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Taliban seizes $5 billion in abandoned American PowerPoint slides

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Taliban seizes $5 billion in abandoned American PowerPoint slides

No slide left behind.

Duffel Blog
Nov 1, 2021
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Taliban seizes $5 billion in abandoned American PowerPoint slides

www.duffelblog.com

By Cat Astronaut

Just months after the United States’s controversial withdrawal from Afghanistan, Taliban operatives have seized over $5 billion worth of Microsoft PowerPoint slides left behind by American troops, sources say.

“This is a tragedy of the highest order,” Maj. Jim Lancaster, who served two tours on staff at Bagram Air Base, said. “I personally know over 10,000 innocent slides that couldn’t get out in time, and that’s not even counting backups and drafts.”

In a rush to meet the withdrawal date of August 30, senior US leaders in Afghanistan had to make tough decisions about which briefing products to take with them, and which to leave behind.

“Of course, you need to get the classified slides out first,” US CENTCOM Commander Gen. Kenneth McKenzie said. “But then there’s also the unclassified slides that have really neat graphics and flow charts and stuff that someone obviously put a lot of effort into. You’d hate to see all that solid staff work go to waste.”

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