The US handed over the Camp Kearney base in Paktika Province to the
Afghan government in 2014, with an estimated $8 billion in equipment
still inside. Today, the estimation is that about $1 billion worth of
equipment is left.
So what happened between then and now that cost the site about $7
billion? Mass looting. The provincial governor says that former
governors, local mayors, MPs, and commanders have all had a go at the
site, and everyone has been entering the base and taking anything that isn’t nailed down.
Though he didn’t name names, pretty much everything was considered fair
game, with military equipment stripped, vehicles stolen and sold off,
and even locked containers full of weapons broken open and looted.
While the looting apparently was not legal or authorized, it’s not at
all clear the government intends to do anything about it either. Despite
having a fairly good idea that the looting was mostly done by officials
in positions to get access, it’s not clear how much is left or who has
it.
There there… US defense contractors stand patriotic and ready to resupply all the lost materiel.
Just makes you proud to be an American, where at least you know you’re free.
Were the missing items pallets of 100 dollar bills? Why do we keep letting DoD et al get away with these blatant robberies? Heads must roll, but they won’t.
Hey Americans… you knew Afghanistan was a corrupt country when you chose to invade it and give certain Afghans a lot of weapons, right? And if you’re willing to continue blowing up innocent Afghans in a war that shows no sign of ever ending, you’re probably also willing to massively arm even better whatever faction ends up facing off with whoever now has the mountain of guns you just gave to the Afghan officials with the strongest criminal tendencies (in other words, apparently all of them). Who is your partner in war again..?
The Afghans aren’t the criminals in the Afghan saga. What did they do to deserve being attacked, occupied and dominated….????
The Pentagon paid $7 billion for the loot. Looters will sell it for a small fraction of the amount.
Yeah, what it’s actually worth.
Worse it would be use to attack civilian, US & afghanistan forces
Your tax dollars at work.
Either the gear has to be used, stolen, blown up or expended. The military industrial complex has way too big a lobby and there’s way too much money appropriated by Congress to allow the materiel they supply to ever be unneeded. The US GDP would be negative if we didn’t run guns and ammo.
“quotation marks needed”