US Wastes 34 Million On Base In Afghanistan It Will Never Use

[Iris]

http://thinkprogress.org/security/20...e-afghanistan/
I saw a news story about this and it made me so frustrated. With all of the needy people in our country and abroad, this huge building built at taxpayer expense will likely be destroyed without having ever been used. The United States military spent millions of dollars on a shining new command center in the Helmand province of Afghanistan — a center that will never be used and is now likely to be completely demolished. The building was built for the American military, and is physically incompatible with the Afghan power grid without a costly overhaul. In addition, the cost of maintaining such a facility would also likely be far more than the Afghan government would be willing to commit. The result: the building in all its shining grandeur will likely be demolished having never been put to its intended use.
I feel like the layers of bureaucracy in our government make this possible. There is no accountability. Our tax dollars are just funny money to people in congress and their minions.

[some chair]

34 million is pocket money. If you think that's bad, you haven't been hearing about how much money gets funnelled into the four-star generals (of which I think there are just a bit over 1000 now). Basically there's a hidden class of military elite in America, and this story is a chunk off an iceberg.

[Capitalist Pig]

Government spending is always wasteful.

[rat1]

Can't wait for our military to lose funding.

[xerx]

Sounds like corruption to me. Somebodies probably pocketed all that money.

[mu4]

Military spending like this generally goes thru the pentagon, I don't see this as a Congress thing. I seriously doubt this was on the floor of a congressional hearing or something like that.

There was probably graft involved here with some Pentagon official getting paid by the British contractors.

The facility was mostly built so I doubt someone pocketed all the money, but the project was probably kept alive via graft. The decision was made to axe the project but somehow it was kept alive and funded.

[xerx]

The facility was mostly built so I doubt someone pocketed all the money, but the project was probably kept alive via graft. The decision was made to axe the project but somehow it was kept alive and funded.

A favored contractor could have gotten the contract, that's a safe way to do these things. "Graft" also falls neatly under the definition of corruption.

(I don't have absolute proof of corruption, but corruption is something we probably should expect)

[Kill4Me]

work under the table.

[Iris]

"...nobody actually stationed in Helmand wanted the center to be constructed in the first place. Three yeas ago, according to the Post, the top Marine commander there told U.S. headquarters in Kabul that the new base was “unnecessary” and too opulent in its design, saying his plywood-walled headquarters at Camp Leatherneck were more that sufficient to support the incoming surge of Marines. “What the hell were they thinking?” an Army general is quoted as asking. “There was never any justification to build something this fancy.”

[Kill4Me]

IRS (idiotic revenue service)

[Absurd]

Mwahahaha.

[Kill4Me]