$34 Million Marine HQ Can't Be Explained
We've all done things that we realize are stupid. Then there are times we
have done something dumb. The U.S. government has gone beyond both those marks
and dropped into idiocy.
In August 2009, Barack Obama laid out a plan for
withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan. In May, 2010, Marine commanders in
Afghanistan determined the proposal for a new command headquarters in Helmand
would not be necessary. Yet in February 2011 the Department of Defense (from now
on to be known as DODo because they should also be extinct) issued the task
order to begin construction on the $34 million edifice. The DODos took ownership
in November 2012.
Now $34 million in the scheme of things is not even in the chump change
category. But it is the principle of government waste that is at stake here not
the amount.
This luxurious, 64,000-square-foot edifice has a briefing theater (complete
with plush seats for the overstuffed rear ends of the people who were supposed
to use it), office space for 1,500 people and a war room.
John Sopko, government watchdog over military projects, wrote in a report,
"It appears to be the best constructed building I have seen in my travels in
Afghanistan. Unfortunately, it is unused, unoccupied and presumably will never
be used for its intended purpose."
There are several other major expense projects cited by Sopko as
mismanagement items but this has to be the worst. First, as war plans changed,
why wasn't the building nixed? Second, the U.S. economy is struggling to
recover, this project is funded by government theft of earned income from
taxpayers through its injurious tax system and--hold onto your sanity--the
government hired a British contractor so the expense didn't even
aid the U.S. economy!!!
There's more bad news. The Pentagon is still planning on installing
communications equipment, at a cost of more than $3 million, in the
building.
Mr. Sopko said, "I am deeply troubled that the military may have
spent taxpayer funds on a construction project that should have been stopped."
Uh, pardon me Mr. Sopko but why did you use the word 'may?'
There is no may about this boondoggle. The military is left with the
unsavory choice of demolishing the building or turning it over the the Afghanis
who are going to once again be under the thumb of the militant Islamists we went
there to get rid of. How is handing a grade A tech center to the enemy going to
do us any good?
Sopko has given the military until July 25 to provide answers to his
questions about the project.
Let me see, this thing goes back as far as 2010, it is now the middle of
2013. Maybe this explains Benghazi. The government has worked on this bogus
project for three years yet needs more time to come up with some solid,
meaningful answers? Benghazi was an immediate crisis, by the time all the
buttons would have been pushed in that case the outcome would have been the
same, America still waiting for answers.
Just so you know, it has been estimated it will cost America $7 billion
just to complete the withdrawal from Afghanistan. Most of that cost will go to
destroy equipment that has to be abandoned, the rest for freight costs to get
the items deemed salvage worthy to ports by railcar.
All this while Obama has changed his terms of withdrawal yet again. Now we
are going to leave some troops behind for 'limited mission' such as training the
Afghan forces and fighting terrorists.
From stupid past dumb and down to idiotic--that's our government.
"I have sworn on the altar of God eternal hostility
to every form of tyranny over the mind of man."--Thomas
Jefferson
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