by Jack
It’s been called the war we forgot to end and it’s been a nightmarish money pit. You name the project or expenditure and I’ll name another case of corruption and failure. For instance we spent $28 million bucks more than we had to on uniforms for the Afghan army, because of the precocious whim of one worthless Afghanistan general who couldn’t lead ants to a sugar cube. He had to have unique camo uniforms and we had plenty of off-the-shelf uniforms ready to go, but no, those were not good enough!
Remember all those schools we just had to build to educate that half of the population that is ignorant, unskilled and under 25? Those schools are mostly sitting empty. The demand for a Western style education is almost non-existent in gravel country. But, besides that over looked detail, we forgot to ask, where do we get the teachers? So, we’ve schools, lots of schools, but no students and no teachers. Brilliant, eh? And that was done on Obama’s watch along with a few more boondoggles; can stand to read about more?
Two years ago the Army told Congress they absolutely had to have a modern command center located in southwestern Afghanistan. Congress of course believed them and eventually appropriated $34 million to build the state of the art 2 story operations center with tiered seating and a briefing theater. It has spacious offices, fancy chairs and powerful air conditioning system. It has the best of everything, except for one thing….no troops. It’s empty. See, about the time the project was ready to start the Army was already withdrawing troops and of course they didn’t see the need the for the building anymore. But, they didn’t want to tell Congress, because Congress had gone to a lot of trouble to appropriate the money and it would be kinda embarrassing to suddenly them, uh, never mind. So they just let it be built.
The windowless, two-story structure, which is larger than a football field, was completed this year. Commanders in the area, who insisted three years ago that they needed the building, now are in the process of withdrawing forces and they see no reason to move into the new facility.
But, wait, there’s more! In Kandahar province, the U.S. military recently completed a $45 million facility to repair armored vehicles and other complex pieces of equipment. The space is now being used as a temporary staging ground to sort through equipment that is being shipped out of the country.
And all those new roads we built over the course of the last 7 years at a cost of many billions, less then 10% remain usable. We’ve never spent more to rebuild an impoverished country and have less to show for it than in Afghanistan. Chalk this one up to, stuck on stupid.
Want to read more? Click here.
“We’ve never spent more to rebuild an impoverished country and have less to show for it than in Afghanistan.”
Source? That don’t sound right, anyway. I’m sure that, adjusted for inflation, we spent lots more rehabilitating Europe and Japan after the war. And that’s not the issue anyway. The issue is that your Trump Voter’s ability to take a long, let alone charitable, view of any situation has been obliterated by the cable. Cut the thing.
Or, take it another way. Are we at war with the Taliban, or aren’t we? They blew up our towers, and you want to let them take Afghanistan back so they can foment more mischief?
Frankly, this situation is not for the emotionally immature, or simple-minded, to concern themselves with. You used to know this. Why don’t you know this anymore?
Libby said, “Are we at war with the Taliban, or aren’t we? They blew up our towers, and you want to let them take Afghanistan back so they can foment more mischief?”
Libby, we are not at war with the Taliban because “they blew up our towers”. There is no evidence that the Taliban was involved. It was al-Qaeda that “blew up our towers”. We are at war with the Taliban because they harbored al-Qaeda. The “Bush Doctrine” was the justification for the 2001 war with Afghanistan. The “Bush Doctrine” was the policy that said we had the right to go after anyone that harbored or gave aid to terrorist groups.
Libby said, “Frankly, this situation is not for the emotionally immature, or simple-minded, to concern themselves with. You used to know this. Why don’t you know this anymore?”
The fact that you did not know why we were fighting the war kind of makes this insulting and condescending statement appear very foolish. How embarrassing!
More hair splitting. The point is that the Taliban had a “state” to do that with, and we are concerned with preventing that … aren’t we?
The other point is that we are in this for one long haul … so quit fussing about stuff you barely comprehend.
Interesting! Libby seems aligned with Trump (Although I know she ‘s not!)
Trump addressed the nation from the Oval Office a couple of nights ago to announce he will send 4000 troops to Afghanistan. He has no intention to nation build. The goal is to “win” against the Taliban and achieve “lasting peace.” He put Pakistan on notice and asked India for help. FOX News:
Article continues and includes differing opinions.
France announced today that they back President Trump:
In keeping with Trumps commitment to refrain from announcing war plans and strategies there are no details…must drive the media crazy. Unlike our previous president, there will not be announcements of withdrawal dates or ridiculous restrictions on our troops.
If any administration can prevent and or weed out fraud and abuse it’s this one…but I still expect it will happen. Where there’s big money you will always find unscrupulous people.
In January of 2014 CATO looked at what we’ve spent on the war on poverty since 1965:
The Constitution does not call for the federal government to provide a living standard for any citizen. That was left to the people and the states to do, if at all.
The Constitution calls specifically for the federal government to defend the nation. ISIS and the Taliban represent a continuing threat to our nation. If we leave Afghanistan without defeating the Taliban we leave a vacuum. ISIS will make it their new operational state as we continue to kill and drive them out of Iraq, Syria, and Libya. The most important factor is that we commit to winning this war. That is the only option. We should move as swiftly as possible.
It’s a terrible situation. Sure wish it were different.
Afghanistan is a no win proposition. Wish we’d get our men out of there and just drop a few bombs as needed. Winning hearts and minds is a great theory, but that will take hundreds of thousands of troops and several generations. Not gonna happen.