US Spends $20bn a year on airconditioning the desert

[Idaho]

Some US bashing from a well known leftist rag:

US-spends-12.5-billion-a-year-on-air-con-in-Iraq-and-Afghanistan

Oil fleets travelling from Pakistan to Afghanistan?

[Vladimir]

Now the latest news from Idaho:

http://www.idahostatesman.com/2011/0...dangerous.html

How much did this stoplight cost and is it an efficient use of taxpayer money?

[PanzerJaeger]

They didn't need no stinkin' AC, and neither do our boys...

However... of all the asinine things our government spends money on, I don't mind some of my tax dollars being used to give our soldiers a bit more comfort. If it is really contributing to IED deaths, it may need to be reconsidered as a luxury not worth the price.

[gaelic cowboy]

surely they could redesign a base to keep cool using natural airflow or cavity walls etc plus I bet a study of desert nomadic tents could yield solutions too than actually spending money on air-con it's daft, unless it is keeping the server room cool they should get rid of it.

[Major Robert Dump]

surely they could redesign a base to keep cool using natural airflow or cavity walls etc plus I bet a study of desert nomadic tents could yield solutions too than actually spending money on air-con it's daft, unless it is keeping the server room cool they should get rid of it.

It's far, far more complex than you make it out to be.

And in other news, we spend a billion dollars on water.

- Open Tents don't work in Afghanistan because of the wind.
- Open Tents don't work in Afghanistan because of COIN, which means we hire locals to come onto the base and do everything from clean to serve us dinner, and tents are not secure, and the average soldiers has @10k worth of equipment issued to them, not including their weapon, and we can't have local nationals hob knobbing in our tents where our stuff is sitting out, it needs to be locked in some sort of hard structure.
- As already pointed out, the basic load is @80 pounds or more, depending on your situation and mission. I have had up to 130. I disagree with this as much as the next guy, and would rather be mobile and fast than wear a bunch of crap that will won't save me from a bomb and won't be of any use after a couple shots with a 7.62. If we carried less stuff we would also drink less water, which we easily spend just as much time and resources acquiring and transporting as we do fuel.
- Open tents don't work because of Opsec
- Open tents don't work because of ROE and the TTP of the enemy. They fire mortars and rockets and disappear into the night. Thats how they roll.

Do we have some tents? Yes. But not open. Most of them have been spray foamed.

Anyway, thats just a few reasons tents won't work

How Pakistan plays a part in this is another thread altogether.

[gaelic cowboy]

It's far, far more complex than you make it out to be.

And in other news, we spend a billion dollars on water.

- Open Tents don't work in Afghanistan because of the wind.
- Open Tents don't work in Afghanistan because of COIN, which means we hire locals to come onto the base and do everything from clean to serve us dinner, and tents are not secure, and the average soldiers has @10k worth of equipment issued to them, not including their weapon, and we can't have local nationals hob knobbing in our tents where our stuff is sitting out, it needs to be locked in some sort of hard structure.
- As already pointed out, the basic load is @80 pounds or more, depending on your situation and mission. I have had up to 130. I disagree with this as much as the next guy, and would rather be mobile and fast than wear a bunch of crap that will won't save me from a bomb and won't be of any use after a couple shots with a 7.62. If we carried less stuff we would also drink less water, which we easily spend just as much time and resources acquiring and transporting as we do fuel.
- Open tents don't work because of Opsec
- Open tents don't work because of ROE and the TTP of the enemy. They fire mortars and rockets and disappear into the night. Thats how they roll.

Do we have some tents? Yes. But not open. Most of them have been spray foamed.

Anyway, thats just a few reasons tents won't work

How Pakistan plays a part in this is another thread altogether.

Then surely cavity walls are the way to go if you cant use tents.

[Adrian II]

How much did this stoplight cost and is it an efficient use of taxpayer money?

1. $140,000
2. No, not a single accident in five years

AII

[Adrian II]

double post, sorry

[Louis VI the Fat]

double post, sorry

This website spends $20.000 each year on bandwith wasted on double posts.

[Vladimir]

More seriously,

The Army does waste a LOT of energy but they're getting better. Nowadays the use of newfangled com-pu-ters requires the use of air conditioning to keep them cool. It's also incredibly nice to have when you're wearing ~80 lbs of body armor in ~110 degree heat all day.

[Adrian II]

This website spends $20.000 each year on bandwith wasted on double posts.

You've said so twice before.

AII

[Louis VI the Fat]

You've said so twice before.

AII

B...but that was before they made me moderator.


As much as I'd love to, nowadays it is no longer possible for me to waste precious bandwith on thread-derailing spam.

[Beskar]

Some US bashing from a well known leftist rag:

US-spends-12.5-billion-a-year-on-air-con-in-Iraq-and-Afghanistan

Oil fleets travelling from Pakistan to Afghanistan?

What Leftist rag?

Only Leftist rag is the Guardian. (and the Morning Star)

[Shaka_Khan]

I remember the people in Arizona (including me) kept the a/c on 24 hours a day during the summer and the heater 24 hours a day during the winter.

[Papewaio]

Look at the costs for non-combat equivalents in mining to get a handle on costs of remote sited and wages.

The cost of food in Perth, western Australia is about 30% more because of a couple of factors. One of which is that it is the most remote city in the world perched on the edge of a desert twice as large as Texas. Then add in a mining boom and young kitchen staff can command $100k aus to go work in a mine.

I've worked in Telfar, in the winter in the afternoon it felt cold in the shade when it went down to 35 degrees C (about 95 degrees F off the top of my head). Yet despite the heat, I had to wear steel caps at all times outside a building because it was a minesite. Even though I was exploring for gold a half hours drive from the mine in sand dunes, oh&s demanded that I wore steel caps.

So inane rules and expensive costs are the norm in minesites. So I can see how this would get worse when the job includes IEDs

[Major Robert Dump]

Yes, but it does not help that we are intentionally and willingly paying above-market wages and fees for the sake of helping the conomy. Humanitarian inititative or creating a welfare state with bloated expectations and GDP?

A grown man can make more money serving me dinner in the dining facility than he can owning his own 8 acre farm. An afghan construction worker makes as much as national police man. My interpeter makes more than most ogvernment officials

[Papewaio]

In '99 in Indonesian the local Indonesian exploration staff (essentially labourers and farmers) were earning 50% above the national average. They were better off then farming their own coffee and rubber plantations. Add in that their minesite accomodation had satellite TV, canteen and modern plumbing. These guys on their days off stayed at the mine site rather then go home. It ain't the military it is the ex-pat life.

It is why if you are European in south east asia you are essentially considered for all intents and purposes a millionaire in the eyes of the local populace. It's why you can see fifty, fat and boorish ex pats have young women swarm over them in night clubs there. What I term exchange rate romance.

The problem comes about when the teat that feeds them leaves. Its an addiction that is hard to give up, once people get used to luxury's it can be hard to go back. Maybe this is the best way to pacify a population, but it is also a great way to create unrealistic value system where everyone expects something for nothing. It might turn out for the best though its very hard to figure out cause and effect in the longterm.