[PAULYPOKER]

US destroying its military equipment in Afghanistan


U.S. military contract workers tear apart an armored vehicle at
an airfield in Kandahar, Afghanistan on June 17.

The U.S. military has destroyed more than 170 million pounds of vehicles and other military equipment in Afghanistan, wasting an estimated $7 billion in an era of contracting budgets and austerity.

Military planners have determined that they will not ship back about 20 percent of what the U.S. military has in Afghanistan because they would be too costly to ship back home, according to The Washington Post.

The massive disposal of military equipment which is taking place mostly out of sight has raised sharp questions in the United States about whether the Pentagon’s approach is fiscally responsible.

Maj. Gen. Kurt J. Stein, head of the 1st Sustainment Command, who is overseeing the drawdown effort in Afghanistan said, “This is the largest retrograde mission in history.”

The most controversial part of the effort includes the disposal of Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, known as MRAPs, which cost about $1 million each.

The U.S. military has labeled about 2,000 of its roughly 11,000 MRAPs in Afghanistan as “excess” and will probably destroy them, officials say.

Analysts have estimated that the total cost of withdrawing from Afghanistan will be about $10 billion.

According to a study by Harvard scholar Linda Bilmes in March, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars will cost the U.S. between $4-6 trillion in the long term.

Under the terms of an agreement with Kabul, U.S.-led NATO forces should end all combat operations in Afghanistan by December 2014, but President Barack Obama has said some U.S. forces will remain there beyond the deadline.

Army General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has said he supports keeping 8,000 to 12,000 NATO troops in Afghanistan after most coalition forces leave the country.

The Afghan war has become the longest-running war in U.S. history, and there is no end in sight. The Taliban remain in control of major parts of the nation and civilian and troop casualties continue to mount.

In February, the Geneva-based UN Committee on the Rights of the Child said in a report that “attacks by U.S. military forces in Afghanistan, including air strikes, have reportedly killed hundreds of children over the last four years.”

AHT/HJ

[PAULYPOKER]

Lets get rid and destroy all the US military equipment so we can build more......

isn't that expensive?

Hell no! the American people are the easiest people to control on Earth.......

Our profit/buying power is unlimited to infinity.....

Americans are getting easier to control through time not harder as you would expect.......

Hitler is actually jealous........

[itchypickle]

Long term this is the best way to do this Pauly. Seems more expensive up front but have to figure in the intangibles as well as the skills needed to breakdown, salvage and recycle the materials....repurpose some of it to other countries...and the logistical nightmare it would be if you had to reload everything and account for and store them.

[Mikail]

Meanwhile in the U.S people cannot put food on the table. Inflation is rising wages staying the same and jobs are hard to come by. All the while the dumbed down public still doesn't get it.

[itchypickle]

Meanwhile in the U.S people cannot put food on the table. Inflation is rising wages staying the same and jobs are hard to come by. All the while the dumbed down public still doesn't get it.

Apply for a job with the contractors doing the scrapping. Construction workers, truck drivers, equipment operators,welders, cops, all are taking advantage of the tax free pay and hopping on board. Problem solved.

[TheGoldenGoose]

Apply for a job with the contractors doing the scrapping. Construction workers, truck drivers, equipment operators,welders, cops, all are taking advantage of the tax free pay and hopping on board. Problem solved.

[itchypickle]

Nope totally serious.

[pavyracer]

I don't know the financial numbers but if it costs lets say $2 billion to ship back home and when it comes back home in the US it becomes surplus and it's sold for $1 billion it would make sense to destroy it.

[stikymess]

Apply for a job with the contractors doing the scrapping. Construction workers, truck drivers, equipment operators,welders, cops, all are taking advantage of the tax free pay and hopping on board. Problem solved.

Government caught on to that only the first 80-90k is now tax free, they make you pay taxes on the rest, still WAY ahead though.

[irish1]

Here's a crazy thought how about taking it out the same way you brought it in? We have nuclear weapons, the technology for every government agency to spy on 300 million U.S. civilians phone calls, internet and landlines but they can't get equipment out of Afghanistan back to the United States. All the sudden money matters. Maybe that 100 million Obama is using to visit old friends in Africa should have been applied to bring home our equipment. With each passing day this government prove to be more and more of a joke.

[itchypickle]

I don't know the financial numbers but if it costs lets say $2 billion to ship back home and when it comes back home in the US it becomes surplus and it's sold for $1 billion it would make sense to destroy it.

It absolutely works out to be cheaper when you break it down to the reality of it. The usable and expensive/sensitive materials and equipment are loaded on Conex containers and either air lifted or trucked to the AF base and sent home but it makes no sense in any universe to task out the manpower and fuel/time costs to take on the logistical nightmare of moving every vehicle and or item from all of the FOBS/Camps through the countryside back to the only airbases available to fly them home. Think of it like a personal move if you've only got a pickup truck and a small uhaul....sure you paid $300 for a piece of furniture 5 years ago but are you going to spend $400 on another trailer just to get that piece to your new home and then another $100 a month to store it?

[PAULYPOKER]

It absolutely works out to be cheaper when you break it down to the reality of it. The usable and expensive/sensitive materials and equipment are loaded on Conex containers and either air lifted or trucked to the AF base and sent home but it makes no sense in any universe to task out the manpower and fuel/time costs to take on the logistical nightmare of moving every vehicle and or item from all of the FOBS/Camps through the countryside back to the only airbases available to fly them home. Think of it like a personal move if you've only got a pickup truck and a small uhaul....sure you paid $300 for a piece of furniture 5 years ago but are you going to spend $400 on another trailer just to get that piece to your new home and then another $100 a month to store it?

But selling them off to an entire world who is waiting in line with top dollar to buy US military equipment is just tooo damn expensive,I know........

[pavyracer]

But selling them off to an entire world who is waiting in line with top dollar to buy US military equipment is just tooo damn expensive,I know........

You still have to ship the equipment to them. It's like when the US gives old navy destroyers and fighter jets to other NATO countries like Greece, Turkey, Italy, etc. They don't make any money from the sales. And the US is not going to sell surplus to China, Iran or any other country that is not a US ally just to make a buck for national security reasons.

[PAULYPOKER]