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IPFS News Link • Military

Cost of air conditioning for U.S. troops in MidEast more than NASA budget

• Kase Wickman via RawStory.com

The United States spends $20.2 billion annually on air conditioning for troops stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan — more than NASA's entire budget, NPR reported.

In fact, the same amount of money that keeps soldiers cool is the amount the G-8 has committed to helping the fledgling democracies in Tunisia and Egypt.

The necessary cooling costs so much because of the remote locations and danger involved in delivery equipment and fuel, Steven Anderson, a retired logistician who served under Gen. David Petraeus in Iraq.

"When you consider the cost to deliver the fuel to some of the most isolated places in the world — escorting, command and control, medevac support — when you throw all that infrastructure in, we're talking over $20 billion," Anderson told NPR. "You've got risks that are associated with moving the fuel almost every mile of the way."

And it's a long way to move the fuel: 800 miles of "improved goat trails" separate Karachi, where the fuel is shipped in, to Afghanistan. The transport takes 18 days.

 

5 Comments in Response to

Comment by Jacob Smith
Entered on:

@Michael Wilson

You're a fuckfaced faggot my friend.  Fuck the military and fuck our twisted corporate government.  Don't even start trying to justify this article.  There are a billion people on this earth starving but ohhh wait the army is getting warm?  Let's send them some fucking a/c on a silver platter.

SEMPER FI (can rot)

 

Comment by Michael Wilson
Entered on:

 @Kris Smith

If all we are doing is securing oil, then why the fuck is Al Qeada shooting at us? They have no interest in oil, they get funds from selling opium and then use that money in attempts to kill Americans. When the SEALs killed Bin Laden and found the plans for another attack on American soil, do you think he planned it because we were securing oil? Fuck no he just wants to kill Americans, and the Soldiers and Marines are out there stopping them so that you can sit at home staring at a computer screen and bitch about how you think the government isn't looking out for national security and is only trying to get more money. Why don't you go right now and find a Marine and tell him your thoughts, I bet they would just love to hear them.

SEMPER FI

Comment by Kris Smith
Entered on:

@ Chris THEMARINE,

First of all, nobody is over there defending American freedom. We were fine before you went there and we'll be fine after (if ever) you leave. We are there securing oil (which we have plenty of here). We are also nationbuilding, which requires trillions and trillions of dollars that we are borrowing from other nations to do. In case you are unaware, that is actually making things worse here in America, not better. So instead of wasting billions of dollars to cool off American marines in Afghanistan, bring them home, let them get a real job, and pay to air condition them self in their own home.

Comment by anonymous johnson
Entered on:

Ok now imagine this. Youre a child from iraq. your hot, hungry, and can hardly stand from lack of food. 

this is your life.. every day. forever.

no a/c

no swimming pools

just hot desert

 

so pardon my french but fuck the solders what about the people who arent trying to fight.

Comment by Chris THEMARINE
Entered on:

If you have ever been to the desert you would know that it gets amazingly this. Imagine this: your a soldier in the middle of the desert thousands of miles from home, fighting an unknown enemy, which requires patrols that can last for days...in the HOT desert sun, with 100lbs of gear, and walking, or sometimes running for hours on end. Now ask yourself...wouldn't you want to come back to your forward operating base, and be able to cool off in nice A/C? Yet instead you sit inside the safety of your nice little air conditioned office and gripe about the fact that soldiers fighting a war in the middle of a desert to defend your freedom to do so, spend too much money on A/C. Grow up America. SEMPER FI  



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