US Spends $20bn a year on airconditioning the desert

[Major Robert Dump]

No problem.

I also forgot to mentioned a leadership that is adverse to any and all forms of risk. Like seriously, 1st Cav makes us wear ballistic eyewear on a FOB. In an office. At dinner.

No one wants to take any risks. If we took risks, the war would be over. Instead, we turtle and turtle and turtle, like playing the Orks in Warcraft 3 and building towers. Thats all I can say without getting myself in trouble.

[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.

[classical_hero]

I have... Many times.

Your opinoin is invalid! My opinoin is valid so... Everyone's opinoin is valid... But so is yours, but then it isn't, and mine is... ad infinitum

~Jirisys ()

[Major Robert Dump]

I just found out, by the way, that the DOD pays $2.25 per bottle for bottled water produced in Afghanistan.
It's not even shipped across the world. The water is from Asia, and Afghans bottle it. Yay for creating jobs.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

[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.