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Wednesday 1 September 2021

Nigel Farage Afghan Lies BUSTED

As is his wont - and that of the right-leaning part of our free and fearless press - former Brexit Party Oberscheissenführer Nigel “Thirsty” Farage earlier this week used his bully pulpit at Gammon Broadcasting™ News (“Bacon’s News Channel”) to put the boot in on US President Joe Biden by talking well, but lying badly.


Nige pulled a series of seriously big whoppers. “One of the most extraordinary things is that Joe Biden has left Afghanistan, and left behind $85 billion worth of up-to-date modern, functioning American military equipment, and last night we saw the Taliban going into one of the hangers … they’re all dressed in American combat uniforms with night sights”.

Go on. “And they’ve just discovered, yes, amongst the haul are some lovely helicopters, and they frankly look like kids in a sweet shop. I find it difficult to believe that Biden could have left them with all this military equipment. When the British left Dunkirk, they made sure that every gun barrel was spiked, that no vehicle was operative. They smashed and destroyed everything. And yet what Biden has done is to effectively arm the Taliban”.

And that is one complete pack of lies. Let’s start with the evacuation from Dunkirk in May and June 1940. This from Historic UK: “Between 27th May and 4th June 1940, nearly 700 ships brought over 338,000 people back to Britain, including more than 100,000 soldiers of the French Army. All heavy equipment was abandoned and left in France, including over 2,000 pieces of artillery and 85,000 motor vehicles. Also left behind were more than 440 British tanks that had been sent to France with the [British Expeditionary Force]”.

So what of the “$85 billion” claim? Farage can’t even get his lies straight. As the WaPo has told via a fact check, the claim - which is only $83 billion in the original version - came from Combover Crybaby Donald Trump and his supporters. However, “The $83 billion figure - technically, $82.9 billion - comes from an estimate in the July 30 quarterly report by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR)”. And it covers what?

For ALL SPENDING on the Afghanistan Security Forces Fund sine the US invasion in 2001”. Of which equipment would have been a small fraction. As to any of it being usable, here’s CBS News: “In the withdrawal from Afghanistan, the U.S. ‘demilitarized,’ or rendered useless, nearly 170 pieces of equipment in Kabul, according to the head of U.S. Central Command”. And what kinds of equipment would those have been?


General Kenneth ‘Frank’ McKenzie in a press briefing Monday announcing the completion of the withdrawal from Afghanistan said the U.S. on its way out of Hamid Karzai International Airport destroyed up to 70 MRAPs and 23 Humvees - military vehicles - and 73 aircraft … ‘Those aircraft will never fly again,’ McKenzie said. ‘They'll never be able to be operated by anyone. Most of them were non-mission capable, to begin with, but certainly they'll never be able to be flown again’”. What about those helicopters?

A video posted on Twitter Monday showed members of the Taliban walking into the airport looking at the defunct equipment left behind … ‘I would tell you that they can inspect all they want. They can look at them, they can walk around, but they can't fly them,’ Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby told CNN in an interview Tuesday morning”.

Nigel Farage - lying yesterday, lying today, and lying tomorrow. No change there, then.


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12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Even if that equipment WAS functional, what happened to the old arms dealing excuse "If we don't sell them, someone else will"?

The Taliban would be offering loads of O & M contracts. So stand by, Military/Industrial complex. BAe would be salivating at the prospect.

Jeff Pickthall said...

One of the pictures - used by the BBC and others - supposedly of Taliban with a discarded US helicopter, actually shows a Russian Mi17 helicopter.

Anonymous said...

Almost as crazy as Maajid Nawaz on LBC last week who was astounded the US had left 60 - yes SIXTY, that's 60, yes indeed SIXTY (repeated to give the full Nawaz effect) Blackhawk helicopters for the Taliban to play in.

After repeating this 'fact' for about half an hour someone must have had a word and let him know they were actually "Blackhawk 60" helicopters, which is actually the model designation and not a quantity.

These people are all as mad as each other.

Anonymous said...

Farage knows that his audience never checks a thing he says so the lies are second nature to him, and why should he care he's being well renumerated for spreading his endless poison.

iMatt said...

$85bn of eqpt left in Afghanistan? Does the toxic little racist Farage know how much that is? The latest USS Gerald Ford aircraft carrier cost $13bn for example. HMS Queen Elizabeth cost £4.5bn. To come up with $85bn would mean leaving F-16's, AH-64's and C-130's in situ! Farage is either lying or he has no clue what he's on about. More to the point he realises his regular audience is just not that bright.

Anonymous said...

But all that murderous stuff has to be replaced for the next Yank/British invasion......

Anonymous said...

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=26O-2SVcrw0

But do people really give a shit?

AndyC said...

Another, older lie, is catching up on Farage. A couple of years ago he called warnings of shortages of food, medicines, parts, HGV drivers etc, just Project Fear 2.0 That's aged well, hasnt it? Ah but, Brexiters will say, Covid is at fault. Well the rest of Europe has Covid but doesnt have the self-inflicted shortages that we have thanks to Farage and his Gammons.

Mr Larrington said...

One source reckons that the RHD Bedford lorries abandoned in France by the BEF and subsequently pressed into service by the Wehrmacht were more dangerous to the German military than the Allied war effort.

Anonymous said...

Now the USA and Europe (NATO, particularly Britain) have been booted out of Afghanistan, what are they going to do with all their military - leave them sitting around?

Watch this space.

My bet is on insane lethal mayhem in the East (again). Accompanied by the usual lying hysterical propaganda in the modern tabloid equivalent of Der Sturmer and Volkischer Beobachter in broadcast and print media.

That's the reality of US/British/European "exceptionalism". Its actual name is FASCISM.

Anonymous said...

The septics bought new Russian Mil helicopters for the Afghans because they were a lot easier and cheaper to maintain than Blackhawks.

Mr Larrington said...

Good news: The Graun is reporting that Brillo's sabbatical from Gammon Broadcasting is to continue.
Bad news: The Graun is reporting that Gammon Broadcasting has signed geographically-challenged porridge fangrrl Isabel Talkshitte.