Your tax $ at work: US SCRAPS $7 BILLION WORTH OF EQUIPMENT AS IT LEAVES AFGHANISTAN

[RocketPunch]

Your tax $ at work…as scraps & garbage. :pop:pop

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The US military has destroyed more than 77,000 metric tons of military equipment – including mine-resistant troop transport vehicles – as it prepares to withdraw from Afghanistan in late 2014, the Washington Post reported Thursday.

More than $7 billion worth of military equipment is no longer needed, or would be too expensive to ship back to the United States, and much of it is being shredded and sold locally as scrap metal, the Post reported, citing US military officials.

Donating the gear to the Afghan government is difficult because of complicated bureaucratic rules, plus US officials do not believe the Afghans could maintain the gear.

Plus, it would also be too expensive to sell or donate the gear to allied nations because of the cost of getting the equipment out of Afghanistan.

Items being shredded by contract workers from Nepal and other countries for sale as scrap metal include mine resistant ambush protected (MRAP) vehicles, the Post said.

More than 24,000 MRAPs were built for troops in Iraq and Afghanistan starting in 2007 in a crash program that cost some $45 billion, according to Pentagon figures.

The MRAPs’ V-shaped hulls help deflect the force of explosions, and the vehicle’s higher chassis keeps troops further from the main force of the blast from improvised explosive devices.

US commanders believe the MRAPs helped save thousands of soldiers’ lives, and cite figures that show the number of casualties from IEDs dropped more than 80 percent after the vehicles were introduced.

Some 2,000 of the 11,000 MRAPs in Afghanistan have been labeled “excess,” the Post reported.

“We’re making history doing what we’re doing here,” Major General Kurt Stein, who is overseeing the Afghanistan drawdown, told the newspaper. “This is the largest retrograde mission in history.”

When the US military withdrew from Iraq it drove much of its gear across the border into Kuwait, sent it back home on ships, or donated it to the Iraqi army, which has the infrastructure to maintain vehicles with complicated mechanics.

US officials however told the Post they do not believe the Afghan army could maintain such vehicles or other sophisticated equipment.

source: Australian News Headlines | World News Now

[GATVILLE]

better off scrapping it than giving it to some jank middle eastern country

[dc2nick]

Yea. I’d rather see it scrapped than used against us at some point

[Mafdark]

Saw this in person…

MRAPs are already outdated. Those things suck in 80% of countires across the world.

[PJB]

Big surprise, the military wasting a fuckload of money.

As if they didnt waste enough by invading countries they never needed to be in to begin with.

[K20power]

Typical

[Vovchandr]

@GATVILLE

better off scrapping it than giving it to some jank middle eastern country

@dc2nick

Yea. I’d rather see it scrapped than used against us at some point

I didn’t want the tax burden of putting our equipment there to begin with, I certainly don’t want Billions of tax dollars being used to destroy billions of equipment worth of tax dollars.

[SDP]

They scrap the stuff so tax dollars can go into the hands of the military industrial complex and politicians back pockets to make new ones…

[Baumbauer]

Its sad because I’ve got so much respect for the men and women in the military trying to serve and do the right thing, and so little respect for the greedy pieces of shit calling the shots.

[Sully93vr4]

@Baumbauer

Its sad because I’ve got so much respect for the men and women in the military trying to serve and do the right thing, and so little respect for the greedy pieces of shit calling the shots.

Ditto!

[dc2nick]

@Vovchandr

I didn’t want the tax burden of putting our equipment there to begin with, I certainly don’t want Billions of tax dollars being used to destroy billions of equipment worth of tax dollars.

But our tax dollars aren’t paying to scrap this stuff… They are scrapping it and selling the Metal for a profit. I see no issue here. Unless I missed something.

[Vovchandr]

@dc2nick

But our tax dollars aren’t paying to scrap this stuff… They are scrapping it and selling the Metal for a profit. I see no issue here. Unless I missed something.

Well lets see

For starters there is the opportunity cost of using all the man power dedicated to that task instead of anything else. Then add the actual salary of the people doing it.

On top of that there is price of metal. You really think Middle East pays top dollar for scrap metal? I’m sure the local rate would be equivalent of pennies of the dollar to get out of equipment that cost $7 billion to make.

Finally there is replacement cost of all the equipment that got destroyed. I can guarantee you new equipment will be at least $7 billion worth.

So yeah, there are tax costs associated with this without a doubt.

[Mafdark]

@Vovchandr

Well lets see

For starters there is the opportunity cost of using all the man power dedicated to that task instead of anything else. Then add the actual salary of the people doing it.

On top of that there is price of metal. You really think Middle East pays top dollar for scrap metal? I’m sure the local rate would be equivalent of pennies of the dollar to get out of equipment that cost $7 billion to make.

Finally there is replacement cost of all the equipment that got destroyed. I can guarantee you new equipment will be at least $7 billion worth.

So yeah, there are tax costs associated with this without a doubt.

you are missing two incredibly important pieces of that equation Vlad.

Right now you are saying
original cost of equipment + labor to scrap ≠ or > scrap value

[Vovchandr]

@Mafdark

you are missing two incredibly important pieces of that equation Vlad.

Right now you are saying
original cost of equipment + labor to scrap ≠ or > scrap value

I’m saying scrap value is minimal as it will be sold and scrapped over there.

Not sure where the miscommunication in the message is. It’s a huge loss.

$7B worth of sophisticated over priced equipment + $X value labor to scrap + $7B+ of replacement equipment > $100? mil (optimistic) of scrap value at their rate.

$14B(+) + $X > $100mil

[Mafdark]

Its only a “huge loss” if you ignore the alternatives. When you dont consider the cost of the other options then yes - this doesn’t seem very economical. However when you take everything into consideration its a very reasonable decision.

It bugs the hell out of me when public opinion of what is the “right” answer is actually the one that “appears right” and influences decision makers, who often don’t have a backbone because they hold public office, to make the wrong decision.

[Vovchandr]

@Mafdark

Its only a “huge loss” if you ignore the alternatives. When you dont consider the cost of the other options then yes - this doesn’t seem very economical. However when you take everything into consideration its a very reasonable decision.

It bugs the hell out of me when public opinion of what is the “right” answer is actually the one that “appears right” and influences decision makers, who often don’t have a backbone because they hold public office, to make the wrong decision.

Not being involved in the clusterfuck of the middle east while we have plenty of our own issues to worry about is quite “right”.

Then we wouldn’t have to worry about destroying our own equipment and tens of thousands of troop casualties.

We seemed to have no problem leaving equipment in Iraq in 2011

U.S. Military Hands Millions of Dollars of Equipment Over to Iraqis

The Great Iraqi Giveaway: Billions In Bases, Equipment Being Handed Over

Edit: Don’t misunderstand me, I understand that it’s likely the better option out there such as bringing old dated equipment back home at a hefty cost and bringing it back upto operational status, it’s still stupid in the grand scheme of things and it’s nothing new, it’s been happening in almost every conflict we’ve ever been in.

Edit x2: Fuckit, who wants to start manufacturing military equipment and get in on these contracts? There is no such thing as budget limits when it comes to war and we won’t stop being involved int he rest of the world in any foreseeable future.

[Mafdark]

you still don’t understand the point and you still didn’t really respond to what’s missing from your picture.

Not being involved in the clusterfuck of the middle east while we have plenty of our own issues to worry about is quite “right”.

-Afghanistan is not in the middle east and we are there. Deal with it. Saying “we shouldn’t have gone there in the first place” doesn’t help us in determining the best option of what to do with the equipment that is there.

Then we wouldn’t have to worry about destroying our own equipment and tens of thousands of troop casualties.

War on Terror: Afghanistan and Iraq Wars total 2001–present combat deaths: 5,281
National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, which defines terrorism as “the use of illegal force and violence by a non-state actor to attain a political, economic, religious, or social goal” - determined that there were 60,000 global “terrorism” deaths between 1991 and 2001

We seemed to have no problem leaving equipment in Iraq in 2011

U.S. Military Hands Millions of Dollars of Equipment Over to Iraqis

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/26/iraq-withdrawal-us-bases-equipment_n_975463.html

You didn’t read your own article. To sum it up, this is iraq:

This is afghanistan:

They cannot fuel, arm, maintain, or repair any of our vehicles. You should also note the MRAPS are banned from leaving the FOBs in Afg. Same with HMMWVs. There are not enough paved roads in Afg and these vehicles have repeatedly shown that they cannot handle the terrain without turning their passengers into casualties.

Edit: Don’t misunderstand me, I understand that it’s likely the better option out there such as bringing old dated equipment back home at a hefty cost and bringing it back upto operational status, it’s still stupid in the grand scheme of things and it’s nothing new, it’s been happening in almost every conflict we’ve ever been in.

You’re getting there, but lets make it obvious as to why that might be the better option so we can have the discussion - discussion is the point right? or are we just ranting without making a note that it is the right thing to do at this point.

Edit x2: Fuckit, who wants to start manufacturing military equipment and get in on these contracts? There is no such thing as budget limits when it comes to war and we won’t stop being involved int he rest of the world in any foreseeable future.

Why would we stop being involved in the rest of the world? We rely on the rest of the world and the rest of the world relies on us. That’s the way it is. Get used to it.

[Skidplate]

i want an MRAP. i sure as hell couldnt take care of one, but who wouldnt want to own one, just to say they’ve got one?

[Mafdark]

@Skidplate

who wouldnt want to own one

anyone who has ever sat in or been around one.

[Skidplate]

@Mafdark

anyone who has ever sat in or been around one.

uncomfortable?