There is no point to the US military staying in Afghanistan.

[milestogo]

There was no point for the Russian military to be in Afghanistan.

There was no point for the British military to be in Afganistan.

There is no military solution to Afghanistan- its just an excuse for perpetual war.

[FiveGoodMen]

1. Agreed. Of course, Obama bumped up the numbers too ...

...and announced it while accepting the peace prize!

[underpants]

2. I don't understand what assets are there?

Oil pipelines?
Heroin?

Usually there's something to take. It's the nature of war.

[MyNameIsKhan]

4. Well our security is there, this is a way to keep Pakistan in check, otherwise

Afghanistan will be become a breeding grounds of recruiting and planning terrorism around the work, remember even though 9/11 ws carried over by Saudi citizens, it was planned and executed by Pakistani citizen Khaleed Sheilk Mohamad...

[FiveGoodMen]

7. $1 Trillion Trove of Rare Minerals Revealed Under Afghanistan

https://www.livescience.com/47682-rare-earth-minerals-found-under-afghanistan.html

[underpants]

19. Thanks.

[FiveGoodMen]

20. On the other hand, I just found this

Dear President Trump, Afghanistan's Minerals Aren't Very Valuable, They're Really Not

https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2017/07/27/dear-president-trump-afghanistans-minerals-arent-very-valuable-theyre-really-not/#283fbbc22615

This is almost amusing actually, Donald Trump is reported, in the New York Times, as thinking that Afghanistan's valuable mineral deposits might be a good reason for the US to stay in that country. The humour here coming from the role of the New York Times in misreporting the value of the minerals in Afghanistan some 7 years ago. True, they weren't the original source but they certainly propagated the mistake enthusiastically.

The point being that there are a lot of rocks in Afghanistan, those rocks contain metals and if the metals were out of the rocks and out of Afghanistan then they'd be valuable. But they're not out and out, the metals are still in the rocks in Afghanistan and thus aren't valuable. As we can tell from the fact that no one is lining up to pay for them.

Thus the idea that the US should stay there in order to aid in exploiting this value doesn't really work out, there's no value to be exploiting. This is the bit the NY Times just doesn't get:

“ Trump has talked with President Ashraf Ghani about possible opportunities for American mining companies in Afghanistan, according to a report by The New York Times. Three of Trump’s senior aides also met with Michael N. Silver, an executive at the chemicals firm American Elements, about the possibilities for mining rare-earth materials in that country. American officials initially estimated that Afghanistan’s mineral deposits could be valued at as much as $1 trillion, although that number has been revised downward since.

[milestogo]

8. Minerals such as lithium.

[Iliyah]

26. Besides minerals

opium poppies = heroin

[Proud liberal 80]

3. If/when we leave

If/when we leave, the government/country will be taken over. Not saying that is a valid reason for staying,just saying that is what is going to happen.

[Sancho]

5. Rare minerals

They don't say much about it

[jalan48]

6. It helps justify our huge, obscene Defense Budget. These contractors don't work for minimum wage.

[JoeStuckInOH]

11. You'd be surprised. I was a contractor for awhile.

Around the time I was leaving Afghanistan, civilian field engineers working quite technical jobs as C4ISR technicians (ie: drone maintenance/flight/operation, aerial surveillance, operators, analysts, etc.) were on contracts making about $120k. That was 3 years ago and the guys in the business I still talk to say they are making even less nowadays ... about $90k-$100k and their supervisors/superiors are only making $150k.

Minimum Wage? Hell no...

But they work 12 hours/day, 7 days a week (no holidays/weekends). That's 84 hours per week every week! At the supposedly modern contract rate of $100k that's only about $22/hr. For comparison sake, a $36k-$46k job working a full 32-40 hour "normal" work week in the US is what $22/hr gets you back home. On top of that, the typical biannual vacation (or R&R as they call it) requires the contractor to BUY THIER OWN plane ticket from the middle east back to the US. That's a $1200-$1400 round trip Delta ticket I used to buy twice a year to see my family when on vacation... and when I was on vacation I wasn't making my 84 hours per week either. So those plane tickets and 6 lost weeks of overtime cost a $100k-contractor about $8800 just get home and be away from work.

So no, it's not minimum wage... but by and large, nowadays, the majority of contractors are working in literal actual warzones for $22-$25 per hour. Want a job contracting for $22-$25/hr? I can hook you up with guys I know.

Most people wanting to make big bucks "contracting" when I break it down like that is "hell no".

[jalan48]

12. Thanks for the info. I wonder what the mangers/CEO's of the big defense contractors make.

I've always thought if everyone involved in these endless wars made the same wage as a GI, the wars would come to an end.

[JoeStuckInOH]

13. The biggest defense CEO makes $19.5 million dollars. Wan't to know why the army uses contractors?

It's cheaper. By a lot.

Now I know what you're thinking... How can that be true. Even the $100k contractor is making senior officer pay. And nearly every enlisted armed forced will never make anything close to that in their lives. Most enlisted over there probably make around $40k (?).

The army has to train, transport and pay the soldier. They pay for all their gear and all housing. They pay that soldier for the duration of their service whether there's a war or not, and when that soldier exits the military there is almost always some % level of military disability pay. And if the enlisted soldier does 20 years and "retires" (at age 38-40) then there's retirement and other benefits on top of the disability pay to be paid for another 30+ years.

Civilian contractors, by comparison, pocket much more money as the service members over there... but once they leave Uncle Sam is DONE with them forever.

"War is a Racket" - Smedley Butler

I'd heard that once or twice before going over. After being there first hand (and on the money side of things, too)... it couldn't be any more true.

[jalan48]

14. I was under the impression that the taxpayers were paying for the contractors and their employees.

Perhaps I've heard to many stories about inflated costs ($600 toilet seats) that contractors bill the US Government (taxpayers). My thought is that if you take the profit out of war we may not see wars like this going on indefinitely.

[JoeStuckInOH]

15. Well, yes. The military (DoD) pays the companies for each set of contractor boots on the ground.

And taxpayers fund the government... so in a way I suppose taxpayers pay both for contractors and armed forces paychecks.

Now this is hearsay on my part, even I don't know how true it is, but I heard on several occasions that my group of contractors rate to the government was $500k/year/person. So the company got $500k from the DoD (or whoever the military customer was) for each engineer on the ground every year they were there. And then there was the cost of the systems that the military purchased (that we were there to work on).

It's really unavoidable though. With super-new technologies on the battlefields, there not always military specialties (MOS) trained to operate the latest and greatest gadgets. So field engineers (working on contract) often bridge the gap between commercial defense companies and the Armed Forces in the field.

[jalan48]

16. Thanks for clarification. It just seems to me that there is big money being made on wars.

A pet peeve of mine over the years has been the ads for the armed services on television. At the end the voice in the ad says, "Brought to you by the US Army". I listen to it and think, actually the ad was brought to me by myself and other taxpayers paying for it. The Army (and all of the war machine) is not an independent, profit making company-it exists because we fund it as taxpayers.

[Orrex]

21. Doesn't a trade-off come in the form of accountability?

My understanding is that contractors aren't subject to the uniform of conduct--is this correct?

If so, other than firing a contractor, what steps can be taken to prevent gross or even criminal misconduct?

[JoeStuckInOH]

25. Yes and no...

If you think about it, the government more often than not OWNS the millions-of-dollars asset you are operating or working on (or managing). If you break it, the government certainly goes after the parent defense company running that contractor program to get reimbursement and it's up to the company to decide to go after the individual responsible for destroying government property. We were told any criminally negligent actions CAN be prosecuted as such. This is rare, and often termination along with "blacklisting" from any other DoD contracting is the route taken.

Obviously any expressly illegal actions (espionage, negligent/purposeful homicide, treason, theft, etc.) are treated just as if you had performed those action on a garrison base in the united states.

All of this is going to be governed by the SOFA in place with the host nation. (Google: Status Of Forces Agreements). A SOFA usually includes, among many other things, how unlawful actions by both the military and the military's civilian contractors are dealt with. It's basically the rules of the game for occupying another country that is agreed upon by all parties involved. Without a SOFA, the military and civilians over there would be subject to local host nation laws. In fact, while I was over there the Iraq SOFA expired at some point and almost all of the civilian contractors were pulled out of Iraq (until a new one could be established) because they would be subject to local restrictions. Imagine breaking laws in an Islamic nation you never knew existed and then being jailed/prosecuted for them by local Islamic courts... and your family or the US government has no ability to help you. Bad news all around.

It's all very convoluted and solved by the fact that:

a) most of the US civilian contractors over there have DoD security clearances and aren't scumbags anyways with detailed background checks.

b) if you're a civilian you can be kicked off a base by the commanding officers for WHATEVER reason (justified or unjustified) without recourse. Usually you get transferred by your boss to another base, but if there's no other base that needs you... welcome to the unemployment line. And make no mistake, there are military personnel that dislike contractors just for being contractors. I can't completely fault them for that either - I understand.

c) At a higher level, you can be removed from DoD contract service and prevented from doing any further work in the defense industry (not just overseas but in the US, too ... ie: Blacklisted).

[WinstonSmith00]

33. Thats more money

Than any of the people they help kill in afghanistan or their families will ever see in multiple lifetimes... Poor murder for hire contractors making less than 100k... They deserve prison.

[spanone]

9. longest. war. in. america's. history.

[CrispyQ]

10. Jon Stewart's "Ore on Terror" from June 2010.

http://www.cc.com/video-clips/xu3bs0/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart-ore-on-terror

Worth the watch. Four mins.

[asiliveandbreathe]

17. Didn't the soviets wage war against Afghanistan for 7 years..and lost? - eom

[dalton99a]

22. They couldn't wait to get out:

[bluepen]

18. Largest wealth-transfer project in the history of this country.

From us to defense contractors.

Think it's a coincidence that WH Chief of Staff General John Kelly has a net worth of $4 million? I wondered: how does a General in the US military amass $4 million? Turns out he did so by "serving" on the board of defense contractor companies and lobbying Congress for them.

This is more of the same now.

I think we were more than justified in going after al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan, post-9/11. But that mission is long over.

[WinstonSmith00]

30. Embezzlement

Is the name of the game.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

23. I supported what we did in Afghanistan immediately post-9/11

But we wound up losing our momentum there when Bush diverted resources to going after Iraq, which turned out to be the ultimate WTF moment of his (P)residency. I'm not honestly sure what we hope to achieve at this point absent some nation building, which Trump seems loathe to do.

[WinstonSmith00]

31. How can you support

Dropping bombs on children blowing up hospitals destroying families and communities and reigning down death and destruction on a country that never did anything to the US.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

38. I don't support any of those things

What I did support at the time was rooting Al-Queda out of their Taliban-protected sanctuary, getting rid of the Taliban, and helping form a stable government for Afghanistan. Efforts fell short in all of those areas due to Bush's push to go to war in Iraq and now we're stuck in a seemingly never ending quagmire over there and I agree that we really just need to get out because we're just not really accomplishing anything and haven't been for awhile.

[Orsino]

24. You just identified the point.

The perpetuation of a fake "war zone" in which corporations can operate free of regulations to extract local wealth and steal our own Treasury.

Not too different from a lot of other wars.

[Not Ruth]

27. If you can join the Navy and choose not to go on a boat

You should be able to join the Army and choose not to go into a war zone

[WinstonSmith00]

29. Choose not to join the Army nt.

[asiliveandbreathe]

36. Also if you are delayed entry (Navy) you can cancel enlistment..

From a former recruiter....(not me, but someone very very close to me)

[WinstonSmith00]

28. We need to let our Congress know

We no longer want to pay for death and destruction. Time to starve the beast and cut all funding for these illegal acts of aggression!

[still_one]

32. Unfortunately, there is now because of Reagan's foreign policy blunder there. When Russia went into

Afghanistan, someone had the bright idea that we would supply support to the Mujahideen there to defeat the Russians. Well, it worked, and when the Russians left, a void was left in that country, and instead of filling that void with aid to help rebuild Afghanistan, we walked away, which allowed the Taliban, War Lords, and other radical groups to take over.

Now it is a complete mess, and a haven for every terrorist group, which was where 9/11 was conceived.

What the U.S. through NATO is doing is trying to establish a stable government in Afghanistan through the United Nations with the United Nations Mission Assistance Mission. It is one of two political missions dispatched through the UN to global hotspots. The other mission is in Iraq. These missions represent an international civilian counterpart to the military efforts of NATO and the U.S. Its main functions are to provide the mechanism to mediate disputes, coordinate humanitarian relief and development, and provide human rights monitoring.

We dropped the ball when we pushed the Russians out of Afghanistan, by not helping the country setup a stable government, which allowed the country to become a haven for terrorists, including those that were responsible for 9/11. To add insult to injury, we invaded Iraq based on a lie, which destabilized the entire middle east.

Now we are trying to undo that damage, and we are between a rock and a hard place.

As for what the imbecile in the WH plans are, no one has any idea

[WinstonSmith00]

34. only the people of afghanistan

Can establish a government and rule of law.

Occupiers colonialist and aggressors will always meet with resistance and cause more turmoil.

The only right thing to do is to leave and allow the citizens of that country to find its own way.

That war was never about terrorism its about natural resources and pipelines and greed.

[liberal N proud]

35. The military industrial complex thinks otherwise

[FreeStateDemocrat]

37. Military bases for strikes in the area, prevent power vacuum so to keep China, Iran, etc out but...

the main reason is:

"Well, come on Wall Street, don't move slow, why man, this is war a-go-go
There's plenty good money to be made by supplying the Army with the tools of the trade"

https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/countryjoeandthefish/thefishcheerifeellikeimfixintodie.html