US forces in Afghanistan nearly destroyed vital airfield

[dipsydoodle]

Source: Guardian

US forces tearing down unwanted bases in Afghanistan nearly destroyed the only runway in a restive eastern province, even though major supply roads are riddled with Taliban bombs.

The base was slated for destruction because of fears that the Afghan army would struggle to secure a perimeter over 20km (12 miles) long. A US policy that unwanted bases must be totally cleared doomed the runway, and with foreign troops set to leave this year, work began in early spring to return it to dirt.

Logistics teams had already dismantled nearly one-tenth of Forward Operating Base Sharana, the main US and Nato headquarters in eastern Paktika province, when local Afghan commanders and officials raised the alarm in Kabul and a delegation was hastily put together to visit the site.

Some of the larger bases in the country have to go because Nato estimates it would cost $250m (£160m) a year just to operate and maintain them all, according to Ashraf Ghani, former finance minister and now head of the national commission on "transition", Nato's term for the handover of security from foreign to Afghan forces.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/apr/30/us-decommissioning-bases-afghanistan-airfield

[dixiegrrrrl]

1. Wonder if those "US forces" are contractors?

We paid billions for contractors to create so many bases in Afghanistan, and now we are destroying them?
Why am I surprised...

[marble falls]

2. 80% of "contractors" in Afghanistan are mercinaries not construction crews.

[ManiacJoe]

3. Do you have any documentation on this?

I would love to see the official numbers, like we had for Iraq.

[marble falls]

4. start with this one.

http://www.alternet.org/story/133289/obama_to_bring_more_mercenaries_to_afghanistan_--_sound_familiar?paging=off

War on Iraq
Creators Syndicate / By Jim Hightower
comments_image COMMENT NOW!
Obama to Bring More Mercenaries to Afghanistan -- Sound Familiar?
As Obama begins winding down the war in Iraq, he is building up his own war farther east. Like Bush, he will depend on private military contractors.
March 27, 2009 |


Hi-ho, hi-ho, it's off to war we go!

As President Barack Obama begins winding down the Bush war in Iraq, he is building up his own war farther east. We're told that it will be a new, expanded, extra-special American adventure in Afghanistan, involving a vigorous surge strategy to "stabilize" this perpetually unstable land.

The initial surge will add 17,000 troops to the 36,000 already there. Then, later this year, there is to be a second troop surge of another 17,000 or so. This mass of soldiers is expected to be deployed to a series of new garrisons to be built in far-flung regions of this impoverished, rural, mostly illiterate warlord state that is ruled by hundreds of fractious, heavily armed tribal leaders. We're not told how much this escalation will cost, but it will at least double the $2 billion a month that American taxpayers are already shelling out for the Afghan war.

The extra-special part of this effort is to come from a simultaneous "civilian surge" of hundreds of U.S. economic development experts. "What we can't do," said Obama in an interview last Sunday, "is think that just a military approach in Afghanistan is going to be able to solve our problems." To win the hearts (and cooperation) of the Afghan people, this development leg of the operation will try to build infrastructure (roads, schools, etc.), create new crop alternatives to lure hardscrabble farmers out of poppy production and generally lift the country's bare-subsistence living standard.

<snip>


For the yucks google (using any other search engine but google, of course) both "armed contractors" and "armed mercenaries" in Afghanistan.

Contractors paid to carry arms have been implicated in scores of deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan. If they're paid to perform military services, they're mercenaries and they have outnumber US military troops for the last five or so years in Afghanistan.

[ManiacJoe]

5. A good starting point, but probably a little dated now.

This site says the security contractors are down to about 20% now.
http://www.your-poc.com/2nd-quarter-fy-2013-iraq-afghanistan-contractor-census/