we will be staying in Afghanistan

[ensho]

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/KK11Df05.html


Pentagon starts an Afghan building boom


In recent weeks, President Barack Obama has been contemplating the future of United States military operations in Afghanistan. He has also been touting the effects of his policies at home, reporting that this year's Recovery Act not only saved jobs but also was "the largest investment in infrastructure since Eisenhower built the Interstate Highway System in the 1950s". At the same time, another much less publicized US-taxpayer-funded infrastructure boom has been underway. This one in Afghanistan.

While Washington has put modest funding into civilian projects in Afghanistan this year - ranging from small-scale power plants, to "public latrines", to a meat market - the real construction boom is
military in nature. The Pentagon has been funneling stimulus-sized sums of money to defense contractors to markedly boost its military infrastructure in that country.

In fiscal year 2009, for example, the civilian US Agency for International Development awarded US$20 million in contracts for work in Afghanistan, while the US Army alone awarded $2.2 billion - $834 million of it for construction projects. According to Walter Pincus of the Washington Post, the Pentagon has spent "roughly $2.7 billion on construction over the past three fiscal years" in that country and, "if its request is approved as part of the fiscal 2010 defense appropriations bill, it would spend another $1.3 billion on more than 100 projects at 40 sites across the country, according to a Senate report on the legislation".

-snip holds 8 paragraphs of the bldg. going on at Bagram and the dollars spent and to be spent-

-snip holds 5 paragraphs of the bldg./money going on at Kandahar-

A mob of FOBs
It seems that no one outside the Pentagon knows just exactly how many US camps, Forward Operating bases (FOBs), combat outposts, patrol bases and other fortified sites the US military is currently using or constructing in Afghanistan. And while the Americans have recently abandoned a few of their installations, effectively ceding the northeastern province of Nuristan to Taliban forces, elsewhere a base-building boom has been underway.

In April, Contrack was awarded another $28 million contract for work on airfields, to be performed at unspecified sites in Afghanistan. In June, Florida-based IAP Worldwide Services was awarded a $21 million contract to enhance electrical power distribution at the US Marines' still-growing FOB Leatherneck in Helmand province, a Taliban stronghold. Scheduled for completion in June 2010, that project is only part of IAP's work, which has involved "almost two dozen power plants at US Army bases in Afghanistan and Iraq" that, according to the company's promotional literature, its teams have "delivered, installed, operated and maintained".

FOB Dwyer, also in Helmand province, is fast becoming a "hub" for air support in southern Afghanistan, according to Captain Vincent Rea of the air force's 809th Expeditionary Red Horse Squadron. To that end, Marine and air force personnel are building runways and helipads to accommodate ever more fixed-wing and rotary aircraft on the base. The two services collaborated on the construction of a 4,300-foot airstrip capable of accommodating giant C-130 Hercules transport aircraft, which increase the US capability to support more troops on more bases in more remote areas.

-long snip-

The building and fortifying of bases in Afghanistan isn't the only sign that the US military is digging in for an even longer haul. Another key indicator can be found in a Pentagon contract awarded in late September to SOS International, a privately owned "operations support company" that provides everything from "cultural advisory services" to "intelligence and counterintelligence analysis and training" to numerous federal agencies. That contract, primarily for linguistic services in support of military operations in Afghanistan, has an estimated completion date of September 2014.
---------------------------------------


Obama has already decided

[ChiciB1]

1. Oh, Goody, Goody! Be Still My Heart! NOT! n/t

[AndyA]

2. ...Meanwhile, in America...

...oh, never mind. America doesn't matter. People can die, it happens. Gotta make sure the health insurance companies make a profit, though.

Gotta cover up for Bush and Cheney.

Gotta hide things, to hell with that transparency that was promised.

The Constitution? Why, it's just a G*d damned piece of paper, right? :eyes:

[valerief]

3. Well, instead of war, what would happen if we used the money to build tourist resorts?

If you can't beat the Afghans, join 'em!

[kenny blankenship]

4. The Long War is estimated by the Pentagon folk who're planning it to last 50 years

Yes, they plan to stay in Afghanistan. Indefinitely. As long as there's natural gas in Central Asia. The plan is to stay and still be large and in charge of Central Asia militarily, long after all of us are dead. Afghanistan, as I've said before, is uniquely useful in that we don't have to ask anybody for the use of the territory since it is a failed state without a credible government. We can move a million troops into it if we wanted, we could stay 50 years (not that they'll come out in public and announce an intention like that). No one can tell us "You can't do that!" No one except armed Afghani tribesmen. They'll fight us, and that will give imperialist warmongers and their puppet Presidents all the excuse they need, all the domestic political cover they need, to continue the occupation forever.

Read about the Long War:
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20091102/hayden