Digging in for the Long Haul in Afghanistan
Nick Turse is the associate editor of TomDispatch.com.? An award-winning journalist, his work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the Nation, and regularly at TomDispatch. His latest book, The Case for Withdrawal from Afghanistan (Verso Books), which brings together leading analysts from across the political spectrum, has just been published.?Turse is currently a fellow at Harvard University's Radcliffe Institute.?This article originally appeared on TomDispatch.
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 U.S. 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 Obama beginning in July 2011.?
The U.S. military does not count the exact number of FOBs it has built in Afghanistan, but forward operating bases and other facilities of similar or smaller size make up the bulk of U.S. outposts there.? Of the hundreds of U.S. bases in the country, according to Gary Younger, a U.S. public affairs officer with the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), 77% house units of battalion size (approximately 500 to 1,000 troops) or smaller; 20% are occupied by units smaller than a Brigade Combat Team (about 3,000 troops); and 3% are huge bases, occupied by units larger than a Brigade Combat Team, that generally boast large-scale military command-and-control capabilities and all the?amenities?of Anytown, USA. Younger tells TomDispatch that ISAF does not centrally track its base construction and up-grading work, nor the money spent on such projects.
However, Major General Kenneth S. Dowd -- the Director of Logistics for U.S. 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 com?pletion over the next 12 months will deliver 4 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 air?field 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."
If Dowd offered the barest sketch of some of the projects planned or underway, a TomDispatch analysis of little-noticed U.S. government records and publications, including U.S. Army and Army Corps of Engineers contracting documents and construction-bid solicitations issued over the last five months, fills in the picture.?
The documents reveal plans for large-scale, expensive Afghan base expansions of every sort and a military that is expecting to pursue its building boom without letup well into the future. ?These facts-on-the-ground indicate that, whatever timelines for phased withdrawal may be issued in Washington, the U.S. military is focused on building up, not drawing down, in Afghanistan.
Copyright 2010 CBS. All rights reserved. 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 U.S. 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 Obama beginning in July 2011.?
The U.S. military does not count the exact number of FOBs it has built in Afghanistan, but forward operating bases and other facilities of similar or smaller size make up the bulk of U.S. outposts there.? Of the hundreds of U.S. bases in the country, according to Gary Younger, a U.S. public affairs officer with the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), 77% house units of battalion size (approximately 500 to 1,000 troops) or smaller; 20% are occupied by units smaller than a Brigade Combat Team (about 3,000 troops); and 3% are huge bases, occupied by units larger than a Brigade Combat Team, that generally boast large-scale military command-and-control capabilities and all the?amenities?of Anytown, USA. Younger tells TomDispatch that ISAF does not centrally track its base construction and up-grading work, nor the money spent on such projects.
However, Major General Kenneth S. Dowd -- the Director of Logistics for U.S. 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 com?pletion over the next 12 months will deliver 4 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 air?field 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."
If Dowd offered the barest sketch of some of the projects planned or underway, a TomDispatch analysis of little-noticed U.S. government records and publications, including U.S. Army and Army Corps of Engineers contracting documents and construction-bid solicitations issued over the last five months, fills in the picture.?
The documents reveal plans for large-scale, expensive Afghan base expansions of every sort and a military that is expecting to pursue its building boom without letup well into the future. ?These facts-on-the-ground indicate that, whatever timelines for phased withdrawal may be issued in Washington, the U.S. military is focused on building up, not drawing down, in Afghanistan.
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6 Comments Add a Comment
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- It sat there while Bush obsessed with his lies about WMD in Iraq that were never there. It is time to finish the job that the sniveling coward Bush would never do.
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- Afghanistan has almost ten years of NATO interference. It does not need another ten years. Who knows overall cost in direct funding and reduced trade interest? The region produces a superior grade of poppy. Revenue is good. American Tax Payers do not need to pay for this.
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- Politicians use war as a source of population control, and for keeping the unemployment numbers down. At one time America profited from the supplies needed in wartimes, because they were all made here in America. Now, if we went to war with China, they would have to make our supplies, as rediculous as this sounds. War should be only used as an absolute last resort, when all diplomacy has been exhausted, and the situation is effecting the entire world order of things. Afgandistan is a no win situation, and what will America gain from ever possibly securing this country from strife? This part of the world is the capital of the heroine, cocaine, and opium source in the world, and their only real source of income, and how they support the Taliban and Al Quidea forces there. Now, tell me why our military isn't destroying all of the poppy fields, and their main source for keeping this war going? It has become a political game, so the drug wars go on and on, for as long as the supply and demand for drugs go on and on in the world. There is too much big money to be made in drugs, and big powerful people are behind it, with plenty of enfluence, and it will never be stopped in our lifetime.
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- Give the voters the names of all politicians that want the US in Afghanistan for the "long haul." We will make sure they are in for a "short haul" with their term.
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- Where were your complaints when Dubya and Rummey took the nation on a jaunt and a war in Iraq?
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- Now we know where all those "shovel ready" jobs are hiding! Obama is taking us for a long ride to nowhere. We need to send Obama on his way along with all those people in Congress who put their "yes" rubber stamps on every military funding bill that comes up. The military is bankrupting us.
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