The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) has documented a long, long list of failed programs wasting billions of dollars over the course of the 13 year war. The bad news keeps coming.
Today, SIGAR is asking the Air Force for a good explanation of a program on plane acquisition for the Afghan Air Force. They bought the planes and refurbished them at a cost of $468 million before deciding they couldn’t get spare parts for the planes to keep them useful.
What happened to the $468 million worth of planes then? They quickly became $32,000 worth of scrap metal. SIGAR’s inquiry in particular seeks to find out why they didn’t bother to at least resell the planes to recover some of the cost.
After that, the Pentagon decided to buy a whole new set of planes from Lockheed Martin that it decided would do the job just as well. There are growing doubts that the Afghan military will be able to maintain even these newer planes, however, so the losses just keep mounting.
Why worry? we can always go to plan B….China.
Three cheers for turning war planes into scrap metal! How many people are still alive because these death machines were destroyed?
I used to be in the scrap metal business. It's hard work, but not a bad way to make a living…
take out a large short position
What the average American mistakes as waste, war profiteers like Lockheed Martin recognize as profit. Since no foreign country ever presented any serious military threat to this country, wind-fall profits for defense industry corporations has been the sole purpose behind every war the US has waged over the past 200 years.
So the Plan is working! The US public haven't complained at all…and they're paying.
Good 'nuf for gummit work…Bushie was sure right in 2003 when he said, "Freedumb is on the march!"
And you tax serfs get to pay for it all. Now get back to work. Uncle Sucker has a bunch more planes for your foreign friends to turn to scrap.
Whoever was hawking that scrap metal obviously did not understand anything about marketing. All that needed to be done was haul the scrap back to the good ol' US of A and sell it to the warmonger booster club membership in little one cubic-inch pieces, priced at $2500 each, with "certificates of authenticity" attesting to the fact that the sucker — err, buyer — is "investing in a commemorative icon that actually defended Freedom. You cannot put a price tag on that!"
What happened to the $468 million worth of planes then? They quickly became $32,000 worth of scrap metal.
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And they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.—Isaiah 2:3–4