Totally Occupied: 700 Military Bases Spread Across Afghanistan

Totally Occupied: 700 Military Bases Spread Across Afghanistan

www.alternet.org

Nick Turse | Existing in the shadows, the US base-building program is staggering in size and scope and also extraordinarily expensive.

(visit the link for the full news article)

How many shelters could we have built? How many hungry people could be eating? How can we allow our servrnts to waste our tax dollars when we need them more than ever? how do our families benefit from billions of dollars being spent on bases in Afghanistan?
I don't think most people understand how much that money could do at home. BILLIONS can be spent better.


www.alternet.org
(visit the link for the full news article)

[edit on 11-2-2010 by devildogUSMC]

Somebody's gotta protect and sell that opium and oil.

reply to post by devildogUSMC


TO hell with the middle class!!! TO hell with the American worker!!! To hell with the unemployed!!! TO hell with those losing their homes!!! To hell with COMMON SENSE!!!

One days worth of the military budget ($1.8 billion USD btw) would be enough to fix most of societies ills. That's 33 cents per 6 billion people on the planet that day.

source: www.defense.gov...

How can we let this keep happening? It is not very difficult to understand that what we are doing in these countries is not for the benefit of their people or the people of America. How asleep can our nation possibly be? How does killing people and building bases in their country help them or us?

What will become of all theese bases after we leave? Are we leaving? what do we get for throwing all taht money around over there? Freedom?

Originally posted by devildogUSMC
What will become of all theese bases after we leave? Are we leaving? what do we get for throwing all taht money around over there? Freedom?

Lol. Leaving. That's funny. The only time we'll 'leave' is when we head over to Iran and start blasting Iran to bits. Which should be soon by the looks of things.

Also, with adding more bases means more targets for the mountain people to attack, giving more reason to stay there to fight back against said mountain people. I love illegal wars, they're so amusing.

reply to post by EnemyofMan

who gets all the money for building them? Is that what KBR and Halliburton do?

The whole point of occupying Iraq and Afghanistan is to have dual fronts from which to stomp the crap out of Iran in true goat fashion. This has obviously been the plan from the beginning.

reply to post by devildogUSMC


I personally have no clue and nor do I care. It all reality it has nothing to do with money, the 'elites' have plenty of money to throw around, just like rappers in certain music videos.

Afghanistan is a highly strategic location to launch a major offensive against Iran and Pakistan. The more bases you have, the more people you have to put in them. The more people you have, the more meat you can throw into the grinder. Things will get ugly over there, more so than it is already. Just wait till the nuclear warheads start getting deployed.

reply to post by Alpha Arietis


I was doing some pool work for an Iranian man who is a citizen here and we were talking out in his yard about afghanistan and he seemed positive that Sharon from Israel was behind 9/11 to get the U.S. into the theatre so we could launch a two-pronged attack on Iran. This was years ago. Do you think there is any creedence to that theory?

reply to post by devildogUSMC


Yeah, I think anything is possible and certainly that. Sharon's policies sent shock-waves throughout the world that are still being felt today.

The problem with this article is that the authors are banking on the fact that the average reader has no knowledge of the various sizes of bases.

A small number of the coalition sites are mega-bases like Kandahar Airfield, which boasts one of the busiest runways in the world, and Bagram Air Base, a former Soviet facility that received a makeover, complete with Burger King and Popeyes outlets, and now serves more than 20,000 U.S. troops, in addition to thousands of coalition forces and civilian contractors.

The author is more than willing to describe the larger bases, but they neglect to describe the smallest of bases.

U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), tells TomDispatch that there are, at present, nearly 400 U.S. and coalition bases in Afghanistan, including camps, forward operating bases, and combat outposts. In addition, there are at least 300 Afghan National Army (ANA) and Afghan National Police (ANP) bases, most of them built, maintained, or supported by the U.S.

In this quote from the article it explains that only 400 of bases are U.S/Coalition bases, 300 of the bases are "Afghan national Army" bases. It also gives a number of types of bases; these bases can range from small to large. Often time there is one larger base which supports many smaller bases.

In my opinion this article is banking on people seeing the number 700 and less on people understanding the details.

reply to post by devildogUSMC


I saw , or read , awhile ago, that these bases are set up , and spread along the path for where the oil pipeline is to be built , and protected.

reply to post by Sean48


That makes alot of sense to me. Is there anyway to see on a map where the bases are in relation to the pipeline? It would be highly unlikely that it would be a coincidence if they were.

Originally posted by devildogUSMC
That makes alot of sense to me. Is there anyway to see on a map where the bases are in relation to the pipeline? It would be highly unlikely that it would be a coincidence if they were.

Enjoy. Map included.
Real reason for the war in Afghanistan

Too bad the poster was banned. He had great insight.

[edit on 18-2-2010 by SLAYER69]

Originally posted by David9176
reply to post by devildogUSMC

 

TO hell with the middle class!!! TO hell with the American worker!!! To hell with the unemployed!!! TO hell with those losing their homes!!! To hell with COMMON SENSE!!!

Go to TO hell middle east and stay there!!

Zelong.

Most if not all of those bases are joint operated with the Afghanis and NATO.

Many of them are tiny outposts.

I have been to a number of them. Some of them are so small, like Towr Kham, a few klicks from the Khyber Pass, that the "chow hall" is a dining room. The outpost supported a Platoon sized element and a bad little monkey who punched my medic in the face.

I do mean a literal rhesus monkey. Also FYI a platoon is only 25 plus personnel.

All that I have to say is... going on almost 9 years now... compare that to past wars, even the scope of those. Tell me this is not nation building or some kind of "empirical" manifest destiny through the energy conglomerates and military industrial complex, and I will call BS on several fronts. Good post based on the observations alone.. Star and flag.