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Reggie
Joined: 21 Sep 2009
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 Posted: Mon Dec 28, 2009 2:45 am Post subject: |
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It seems like nothing has gone right in Afghanistan.
Osama bin Laden walked off into the sunset.
Our own guys killed Pat Tillman.
McChrystal lied about it to Tillman's parents and America.
McChrystal got promoted to engineer the remainder of this train wreck.
The US military is in the final stage of wrecking the American economy.
The Taliban seem to be, for all practical purposes, in control. |
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Reggie
Joined: 21 Sep 2009
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| Posted: Mon Dec 28, 2009 2:52 am Post subject: |
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| Kuros wrote: |
| Destroyed what country? It never had anything to destroy in the first place. That's kinda the problem. |
Never get into a fistfight with an ugly person. They have nothing to lose. |
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itaewonguy
Joined: 25 Mar 2003
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| Posted: Mon Dec 28, 2009 5:02 pm Post subject: |
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All I know is, something is not right here..
8 years in IRAQ hundreds of billions of dollars, and the enemy are some banditos hiding out in caves with no tanks, no jets, no battleships, no submarines, no satalite tracking devices, no nothing! but Ak47's and home made bombs! and they are beating the greatest military in the world hahahahahahaha JESUS CHRIST!!!
lol, what a joke!!!
I think the Americans just need to send in the MAGNIFICENT SEVEN!
hahahhaha, US military with all their toys cant even catch a man hiding in a cave hahahaha |
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Tiger Beer
Joined: 07 Feb 2003
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| Posted: Mon Dec 28, 2009 8:50 pm Post subject: |
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| bacasper wrote: |
| Tiger Beer wrote: |
| If I remember correctly back to the election...it was increased presense in Afghanistan, and flirting with the idea of knocking on Pakistan's backdoor as well. |
| Fox wrote: |
It's true, it's no surprise that Obama is continuing this war. It's not going back on any promises he made.
It's still the wrong thing to do. I don't care what he said he'd do, that doesn't change my view of what should be done, and of course I'm going to judge his choice based on my view of the correct path of action, just like anyone would.
He can be governing exactly how he said he'd govern and still be wrong. |
You are both absolutely right. In fact, I pointed out Obama's such war-mongering over one year before the election, well before his nomination, in the Will a Republocrat save us? thread.
I put "anti-war" in quotes in the OP because that is how he was being sold by the mainstream media on and to the Left. It was very easy to see through if people only would have looked. |
Yeah, that was particularly frustrating.
Watching FOX trying to paint Obama as this anti-war hippy...when there was absolutely nothing whatsoever to prop that image up. A lot of people were voting specifically against him because of that FOX painted image as well.
As to left media that thought he was a peacenik...well, that's a pretty much lost cause. |
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Reggie
Joined: 21 Sep 2009
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| Posted: Tue Dec 29, 2009 10:53 am Post subject: |
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| itaewonguy wrote: |
All I know is, something is not right here..
8 years in IRAQ hundreds of billions of dollars, and the enemy are some banditos hiding out in caves with no tanks, no jets, no battleships, no submarines, no satalite tracking devices, no nothing! but Ak47's and home made bombs! and they are beating the greatest military in the world hahahahahahaha JESUS CHRIST!!!
lol, what a joke!!!
I think the Americans just need to send in the MAGNIFICENT SEVEN!
hahahhaha, US military with all their toys cant even catch a man hiding in a cave hahahaha |
It is bad, but the problems never get addressed because complaining about the problems in our military is taboo in American culture. If an American is anti-failure, he or she is automatically accused of being anti-American, as if failure and America are supposed to be synonymous.
Instead of hearing generals make excuses for eight years of failure, I would like to hear them give some interviews like this guy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcfsQb8LB4w&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKKhRJRxAJo&feature=related
Fox News or the girlfriends of the soldiers can talk about how great our military is all they want but, unfortunately, the Taliban has a bigger say in the matter than Fox News or the girlfriends. |
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TheUrbanMyth
Joined: 28 Jan 2003
Location: Retired
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| Posted: Tue Dec 29, 2009 7:24 pm Post subject: |
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| itaewonguy wrote: |
All I know is, something is not right here..
8 years in IRAQ hundreds of billions of dollars, and the enemy are some banditos hiding out in caves with no tanks, no jets, no battleships, no submarines, no satalite tracking devices, no nothing! but Ak47's and home made bombs! and they are beating the greatest military in the world hahahahahahaha JESUS CHRIST!!!
lol, what a joke!!!
I think the Americans just need to send in the MAGNIFICENT SEVEN!
hahahhaha, US military with all their toys cant even catch a man hiding in a cave hahahaha |
Because they run across the border to PAKISTAN, where the U.S military can't follow them. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Mon Jan 04, 2010 9:03 am Post subject: |
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http://www.counterpunch.org/scahill12182009.html
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Stunning Statistics About the War That Everyone Should Know
By JEREMY SCAHILL
A hearing in Sen. Claire McCaskill�s Contract Oversightsubcommittee on contracting in Afghanistan has highlighted some important statistics that provide a window into the extent to which the Obama administration has picked up the Bush-era war privatization baton and sprinted with it. Overall, contractors now comprise a whopping 69% of the Department of Defense�s total workforce, �the highest ratio of contractors to military personnel in US history.� That�s not in one war zone�that�s the Pentagon in its entirety.
In Afghanistan, the Obama administration blows the Bush administration out of the privatized water. According to a memo[PDF] released by McCaskill�s staff,
�From June 2009 to September 2009, there was a 40% increase in Defense Department contractors in Afghanistan. During the same period, the number of armed private security contractors working for the Defense Department in Afghanistan doubled, increasing from approximately 5,000 to more than 10,000.�
At present, there are 104,000 Department of Defense contractors in Afghanistan. According to a report this week from the Congressional Research Service, as a result of the coming surge of 30,000 troops in Afghanistan, there may be up to 56,000 additional contractors deployed. But here is another group of contractors that often goes unmentioned: 3,600 State Department contractors and 14,000 USAID contractors. That means that the current total US force in Afghanistan is approximately 189,000 personnel (68,000 US troops and 121,000 contractors). And remember, that�s right now. And that, according to McCaskill, is a conservative estimate. A year from now, we will likely see more than 220,000 US-funded personnel on the ground in Afghanistan.
The US has spent more than $23 billion on contracts in Afghanistan since 2002. By next year, the number of contractors will have doubled since 2008 when taxpayers funded over $8 billion in Afghanistan-related contracts.
Despite the massive number of contracts and contractors in Afghanistan, oversight is utterly lacking. �The increase in Afghanistan contracts has not seen a corresponding increase in contract management and oversight,� according to McCaskill�s briefing paper. �In May 2009, DCMA [Defense Contract Management Agency] Director Charlie Williams told the Commission on Wartime Contracting that as many as 362 positions for Contracting Officer�s Representatives (CORs) in Afghanistan were currently vacant.�
A former USAID official, Michael Walsh, the former director of USAID�s Office of Acquisition and Assistance and Chief Acquisition Officer, told the Commission that many USAID staff are �administering huge awards with limited knowledge of or experience with the rules and regulations.� According to one USAID official, the agency is �sending too much money, too fast with too few people looking over how it is spent.� As a result, the agency does not �know � where the money is going.�
The Obama administration is continuing the Bush-era policy of hiring contractors to oversee contractors.
...
As for waste and abuse, the subcommittee says that the Defense Contract Audit Agency identified more than $950 million in questioned and unsupported costs submitted by Defense Department contracts for work in Afghanistan. That�s 16% of the total contract dollars reviewed.
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bucheon bum
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Mon Jan 04, 2010 11:07 am Post subject: |
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| It is amazing how much money our government has been pissing away for the last 10+ years. |
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bacasper
Joined: 26 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Mon Jan 04, 2010 12:00 pm Post subject: |
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| mises wrote: |
http://www.counterpunch.org/scahill12182009.html
| Quote: |
Stunning Statistics About the War That Everyone Should Know
By JEREMY SCAHILL
A hearing in Sen. Claire McCaskill�s Contract Oversightsubcommittee on contracting in Afghanistan has highlighted some important statistics that provide a window into the extent to which the Obama administration has picked up the Bush-era war privatization baton and sprinted with it. Overall, contractors now comprise a whopping 69% of the Department of Defense�s total workforce, �the highest ratio of contractors to military personnel in US history.� That�s not in one war zone�that�s the Pentagon in its entirety.
In Afghanistan, the Obama administration blows the Bush administration out of the privatized water. According to a memo[PDF] released by McCaskill�s staff,
�From June 2009 to September 2009, there was a 40% increase in Defense Department contractors in Afghanistan. During the same period, the number of armed private security contractors working for the Defense Department in Afghanistan doubled, increasing from approximately 5,000 to more than 10,000.�
At present, there are 104,000 Department of Defense contractors in Afghanistan. According to a report this week from the Congressional Research Service, as a result of the coming surge of 30,000 troops in Afghanistan, there may be up to 56,000 additional contractors deployed. But here is another group of contractors that often goes unmentioned: 3,600 State Department contractors and 14,000 USAID contractors. That means that the current total US force in Afghanistan is approximately 189,000 personnel (68,000 US troops and 121,000 contractors). And remember, that�s right now. And that, according to McCaskill, is a conservative estimate. A year from now, we will likely see more than 220,000 US-funded personnel on the ground in Afghanistan.
The US has spent more than $23 billion on contracts in Afghanistan since 2002. By next year, the number of contractors will have doubled since 2008 when taxpayers funded over $8 billion in Afghanistan-related contracts.
Despite the massive number of contracts and contractors in Afghanistan, oversight is utterly lacking. �The increase in Afghanistan contracts has not seen a corresponding increase in contract management and oversight,� according to McCaskill�s briefing paper. �In May 2009, DCMA [Defense Contract Management Agency] Director Charlie Williams told the Commission on Wartime Contracting that as many as 362 positions for Contracting Officer�s Representatives (CORs) in Afghanistan were currently vacant.�
A former USAID official, Michael Walsh, the former director of USAID�s Office of Acquisition and Assistance and Chief Acquisition Officer, told the Commission that many USAID staff are �administering huge awards with limited knowledge of or experience with the rules and regulations.� According to one USAID official, the agency is �sending too much money, too fast with too few people looking over how it is spent.� As a result, the agency does not �know � where the money is going.�
The Obama administration is continuing the Bush-era policy of hiring contractors to oversee contractors.
...
As for waste and abuse, the subcommittee says that the Defense Contract Audit Agency identified more than $950 million in questioned and unsupported costs submitted by Defense Department contracts for work in Afghanistan. That�s 16% of the total contract dollars reviewed.
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So I should change the title of this thread to
Obama quintuples private contractors in Afghanistan? |
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