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Pentagon Boondoggle
The Pentagon pays an average of $400 to put a gallon of fuel into a combat vehicle or aircraft in Afghanistan.
The statistic is likely to play into the escalating debate in Congress over the cost of a war that entered its ninth year last week.Pentagon officials have told the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee a gallon of fuel costs the military about $400 by the time it arrives in the remote locations in Afghanistan where U.S. troops operate.
I wonder how much of the $400 winds up in the pocket of Halliburton or some other contractor?
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The US military is aware of this problem, but the civilian authorities are not. Defense contractors have lobbies, the soldiers do not.
Cringing liberals and chickenhawk conservatives are not prepared to make serious decisions .
October 16, 2009 12:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
I wonder how much it costs per soldier for Kellogg Brown and Root to poison them with toxic chemicals?
October 16, 2009 1:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
Much lower on a per solder basis. Good cost control.
October 16, 2009 11:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
You'd need a supercomputer to calculate the number of middlemen making a buck from our defense expenditures and who deliver not a shred of value to the end product. I'm quite sure the number of business arrangements in place for the sole purpose of making money without providing a real service or goods of any sort would just blow your mind. This is theft and a lie on a grand scale.
October 16, 2009 5:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
Don't ask don't tell Afghanistan style, part of that $400 goes to the Taliban:
October 16, 2009 9:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
link for above: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1928899,00.html
October 16, 2009 9:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
"The US has broken the second rule of war. That is, don't go fighting with your land army on the mainland of Asia. Rule One is don't march on Moscow. I developed these two rules myself."
(spoken of the US approach to the Vietnam War) Quoted in Chalfont's Montgomery of Alamein.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Montgomery,_1st_Viscount_Montgomery_of_Alamein
Supplying fuel to Afghanistan is sort of like supplying fuel to Utah, New Mexico and Colorado from San Francisco, but with the Pakistani rail network taking you only part of the way, and a lot of hostile territory around the road networks beyond.
October 16, 2009 11:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
Why does Congress authorize unlimited DoD spending via budget and supplements with effectively no audit, and the DoD is continually unable to accounts Billions of expenditures annually, while Congress pisses and moans about supporting and funding its Citizens needs in heath care, infrastructure and protection from Financial Sharks?
October 16, 2009 11:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
Because folks in Congress and their good buddies make money off of the war, sick folks and financial shenanigans.
Cherchez de l'argent.
October 16, 2009 2:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'd be curious to know how much of the AfPak aid actually gets spent in those countries. How much sticks to the DC suburbs? Half?
October 17, 2009 7:38 AM | Reply | Permalink