Afghan watchdog concludes billions in weapons U.S. left behind form ‘core’ of Taliban military
The inspector general responsible for scrutinizing U.S. reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan has detailed the billions of dollars wasted by the U.S. government during the 20-year war in the country and concluded that the arsenal of U.S.-provided military weaponry that was left behind now forms the “core” of the Taliban’s own military machine.
A massive number of U.S.-made and U.S.-supplied weapons and military facilities were left behind in Afghanistan as a result of President Joe Biden’s troop withdrawal announcement in April 2021, which resulted in the dissolution of the Afghan military, a chaotic U.S. evacuation, and a Taliban takeover in August 2021.
The Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction (SIGAR) issued its “final forensic audit report” this week more than four years after the U.S. withdrawal and evacuation from the country, concluding that “these U.S. taxpayer-funded equipment, weapons, and facilities have formed the core of the Taliban security apparatus.” SIGAR said in its final report that it will close its doors at the end of January 2026 as a result of the National Defense Authorization Act for 2025.
The report said that the Pentagon has concluded that the U.S. left behind weaponry worth at least $7.1 billion — weapons now in the hands of the Taliban — and that the U.S. government also continued to send $3.47 billion in humanitarian and development assistance to Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover.
Acting SIGAR Gene Aloise said in a letter attached to the new report that “despite nearly $90 billion in U.S. appropriations for security-sector assistance, Afghan security forces ultimately collapsed quickly without a sustained U.S. military presence” and that the watchdog office’s work “highlights serious systemic issues with reconstruction and paints a picture of a two-decade long effort fraught with waste.”…
U.S. continued sending billions to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan
The SIGAR report also made it clear that the U.S. continued sending billions of dollars to Afghanistan after August 2021, even though it was now controlled by the Taliban.
“Despite Afghanistan falling to the Taliban in 2021, the United States continued to be the nation’s largest donor, having disbursed more than $3.83 billion in humanitarian and development assistance there since,” the report said. The money continued to flow even through the first quarter of 2025, with disbursements of $120 million.
The watchdog said that “following a review of U.S.-funded foreign assistance programs in the first quarter of fiscal year 2025, the United States terminated all foreign assistance awards in Afghanistan.”
The report said that, during the Biden administration, the UN also continued sending “shipments of U.S. currency to Afghanistan” which had “stabilized the Afghan economy” but also “benefited the Taliban.”
“SIGAR reported on U.S. funds used to pay taxes to the Taliban-controlled government of Afghanistan,” the new report concluded. “SIGAR found that since the fall of the Afghan government in August 2021, at least $10.9 million in U.S. funds were used to pay taxes to the Taliban-controlled government on the $2.8 billion in humanitarian and development assistance delivered to help the people of Afghanistan. While the United States government made exceptions for such types of payments, U.S. agencies inconsistently required its implementing partners to report on taxes paid to the Taliban.”
The “No Tax Dollars For Terrorists Act” — which requires the State Department to “develop and implement a strategy to discourage foreign countries and nongovernmental organizations from providing financial or material support to the Taliban” — passed the House in June and is awaiting action in the Senate.
DOJ tries to shut down Pfizer clinical trial whistleblower after FDA admits COVID vax killed kids
Last week, the Food and Drug Administration’s top vaccine regulator told staff that “at least” 10 children died “after and because of” COVID-19 vaccinations and that the agency was preparing to raise the safety hurdles for vaccine approvals.
This week the Department of Justice acted as if that didn’t happen.
DOJ lawyer Nicole Smith didn’t mention the leaked memo from Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research Director Vinay Prasad at an appeals court hearing Wednesday on whether to reinstate a False Claims Act case against Pfizer and a contractor who ran some of its COVID vaccine trials, arguing nothing would change the feds’ minds about Pfizer’s vaccine.
The feds are unabashedly asking for a license to shut down whistle-blowers when regulators are in cahoots with fraudsters, lawyer Warner Mendenhall told the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, representing whistle-blower Brook Jackson.
“The government really sort of made our case for us” that DOJ treats the phrase “good cause” in the FCA as authorizing its “mere desire to dismiss” a whistle-blower case to recover federal taxpayer money and share in the refund, Mendenhall said in rebuttal to DOJ’s Smith.
Yet the administration “actually is changing its policies” in real time on vaccines, and there will be “hundreds more deaths in children that the government’s going to recognize” after the 10 cited by Prasad, Mendenhall predicted.
The Quality Of Literally Everything Is Declining. I’m Investigating To Find Out Why | Ep. 1702
Today on the Matt Walsh Show, a lot of people have noticed that basically everything seems to suck now. The quality of everything has gone. But is that actually true? And if it is, why is it happening? And what do we do about it it? We will begin that conversation today.
Also, the media circles the wagons around the Somalians of Minnesota. But their attempts to defend Somalians have only had the opposite of the intended effect.
And Travis Kelce claims he’s never been in an argument with his fiancee Taylor Swift. This is not the kind of story I would usually comment on, but I think it’s important to launch a defense of arguing in a marriage.
Pastor allegedly tried to meet minor for sex — he ran for Congress as a Democrat and was an NAACP leader
ACalifornia community is reeling after hearing the news that a local pastor was allegedly caught trying to meet a person he thought was a minor for sex.
James David Stockton, 54, was arrested on Saturday by Signal Hill police after an online citizen group called “Caught Fished” said it had documented inappropriate messages with the pastor.
Stockton is the pastor at South Bay Church of God in Torrance. He ran for Congress as a Democrat in 2024, and before that he was a leader of the NAACP in Marion County.
The group provided some of the texts to KTTV-TV and said that Stockton knew the decoy was claiming to be 16 years old and in high school.
“What time you get out of school today?” read one text allegedly from Stockton.
“I promise to be gentle and make sure you are enjoying it,” read another.
The founder of the citizen group, named Antoine, said it got very explicit at that point.
“He got into the nasty part that no pastor should be talking about,” he told KTTV.
Stockton was defeated in his campaign by Rep. Randy Fine (R), who currently holds the office.
The church appears to have scrubbed a webpage indicating Stockton was their pastor, according to a KTTV-TV report.
“We don’t know anything, other than what we see on the video,” a member of the church said to KTTV. “But it was a shock to us, as everybody else.”
The pastor was released on his own recognizance on Tuesday after pleading not guilty to a felony count of arranging to meet a minor for lewd purposes.
Stockton is due back in court on Dec. 12.
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