> The alternative would have been for the US Army to ... destroy the equipment, which would have been met with a media narrative ranging from "US abandons ANA"

> The alternative would have been for the US Army to ... destroy the equipment, which would have been met with a media narrative ranging from "US abandons ANA" to "US steals from ANA" or even "US destroys ANA." But that's basically what happened. They left the helicopters but took the maintenance contractors, which rendered the helicopters useless (IIRC military aircraft need a huge amount of regular maintenance to be flyable).