Afghan base building surge

[pscot]

indicate that we're digging in for a long stay. This is a long, detailed artcle from Asia Times. http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/LJ23Df02.html

Some go by names steeped in military tradition like Leatherneck and Geronimo. Many sound fake-tough, like Ramrod, Lightning, Cobra, and Wolverine. Some display a local flavor, like Orgun-E, Howz-e-Madad, and Kunduz. All, however, have one thing in common: they are US and allied forward operating bases, also known as FOBs. They are part of a base-building surge that has left the countryside of Afghanistan dotted with military posts, themselves expanding all the time, despite the drawdown of forces promised by President Barack Obama beginning in July 2011.

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Major General Kenneth S Dowd - the director of logistics for US Central Command for three years before leaving the post in June - offered this partial account of the ongoing Afghan base build-up in the September/October issue of Army Sustainment, the official logistics journal of the army:
"Military construction projects scheduled for completion over the next 12 months will deliver four new runways, ramp space for 8 C-17 transports, and parking for 50 helicopters and 24 close air support and 26 intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft. This represents roughly one-third of the airfield paving projects currently funded in the Afghanistan theater of operations. Additional minor construction plans called for the construction of over 12 new FOBs and expansion of 18 existing FOBs."



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The building boom occurring on US bases across Afghanistan and the contracts for future construction being awarded at the moment seem to confirm that, whatever the White House has in mind, the military is operating on something closer to the Petraeus timeline. The new special operations base at Mazar-e-Sharif, to take but one of many examples, may not be completed and fully occupied for at least a year and a half. Other construction contracts, not yet even awarded, are expected to take a year or more to complete. And military timelines suggest that, if the Pentagon gets its way, American troop levels may not dip below the numbers present when Obama took office, approximately 36,000 troops, until 2016 or beyond.

At the moment, the American people are being offered one story about how the American war in Afghanistan is to proceed, while in Afghanistan their tax dollars are being invested in another trajectory entirely. The question is: How permanent are US bases in Afghanistan? And if they are not meant to be used for a decade or more to come, why is the Pentagon still building as if they were?

Recently, the army sought bids from contractors willing to supply power plants and supporting fuel systems at forward operating bases in Afghanistan for up to five years. Power plants, fuel systems, and the bases on which they are being built are facts on the ground. Such facts carry a weight of their own, and offer a window into US designs in Afghanistan that may be at least as relevant as anything Barack Obama or his aides have been saying about draw-downs, deadlines, or future withdrawal plans. If you want to ask hard questions about America's Afghan war, start with those bases.

[FormerDittoHead]

1. ...why is the Pentagon still building as if they were?

Because the Pentagon does what it wants to do. It's autonomous. They do what they want, tell the President / Congress that's what they're doing and then our elected officials then have to sell to us.

Obama wanted a way out of Afghanistan, he was told otherwise, and the revelation is that is how things work.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/26/AR2010092603766.html

"This stark divide between the nation's civilian and military leaders dominated Obama's Afghanistan strategy review, creating a rift that persists to this day."

[snot]

2. K&R'd. Why am I hearing crickets?

[Demeter]

3. They emigrated from Iraq

we are so doomed, captives of crazy people.

[ixion]

4. Yeah, someone try and tell me again how we're pulling out of Afghanistan in 2011

because you don't build bases if you're leaving in a few months.

[awoke_in_2003]

6. We are pulling out...

just like we did in Iraq. Oh, wait....

[ixion]

7. Yeah, all the time they were building that "super" base, they claimed to be pulling out

that was 5 or 6 YEARS ago...

[awoke_in_2003]

5. "Ramrod"

sounds like an appropriate name, as someone is sure on the receiving end of it.