Among The Costs Of War: $20B In Air Conditioning

The amount the U.S. military spends annually on air conditioning in Iraq and Afghanistan: $20.2 billion.

WOW!

Here's an interesting number. I had no idea what it took to keep the air conditioning on.

What is worrying here is that with all the problems people are facing at home this amount of money is being spent on a war that is unilateral in nature and has dragged on for far too long. Now I understand that soldiers stationed in the desert need to be able to live in a comfortable environment, if possible, but this just seems obscene. More than Nasa's budget? Spent on air conditioning in a war that is destroying a generation?

It's things like this that remind me how ridiculous this war is. Also, weren't the troops supposed to be home by now?

They should bring back the troops, end the occupation, and spend this money on something that actually benefits the people the government claims to be protecting. I do understand that if all the troops were taken out immediately that there would probably be civil war, so obviously some neutral peacekeeping must be put in to smooth the transition.

The amount the U.S. military spends annually on air conditioning in Iraq and Afghanistan: $20.2 billion. That's more than NASA's budget. It's more than BP has paid so far for damage during the Gulf oil spill. It's what the G-8 has pledged to help foster new democracies in Egypt and Tunisia.

"When you consider the cost to deliver the fuel to some of the most isolated places in the world — escorting, command and control, medevac support — when you throw all that infrastructure in, we're talking over $20 billion," Steven Anderson tells weekends on All Things Considered guest host Rachel Martin. Anderson is a retired brigadier general who served as Gen. David Patreaus' chief logistician in Iraq.

Very interesting article here, brings up some really good points in my opinion.
www.npr.org...

reply to post by sir_slide


This has been posted before
Thread

How many people could we feed with that? How many kids could we put through college with that? How many school kids could we educate with that? How many Senior Citizens could get their Social Security from that?

On and on and on and on. I could keep going all day long with those types of questions. All this money they waste on these stupid wars and then talk about slashing what precious few societal safety nets that we have.

reply to post by mb2591


I did search it a couple of times, oh well. Still an interesting article...with quite a lot more discussion. Have a read of it.

reply to post by gnosticquasar


You see the fact is the country isn't run by the people or for the people :/

And war is this countries fuel unfortunately

This is misleading BS. The variable cost of moving the assets to Afgan and running the air conditioning is not 20 billion a year. Not saying that the entire operation is not very costly and very well may be an unwise use of the money. Even with that making up a totally misleading figure is not helping an antiwar cause at all.

reply to post by standrewscross


Not trying to be pedantic but I am interested in how you know this figure has been distorted. It's one thing to criticize the article/source/figure but to do so without offering anything other than a blunt response seems to be a little unhelpful.

Interesting, I suppose it must cost allot to keep all the camps and bases in Afghanistan cool

But $20 Billion?????

I think it might be a front, a really bad front for some black project.

hmmm. thats more money than G.E. made in 2010 globally. on air conditioning? wow. thats actually pretty impressive, in a disgusting, gratuitous sense. much like who can take the biggest crap.