U.S. and NATO plan to spend $11.6 Billion for Afghan security!?

I thought we are in debt??? I usually don't make too many threads but this is just BS. It seems lately they need to focus more on our defense here than worry about another country that isn't even ours to begin with. When will they ever learn..

Funds already spent have purchased, among other things, 24,000 Ford Rangers, 108,000 9mm pistols, 74,000 handheld radios, 44 helicopters and four bomb-sniffing robots.

"It's an enormous undertaking that we do," Caldwell said

Afghan troops receive a variety of armored vehicles and weapons, such as machine guns, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades, and Afghan authorities have asked for tanks and fighter jets - weapons that U.S. military officials consider too expensive, as well as unnecessary, for combating the low-tech insurgency mounted by the Taliban.

"They want armor, tanks," said one U.S. military official in Kabul, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk candidly. "We think it's an image thing.

www.washingtonpost.com...

Im guessing they need to protect the major oil pipeline they've been planning to build since 2000.

Originally posted by innervision0730
I thought we are in debt??? I usually don't make too many threads but this is just BS. It seems lately they need to focus more on our defense here than worry about another country that isn't even ours to begin with. When will they ever learn..

Funds already spent have purchased, among other things, 24,000 Ford Rangers, 108,000 9mm pistols, 74,000 handheld radios, 44 helicopters and four bomb-sniffing robots.

"It's an enormous undertaking that we do," Caldwell said

Afghan troops receive a variety of armored vehicles and weapons, such as machine guns, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades, and Afghan authorities have asked for tanks and fighter jets - weapons that U.S. military officials consider too expensive, as well as unnecessary, for combating the low-tech insurgency mounted by the Taliban.

"They want armor, tanks," said one U.S. military official in Kabul, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk candidly. "We think it's an image thing.

www.washingtonpost.com...

edit on 6-1-2011 by innervision0730 because: Added link

If you are upset about that, then don't look at this year's defense budget increase to 725 billion dollars - oops!! My bad.

reply to post by DevilJin


lol I guess all that was eclipsed due to the 78 billion dollar reduction proposal by Gates.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates today laid out a $553 billion budget for fiscal year 2012, along with a five-year military spending plan that will cut the number of troops, cancel programs and move money saved from those measures into current and new weapons. “We must come to realize that not every defense program is necessary, not every defense dollar is sacred and well-spent,” Gates said at a Pentagon news conference. “And that more of nearly everything is simply not sustainable.”

Link to source

Amazing! We will gladly send our DHS (department of HOMELAND security) to Afghanistan to secure its borders with Pakistan yet we continue to ignore the security of our southern HOMELAND border. Innocent US citizens are at constant risk of violence in key areas along the Mexico border everyday.

So, we send DHS to Afghanistan because our military has underestimated the scope of the problem there.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which by its own admission has thus far failed to control even half of America's nearly 2,000-mile-long border with Mexico, is now sending personnel to Afghanistan to help that country secure its border with Pakistan....

Remember this??

In July 2002, when the George W. Bush White House released the first national strategy for the Department of Homeland Security, it identified the new agency’s three objectives as preventing terrorist attacks within the United States; reducing America’s vulnerability to terrorism; and minimizing the damage from attacks that do occur.

Just what I thought, nothing mentioned about using DHS on foreign soil.

www.cnsnews.com...


U.S. Commander: It’s ‘Naïve’ to Think U.S. Can Secure Afghan-Pakistan Border Like We Would U.S.-Mexico Border

Its only money and human assets right. No need to invest that money where we would see direct benefits

reply to post by jibeho


There is obviously something they really want. I don't see why they would invest in that much money over there. They can't even prtect our country. We've had missles and ufo's, leaving us vulnerable and all they can do is deny it.. Thanks for the info!