US donates to Croatia 212 MRAPs (hundreds to other countries).Worth $7 Billion...

[Barrex]

More than $7 billion in U.S. military equipment in Afghanistan will be destroyed and sold for scrap for pennies-on-the-dollar. Pentagon officials said the more than 170 million pounds of equipment no longer was needed or too expensive to send home, a new report said. The scrap operation amounts to a purge of about 20 percent of U.S. military equipment in Afghanistan as the United States winds down its mission there, the Washington Post reports. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/scrapping-equipment-key-to-afghan-drawdown/2013/06/19/9d435258-d83f-11e2-b418-9dfa095e125d_story.html?hpid=z1)

About half (7050) of MRAPS (Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles) are getting given away. Croatia is getting 212. 2,000 of the nearly 11,000 MRAPS are being scrapped. From 1995 US donated 100 million dollars to Croatia.

Numbers reported in Croatia are even bigger - US is giving away/losing more than reported in US media. Also US media is falsely reporting that countries that are receiving gift have to pay for shipment from Afghanistan. This is not true and Croatian Army specifically said that US is paying all delivery costs.

Most media and people in Croatia are confused: Why? What will we do with them?

Flow of money:
US taxpayers->US government->war profiteering military industrial complex

waste created by wealth transfer=military equipment - disposed

Funny.If my country officials were wasting money like that I would be pissed off.

[Zippyjuan]

If I recall correctly, I read once that if they did decide to ship everything home it would take eight to ten years running the ships they would have available constantly. And then they would have difficulties finding space to store all of it.

[Danke]

If I recall correctly, I read once that if they did decide to ship everything home it would take eight to ten years running the ships they would have available constantly. And then they would have difficulties finding space to store all of it.

But there has been a glut of ships recently. I'd think it could be done much more quickly and cheaply. I really don't know anything about shipping though, AF?


What really happened was a "massive oversupply of ships that skewed the index," says Natasha Boyden, director of maritime equity research at Cantor Fitzgerald in New York. Data from Jefferies & Co. show that the global fleet of dry-haul ships grew over 10% in both 2010 and 2011, powered by some overly optimistic ship-building orders placed prior to the 2008 downturn. In addition, a Chinese government initiative to keep its shipyards humming further flooded the market with vessels.

WITH ALL THE EXTRA SHIPS hitting the water, charter rates dropped precipitously to multi-decade lows. For example, a panamax—or midsize–vessel that fetched around $32,000 a day in late 2009, now gets a mere $6,600 a day, a hair above its $6,000 operating cost, according to Clarkson Capital Markets.

[Uriel999]

Honestly...believe it or not this does save us money. However, since we waste so much anyways...how about you gimme one them MRAPS Uncle Scrooge?

[belian78]

But but but... I thought one of the reasons Ron was so crazy for saying 'just come home' is that they can't just pick up and move all that equipment back in so short a time? If they were gonna just leave it there or give it away anyway, how again was he crazy?

[mad cow]

US donates to Croatia 212 MRAPs

MRAP 'Tractor' Pulls?MRAP Demolition Derbys?MRAP Figure Eight Races?
Hey,they were free.

[kcchiefs6465]

Honestly...believe it or not this does save us money. However, since we waste so much anyways...how about you gimme one them MRAPS Uncle Scrooge?
It doesn't save money if they rebuild the bullshit anyways.

This is just one big cup of piss in the face of tax payers.

Not that I'd want them to ship them here anyways. No doubt they'd simply be afforded to fascists for cheap.

[Zippyjuan]

Found some more stats on MRAPs.
http://articles.latimes.com/2013/dec/27/world/la-fg-afghanistan-armor-20131227


So why would the U.S. military suddenly start chopping up as many as 2,000 of the vehicles and selling them as scrap? After all, just six years have passed since high-tech MRAPs were developed and 27,000 of them cranked out and shipped in a $50-billion production blitz.

As it turns out, the Pentagon produced a glut of the mine-resistant, ambush-protected trucks. The military brass has now calculated that it's not worth the cost of shipping home damaged, worn or excess MRAPs to bases already deemed oversupplied with the blast-deflecting vehicles.

As they are "demilitarized," many of the MRAPs are sold as scrap metal to eager Afghan buyers.

It costs about $12,000 to crunch and dispose of a single MRAP here, said Mark E. Wright, a Defense Department spokesman. To ship one back to the U.S. and rebuild it to current standards would cost $250,000 to $450,000, he said. Selling the vehicles as scrap instead of shipping them home and refitting them will consequently save about $500 million, Wright said.

"Disposing of excess MRAPs in Afghanistan where there is no military or excess defense articles need is fiscally responsible," Wright said. Through Oct. 1, 938 MRAPs in Afghanistan had been turned into scrap, according to the Defense Logistics Agency.

The first to be crunched were older models and those damaged in bombings or wrecks. Next up were vehicles considered "excess property," sold as scrap along with banged-up Humvees, pickups, treadmills, office chairs and air conditioners.

MRAPs in good working condition are being offered for sale as-is to approved U.S. military allies. But they are not being offered to Afghan security forces because the Pentagon has concluded that they contain too much sophisticated computer technology for the still-developing Afghan military to operate. Maintenance of the vehicles is also too difficult for Afghan soldiers, more than half of whom are illiterate.

Afghan troops are not known for their dedication to maintaining equipment; they prefer to run vehicles rough and hard until they break down.

There are few Afghan mechanics fully trained to repair relatively simple Humvees, Afghan commanders complain, much less a computer-dependent colossus like the MRAP.

The fire sale has attracted about 380 orders from partner nations so far, Wright said. But with 13,000 excess MRAPs available worldwide, it's not likely that all those in Afghanistan will be sold. It's an "as is, where is" deal, Wright said, meaning buyers must also pay the cost of shipping MRAPs out of Afghanistan.

[kcchiefs6465]

Zippy,

1. "Afghans" are stealing the metal anyways. To say we are selling them scrap metal, though as much may be the case with larger wholesale buyers (the same general group of people who brought us there, I'd bet), is to say you sell aluminum to the person who rips your siding off. And to go further, it is to say that you propagandized an issue to your neighbors in a sly extortionist scheme on why they all should pay for your siding in the first place. Then it is to say that you patronize them on cost benefit analysis.

"Well, the siding did leak air and just think, you'd all have to pay for all the insulation."

Quite annoying to say the least. Offensive on the level of a cup of piss to the face.

2. It doesn't save a damn thing. They are going to rebuild them, if their R&D rackets haven't developed a more oppressive vehicle in the mean time.

What has been saved? "Well the siding was expensive, I do understand. But you see, the pressure washing of said siding is a cost you'd all be worse off to bare. Therefore, I, as a benevolent, considerate, beneficiary have removed said siding and sold it. Who it was sold to you need not concern yourself of. What the price was for, be gratuitous I received profit and accept my word on that matter."

"Never mind all the finer intricacies you yourself wouldn't understand. The shipping rates back to factory, machining costs, and further costs to bring my siding back to code.. Do not trouble your mind with as much. I'll just need the same payment and 10% more, after all, you cannot expect the prices of yesteryear to hold bearing today."