even if Iranian nuclear weapons have devastated Israel thus enabling the Palestinians to exterminate the survivors, American Jews will once again vote overwhelmingly to reelect President Joe Biden.

    • Yes, just like they kept voting for their own leaders in Israel. The ones who prevented them from using their God given right to defend themselves. As much as I hate their tormentors, I have no sympathy for them They voted for this.

      • I reluctantly agree.
        Israeli gun laws were not insane when I was a guest worker on a kibbutz outside of Rehovat in 1984. If this attack had occurred back then, it would have been Hamas that was complaining, “they’re slaughtering us.”

  15. At every opportunity Joey has proven he has the ability to F-it up better than obama, that’s a rare skill.

    • Moral authority from slow Joe? When does a pro-baby murdering Dim(who took showers with his teen daughter & was accused of rape) have any moral authority??? Oh yeah he was just on tv jabbering away. POTG need to be ready for what’s coming! My wife just told me we need more gunz!!! Noticed quite a few middle eastern types quite busy buying stuff at Home Depot🙄

      • former water walker,

        What kind of stuff were they buying?

        If they were actually up to something (versus simply going about their business as usual), I figure it could go either way in terms of whether they were preparing to attack us here or they were preparing to “harden” their homes in case of Israeli sympathizers improperly lashing out against them.

  16. Does anyone really believe Uncle Joe has a clue about any of this? Obama’s people are still running the show and they are all Muslim sympathizers. Obama was no friend of Israel, so this should really be of no surprise. Much of this goes back to the feckless idiot from Plains, if we would have plaid hardball with Iran in 1980, things would be different now.

    • Bill Rehnsky,

      Ooh, now there is something serious to think about. Does the upper echelon of the Democrat Party despise Israel and thus intentionally left all the weaponry behind in Afghanistan in order to arm Israel’s attackers?

    • The Obama Administration was enchanted by Iran. They gave Iran a lifeline when the citizens there were ready to revolt. We’re living under the third Obama term. The only difference is, there’s much less restraint this time because Obama won’t be blamed for the consequences.

  17. With dozens of Americans missing, the obvious choice is let the SEALs handle their repatriation…

    • Geoff PR,

      While I am completely in favor of any branch or unit of the U.S. military rescuing our U.S. hostages, I highly doubt that it is feasible.

      First of all, U.S. intelligence or military would have to know where the U.S. hostages are. I highly doubt that they know. And even if they did know, it would be next to impossible to get into the interior of Gaza, free them, and get back out of Gaza.

    • no it’s not. They’re likely dual nationals anyway and seals aren’t rescuing any other detained Americans by force in other countries anyways. Such situations are easy to avoid if you stay home and mind your own business.

  18. Mufid: “I’ll trade my AK-47 for this American M-4 that Joe Biden gave to me.”

    Chakir: “But the AK-47 has better stopping power.”

    Mufid: “No it doesn’t.”

    Chakir: “Yes it does.”

    and another middle east conflict begins…

  20. Dudes, you all need to calm down. As we know, the US Govt is as holy as can be. They do nothing wrong, have our interests only, and always think ahead to what could/would/can go wrong.
    Put down the glass of milk and pick up the koolaid. You’re all guilty of wrong think.

    RESET 2024

  22. I am trying my best to figure out a reason why the Biden family should be allowed to influence the American Government to the point that this family is actually living off the taxes that we Americans pay. Any financial continuation of support for that administration is like pissing up a rope!

  23. Why did all those Israelis run and cower in fear and or go like sheep to slaughter? Why didn’t they shoot back. These are questions for their leaders to answer? Why indeed.

    • Huntmaster,

      You may already know that the overwhelming majority (my guess upwards of 99%) of the Israeli victims did not have any firearms. Even at that, I don’t understand the mentality of the survivors cooperating and marching along with their captors. I would have picked up anything in order to inflict some kind of damage to the attackers. Pick up a large rock or stick (Israel does have rocks and sticks) to bludgeon or stab an attacker–even if all you can do is stab them in the eye with a small stick. Do something to resist rather than just marching along with them.

      Would a feeble resistance gesture with a large rock or stick virtually guarantee that the attackers shot and killed the resistor? Sure. Nevertheless, better to cause some damage or slow down the attackers (even if it only slows them down for 2 minutes–that may mean the difference between murder and escape for other potential victims) and die than march with the captors and become a bargaining chip for the captors–who will likely execute the hostages anyway.

      Another example: look at the gal who the attackers hauled away on the back of a motorcycle. Let that @$$hole get up to speed on the motorcycle and then lean hard or even jump off and cause him to crash. It is virtually certain that they are going to execute you anyway (and likely rape you dozens of times before doing so). Why make the attackers’ lives easier?

      Caveat: I abhor what Hamas has done to the Israelis and my heart cries out for the Israelis. I just wish that the Israeli victims had done more to punish Hamas.

      • What about the women, children, and uninvolved men in Gaza that literally live in a large walled in prison and aren’t allowed to leave that are now being hit by Israeli bombs and artillery? A terror attack doesn’t justify you yourself becoming a terrorist. Especially when the terrorists that attacked you are living in a prison that you control 😂.

        • Muhmauser,

          You said that Israel does not allow Palestinians to leave the Gaza Strip:

          So, Israel prohibits Palestinians from crossing the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt? How does that actually work on the ground? Do Israeli soldiers stand guard in Egypt blocking the crossing?

          And how about the Mediterranean Sea–does the Israeli Navy sink any boats that leave Gaza heading south to Egypt?

          If both of the above are happening, surely journalists from neutral countries have captured that on video and published it for the world to see. And yet I cannot find any such video. Please direct us to a neutral source to support your claim.

        • Muhmauser,

          For the record, I don’t want anyone to die on either side. All human life is precious regardless of what religion they profess.

          As for Israeli munitions blowing up buildings and (sadly) innocent people in Gaza, my heart cries out for them as well and I hate to see that happen. I don’t have an easy solution for all of this.

          I can only hope that innocent civilian deaths in Gaza are collateral damage (which is nevertheless horrible) in connection with destroying terrorists and their supplies. As horrible as that is, it is even more horrible to intentionally and deliberately seek out and rape/murder children and women. What else is Israel supposed to do? (Note: asking Palestinian authorities to identify and prosecute the thousands of terrorists who poured into Israel is a joke.)

        • Muhmauser,

          And one last question: does Hamas hide their munitions and personnel among innocent Palestinian civilians? If Hamas does and then Israel destroys those munitions and personnel (and thus kills any innocent civilians intermixed at those locations), who is to blame? Israel or Hamas?

          I don’t like innocent civilians deaths. I don’t like anyone’s death. What else is Israel supposed to do? Allow Hamas to rape and butcher their innocent civilians and NOT attempt to destroy Hamas munitions and personnel because Hamas mixed innocent civilians among their munitions and personnel?

      • https://nypost.com/2023/10/10/israeli-woman-25-hailed-as-hero-for-killing-terrorists-leading-security-team-at-kibbutz/

        “Lieberman then rushed to open the armory, passed out guns to a 12-member security team, and planned their response to the imminent Hamas attack.

        “She placed her squad of kibbutzniks in strategic positions across the settlement and set up ambushes that caught the gunmen off guard and turned the tables on them during their mission to inflict mass casualties,” the Post reported.

        Lieberman killed five terrorists on her own, while her security team took out at least 20 more over a period of four hours. Together, they “turned Nir Am into an impenetrable fortress, while nearby kibbutzim suffered heavy losses,” the Post reported, citing Walla News.”

        • I am glad that she had the time to “open the armory”. Not to mention setting up ambushes…

          It is likely that the “nearby kibbutzim” were not so fortunate.

          Armories are nice, if you have time.

      • We see this same thing all over the world and throughout history. Including here in America right now. I don’t see how a victim can go down without any kind of fight either. But it is happening. Some here on TTAG have tried to explain it from time to time but it just seems so far off the deep end to me.

    • The same questions can be asked about Americans.

      That is infact what this website is about. That is also what the 2A is about. Empowering citizens to shoot back. What Isreal needs is their own version of the Second Amendment. They don’t have that and there are reasons why. But even then, we do have that and yet we all see far too many people refusing to take part in it. Even in America we have a huge portion of the population that will not grow up and accept adult responsibilities for themselves.

      Government is the problem. Not the solution.

  25. I was just thinking how it seems unreal that it’s happened to the Jews again. An outright genocidal act. Also unreal is that it’s not only not universally condemned, but even celebrated widely by Islamists and Leftists. Hitler was a leftist – Nazism was a type of socialism. Cornel West is legitimizing the wholesale murder of entire families as resistance.
    Wake UP! They want to disarm deplorables so they are just as defenseless as the Jews were against Hamas; so they can liquidate the deplorables without any resistance.

    • Leftists/American Democrats are the modern day Nazis. This isn’t about land or resources. This isn’t about political differences. This is about Jewish extermination. Activists are chanting “gas the Jews” from the safety of Western countries. Where are those Democrats that are always accusing people of being Nazis?

    • There is a very good chance of that happening. But it’s far more likely to be with a Russian nuke than anything else. But then with all the money Biden/Obama has given to Iran, it might come from them.

  27. FJB, obama, George Soros (the power behind them) and the other Commie Democrats are not our friends and they don’t have our best interests in mind. In fact, they are trying to destroy America as fast as they can. It is becoming ever more evident why our Founding Fathers wrote the Second Amendment — to protect ‘We the People’ from people like them.

  28. I seem to recall a report that linked some of the weapons used by ISIS in the 2015 Paris terrorist attack to Fast and Furious.

  29. I don’t see how supporting Israel is in America’s best interest. Jews have organized a century-long genocide against Palestinians, and are using this latest terrorist attack as an excuse to genocide Gaza City.

    But for some reason, people care more about dead Jewish children than dead Arab children.

    • Regardless of what is or isn’t in Americas best interest. I don’t see how this can be effectively argued or even discussed while ignoring the aggression FROM Palestinians TO Isreal. That’s the part that is missing in this whole thing. You seem to think Isrealis are the ONLY people in this world shooting people. This idea that Jews are not human is beyond my comprehension. I’ve had people tell me that blacks and women are not human. I tend to question how human someone is when they talk like that. This is just as twisted and ludicrous as the notion that only white people can be racist. That whole line of thinking ignores reality. It’s the same sort of craziness that makes people believe guns, the American flag, and nooses are racist symbols.

      • There are atrocities on both sides. Have you considered why you love Jews so much and hate Palestinians so much?

        The reality is- it’s because you watched a lot of TV and movies. Jews control those industries. Palestinians have never attacked America. Israel has- remember the USS Liberty.

        Did you care when the Hutus and the Tutsis massacred each in Rawanda? Did you pick a side in Yugoslavia war?

        America should place American interests first, not Israel, not Ukraine.

        I find it telling that anyone who questions how genociding Gaza City is in America’s interest is met with the rigorous argument of “You’re that special kind of stupid” and “Go fornicate with yourself.”

        • This entire thing would stop if the Palestinians (and all others that hate Isreal) would lay down their arms. Anything other than that just means more killing. That isn’t going to happen though.

        • “There are atrocities on both sides.”

          You’re pretending like they’re the same. They are objectively not the same. You’re pushing Palestinian propaganda under the guise of American interest first.

        • “Have you considered why you love Jews so much and hate Palestinians so much?”

          Seriously?

          Because I point out the atrocity and your stupid you jump to the conclusion and accusation that I love jews and hate palestinians.

          and then you outright lie with this:

          “I find it telling that anyone who questions how genociding Gaza City is in America’s interest is…”

          You really are that special kind of stupid. And because of that special kind of stupid you display is why people are going to you “Go fornicate with yourself”.

          get a grip M̶i̶n̶e̶r̶4̶9̶e̶r̶ ‘America First, not Israel’ and stop trolling the comments with your stupid.

    • Thig Binker –

      Islam declared mwar on all Jews in 623 AD…

      If you want to talk about who started it, start there.

        • Technically true, but… The Jews get special mention in the Koran, iirc, over and above mere infidels.

          Basically, (iirc) the plot line goes like this – Allah through His Prophet tells the Faithful that He created the Jews and gave them their law, but they kept messing up, so He commanded the Faithful to keep them in line, to include taxing them, and punishing them when they violate Jewish Law. The catch is that if there are any independent Jews in existence, that puts the Faithful in violation of the mandate to subjugate or destroy the Jews, and possibly jeopardizes their entry into Paradise. Failure is not an option. Unless you die in Jihad.

          Regular Infidels/Apostates just have to be destroyed to bring about the Last Day. Not quite the immortal emergency that Israel represents. Plus the Jews owe Islam a lot of money (per the Koran).

          I am convinced that few non-Muslims understand the mindset. It fundamentally different than the canepole squirrelhunting high school physics class Southern Sunday coming down world I grew up in.

          I can be wrong! I encourage secular types to read the Koran. It has been a long 50 years or so for me.

    • “Jews have organized a century-long genocide against Palestinians”

      Which is why they have been supplying Gaza with resources like electricity for years. Because you always try to help the people you’re trying to exterminate. Palestinians and other Arabs are allowed to live in Israel, but Israelis and other Jews are NOT allowed to enter Gaza. One country is not the same as the other.

      You’re the same guy who was on here pushing Palestinian propaganda about that church the other day. You have no credibility.

      “But for some reason, people care more about dead Jewish children than dead Arab children.”

      Palestinians have been raping, decapitating, and murdering children. And they’re laughing about it. They’re animals. Palestinians aren’t conducting a military operation. This was textbook terrorism. Those children, women, and old people had no military value.

  30. Thig Binker – ““But for some reason, people care more about dead Jewish children than dead Arab children.”

    You meant – Jewish Israeli children and Arab Islamic children.”

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