As President Obama starts our intervention into yet another war in Syria and members call for even greater intervention, we have another measure of how costly our war in Afghanistan has been. Stars and Stripes is reporting that the U.S. will abandon or destroy $7 billion in equipment rather than ship it home under the tight schedule for withdrawal. Once again, history will record the insanity of both President Bush and President Obama in spending hundreds of billions on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan while cutting key educational, environmental, and scientific programs needed in this country. Members who rail against support for things like NPR will not even take note of $7 billion in equipment going up in smoke in Afghanistan. In the perfect metaphor, the billions of dollars of scrap metal will be turned into Afghan pennies.
Some 20 percent of our equipment in Afghanistan will be destroyed or abandoned rather than ship it home. Much of the equipment will be shredded to make pennies for Afghans.
By the way, some of the trashed equipment will be the Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected vehicles that were built at huge expensive starting in 2007. Now a few year later, the Pentagon says that it really does not see the use for about 12,300 of its 25,500 MRAPs. These vehicles cost $1 million each and will now be turned into pennies or scrap.
Once again, certain Afghan companies will be rich off the program which is selling millions of pounds of scrap for a few cents per pound.
The military says that transporting the equipment would cost $2 billion to $3 billion and repairing the gear would cost $8 billion to $9 billion.
Even accepting this cost-benefit analysis, we are still left with the insane cost of these wars. Few people in government are willing to admit how little we have accomplished in these wars. China is moving into Iraq and taking oil rights and other benefits. Iraq has moved under the sphere of influence of Iran. The Taliban is on the rise in Afghanistan and we continue to be hated in many areas. For our part, we have tens of thousands of wounded or dead soldiers and hundreds of billions in cost.
Now on to Syria . . .
Source: Stars and Stripes
I agree with rafflaw here.
Anything that gets us the hell out of Afghanistan begins to accrue savings for the United States immediately. The Afghans can then settle their political differences among themselves and begin to rebuild their devastated country. China will no doubt help with the investments. Good for them.
Since the United States destroyed the economies of Iraq and Afghanistan — except for the drug trade in the latter — the impoverished native survivors have had no choice but to scavenge and consume anything and everything we leave behind. The so-called “free market” will determine the actual value of our junk, not the inflated price initially paid for it by the American taxpayer. As with Iraq, any base we turn over to the locals in Afghanistan will look like a deserted ghost town by the following morning. Let it go and good riddance.
The American corporate ruling class that insisted on these imperial fiascoes should pay for them. Boosting their tax rates up to where Ronald Reagan had them ought to do for a start. Call it the “Balanced-War-Budget” Act.
Just get out. Yesterday.
My only complaint with rafflaws conclusion is that it lets the culprits of this unbridled fiasco off scott free.
If boondoggles are to stop there has to be criminal prosecutions with felony charges of squandering the people’s treasury.
Once again, certain Afghan companies will be rich off the program which is selling millions of pounds of scrap for a few cents per pound.
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Halliburton? What about the opium?
The military says that transporting the equipment would cost $2 billion to $3 billion and repairing the gear would cost $8 billion to $9 billion.
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Navy ships. Do they get paid overtime? Repairing the gear? American jobs?
Even accepting this cost-benefit analysis, we are still left with the insane cost of these wars. Few people in government are willing to admit how little we have accomplished in these wars. China is moving into Iraq and taking oil rights and other benefits. Iraq has moved under the sphere of influence of Iran. The Taliban is on the rise in Afghanistan and we continue to be hated in many areas. For our part, we have tens of thousands of wounded or dead soldiers and hundreds of billions in cost.
Now on to Syria . . .
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That seems to be a bit more difficult than Libya.
USMC Major General Smedley Darlington Butler had it right:
War is a Racket
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4377.htm
Why should they cARE…… IT’S NOT THEIR MONEY!!!!
They’ve also sent 1500 Marines to Yemen. Wonder why?
Reminds me of helicopters on the deck of the USS MIdway during the fall of Saigon.
What is it about honor that a party would destroy itself?
Just because Kenyan Bob will not keep his word, does not mean that the rest of the US has to fall for his failed rhetoric.
We now know what Obama Stan’s for: O is for Oil and Outlaws, B is for Bullshit artist that he is, A is for the Americans he screws, M is for the MF he really is, A is for the Arabs he’s killed. What does it spell? Lying POS.
I have no problem with leaving behind material that can be sold or auctioned at a reasonable price, as long as it is not material or assets that can be used against us in the future. I agree that we should have left Afghanistan long ago,but this issue has little to do with the war in Afghanistan. If selling non-essential equipment gets us out of there sooner, I am all for it.
After Bush 41 destroyed Michael Dukakis by calling him a “card carry ACLU member” that was weak on defense and soft on crime, the democrats decided that had to change their image at the national level and that they did.
A new form of planned obsolescence which will later turn into cries of “we don’t have enough weapons now.”
The war profiteers will make more of them on our nickel.
Bring the men and arms back, put the men on all out borders and give the equipment to the Mexican politicians that want to get rid of the drug lords.
The bi-partisan support for “Defense” is the most solidly entrenched area of government. This has been the basis for every war since WWII. For the cost of each of these MRAP’s equals the cost of four Bentley’s. In 2012 9,107 Bentley’s were produced. Comparing this with the 12,000 to 25,000 MRAP’s that we are leaving behind we can extrapolate that considering economy of scale these vehicles were vastly overpriced. Bentley’s are elegantly crafted vehicles that come as close to “handmade” as any vehicle in the world with production above 3,000. The interior materials and finish on a Bentley are expected to be superb. The interior and finish on an MRAP are utilitarian and do not require the same expensive materials or craftsmanship. My point is that we overpay the corporate/military/industrial complex (CMIC) for their products which are approved via quartermaster Generals, many of whom go to work for these CMIC companies after they retire. There is no oversight of any of these expenditures save for the occasional committee hearings when news of some boondoggle gets leaked to the press initiating legislative expressions of mock outrage.
This is not an issue of taxation, it is an issue of corruption at all levels of our defense policy, which has become the biggest racket on the planet. This is also not a partisan issue since from a pure political perspective no party, or political ideology can actually support this waste on philosophical grounds. The issue is not “big government” either, because there is no one opposing “big government” who would openly admit that they support such overpricing and waste. The issue is that we have been taken over by a corruption of our system that even our Five Star General and two time President Dwight Eisenhower warned the country about in his farewell address. As the Cold War began to ramp up this perceptive military veteran became alarmed at the power of the defense industry to corrupt our Armed Services and our Congress. He left office before the CMIC got into full swing and commanded control of our entire political system. The truth is in our government today only a few legislators have stood up to this and their stands have had little effect.
The odds are that the next time you vote it will be for someone who supports this graft despite which party they represent.
Before you parents and grandparents encourage SonnyBoy to go join the Marines to make a man out of himself, do some hard thinking. Maybe college is not right for SonnyBoy. How about a trade school? Send him or her to Vegas. What plays in Vegas, stays in Vegas. Send him to Amsterdam for the summer to meet some people and get an education.
If you were in Nam, ask your shrink about sending the next generation off to war.
They should start the orderly transfer to Syria. After that war the war zone will probably change. Yemen and Somalia are on the horizon– or is it the Verizon? Yemen is the truest Pirate Territory. It is home to the largest number of detainees in Gitmo. If we send them back to Yemen they will strike again. So after we send them back then the military industrial complex will have reason to go into Yemen. Don’t sail a small or large boat off the coast of Yemen. Don’t go there for snow skiing or sky diving. But if you do have a chance to fly over, please flush. Yemen– our second to next war. If your grandkid is 17 and a junior in high school then this will coincide with his summer after graduation. Grandkid will be saying: Daddy do I have enough resources to go to college or should I make a man of myself and join the Marines like you did. Dumbshmuck grandpa will say. Make a man of yourself. They wont send you to Nam like they did me. But, he will go to Yemen. When he comes back he will be PTSD and maybe ex POW. Or, as Country Joe and the Fish sang:
[music] ” Be the first one on your block …. to have your boy come home in a box!….
And its one, two, three, what are we fightin for? Don’t ask me, I don’t give a damn. Next stop is Viet Nam!
And its five six seven open up the Pearly Gates. It aint no time to wonder why. Whoopeee, we’re all gonna die.”
Oh. those old Soviets are laughing at us for being so intent on running them out of Afghanistan back in 1980. Yeah, back when we recruited the Muslim Brothers to go fight the Soviets in Afghanistan. Of course the Muslim Brothers morphed into al Qaeda. And then when the Soviets left the al Qaeda took over and started treating women like itShay. And so America, being the Exceptional Nation had to go to war in Afghanistan. And now the Soviets are supporting Assad and the al Qaeda guys are in favor of Assad. So, on the pretext that Assad is using chemical weapons against his own people, we are gonna go to war again. Thank you John McCann.
“Cause its one, two three, what are we fightin for?” etc.
Please @ least remember this on April 15th every year. Hopefully, every time you look @ your pay stub, or fill out your quarterly statement.
$7 billion isn’t that much. I mean it only takes 32 years to click off one billion seconds.
What a waste, but then the war was driven by other motives, namely finance. The weapon industry has earned billions of dollars at the cost of mostly poor and uneducated Americans. Those who served and are alive are facing mental issues. The cost of which is immense but who cares. The people in power are untouched by the grief and sufferings. People like Bush must be brought to trial. However, I don’t think this will happen…….
“Each generation should be made to bear the burden of its own wars, instead of carrying them on, at the expense of other generations.”
James Madison
“War should only be declared by the authority of the people, whose toils and treasures are to support its burdens, instead of the government which is to reap its fruits.”
James Madison
“The executive has no right, in any case, to decide the question, whether there is or is not cause for declaring war.”
James Madison
Our country is run by traitors.
The Military Industrial Complex has its claws deeply within our government. It is time to clip them off.
Just leave it…the combandants can and will use it against us….. That’ll teach us a lesson…. Of yeah maybe it should have been on education to start…… Irony..