Afghans/US argue over customs issues
I guess we can’t even leave Afghanistan in a manner that satisfies the Afghan government, according to the Washington Post. It seems that the Afghans are concerned that we may be smuggling their dirt, rocks and goat turds out the country;
The Afghan government is demanding that the U.S. military pay $1,000 for each shipping container leaving the country that does not have a corresponding, validated customs form. The country’s customs agency says the American military has racked up $70 million in fines.
If left unresolved, the disagreement could inflate the price tag of the U.S. military drawdown by hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars because of the higher cost of shipping by air — an unwelcome expenditure at a time when the Pentagon is scrambling to cope with steep congressionally mandated budget cuts and the White House is attempting to jump-start negotiations over a long-term security cooperation deal with Kabul.
Yes, the Afghans are trying to make this a sovereignty issue, but we all know exactly what it is – their final attempt to fleece the American taxpayer one last time. We could always do what the Soviets did when they left and just drive the f*ck out.
Category: Terror War
The Afghans trying to extort every last penny on our way out. Color me shocked. And yet another win for our State Department.
Hah. Hahaha. Aaaaaahahahahahah!
Oh, wait, they’re serious? I guess I forgot that “fine” is pronounced “kickback” in Pashto.
And so our legacy in this social experiment is complete. They have learned the art of bureaucracy.
“…I realized, my boy was just like me, my boy was just like meeee…”
Screw ’em. Blow it all in place, leave the rubble.
Wow. Just Wow. After all the bushels of cash that country has received, now they want to fine the U.S.
I’m with Jonn on this one. The U.S. should just drive off without paying. The Afghans can bill us.
NHSparky, I was thinking more along the lines of locking up every piece of equipment that we have given them and can get to or we are in the process of giving them, and stop having any trainers show up to the sites today. Then tell the Afghans that we are re-negotiating the cost of each piece of equipment and per individual cost of each trainer. As soon as they pony up the cash (the same value as what they propose we will owe them until the pull out is complete), we’ll be more than willing to release the stuff. Until then, STFU.
Cha-ching… get those rich Americans for everything and then some!!
Tell them to go talk to Karzai. I hear he has a few extra bucks in his pocket.
Seems that nobody can find Karzai, although I have it on good authority he was at the Outlet Shops in Kittery, Maine over this weekend getting a really good deal on a boatload of luggage.
Heard a rumor that when the Brits left Iran they left a listening post which the Itanians gleefully took over… only to find that the Brits had very neatly and carefully filled every piece of operating equipment with concrete. Apparently electronics work poorly like that. I have no idea whether it was merely a great EW war story, or God’s honest truth – but it is certainly suggestive.
I guess they’re taking lessons from Springfield’s Mayor Quimby: “Uh, there’s a $200 leaving-town-tax.” 😀
@4 Thank you thank you! Blow every piece of equipment, torch in half every carry weapon and burn the rest in a pit the size of Rhode Island. We have given that country everything they wanted. Most important we given them our lives, blood and limbs! They don’t want freedom, they want a Muslim law, Taliban run country to be buddies with Iran. Screw them and I mean screw every last one of them. I say we do as I wrote above, put our troops on planes and leave en masse and the final words should be fuck you and the check is in the mail. But unfortunately this POTUS and State Department will give them the farm so they will like us more. I love our nation, I hate this Administration from top to bottom. We will end up, no pun intended, bending over and asking them how they want us to take it in the ass. Afghanistan can go back to the Taliban, goat screwing, 14th century shit hole they were when we got there. I don’t care anymore. I honor our troops who served with the highest pride I can muster. They deserve better than what we will end up giving away to keep these ass holes in their shit hole happy. I am pissed about this issue if you can’t tell.
So what happens if we don’t pay?
This is the problem with fighting a war against NGOs instead of actual nations. Had we declared war on Afghanistan as an accessory to the murder of US citizens in a terror attack we could have dictated that the terms for ending the conflict were the complete unconditional surrender of the Afghan nation to the US. That type of way allows you to destroy every city, destroy every piece of infrastructure and kill everything that moves until you see white flags everywhere. Since the terms are unconditional surrender there are no fees associated with conducting the war that the victor pays the vanquished, in fact the vanquished can be saddled with the debt of the war that they started by harboring and fomenting attacks against the United States….
Maybe moving forward instead of our presidents saying stupid fucking comments about not being at war with a nation just with terrorists we could actually say,
“If your nation harbors terrorists that attack us we will assume you are working with those terrorists and we will wage war with your entire nation until it is rendered unto dust.”
Once upon a time we had the testicular fortitude to point out who our enemies were and burn their cities to the ground with their women, children, and elderly being burned to death in the process….maybe you wouldn’t see so many of those fuckers cheering in the streets about dead Americans if they knew pretty much every one in their city would soon be dead too….
I believe those who say they want to end our way of life, it would be nice if the so called leaders of our nation would understand that concept and react accordingly.
Tell ’em to bill Karzi for it. I understand he’s got a boatload of our foreign aid money stashed away in his private bank accounts, just waiting to un-ass the A.O. when the Taliban come back in en mass after we leave.
I like some of the other suggestions. We take back and/or destroy equipment we’ve already given them. If the Afghani’s want it back, we renegotiate an inflated purchase price + trainers and maintenance (again, inflated), payable in GOLD.
Plus, stop all foreign aid money.
I’m sorry, what? They want us to give them money to take our military equipment home? Oh, how sad that they are trying to impede our military as it carries out its duties. I sure hope they don’t try to take it by force, or prevent us from taking it with force. That could lead to a few “insider” shootings perpetrated by the Americans over “cultural misunderstandings, which are long overdue.
Unless we were stupid enough to write a contract or sign some kind of agreement with that as a stipulation this is just another Afghan attempt at extortion. We did not pay the Iraqis or the Kuwaitis a fee to take our stuff home.
@13. Nothing succeeds like violence. Oh, we would all like it not to be true. We would like to think that we can negotiate and effectively deal with evil. In fact, let’s list all of the wars that were looming but, without force or the threat of force, never occurred and were forever avoided. Here we go…
Tell them the check is in the mail
I guess we could leave some of the contents of the shipping containers behind. Particularly the HE contents. And by leave behind…
I’ll reenlist if it means we are going to war against these faggot Afghans attempting this shit.
OK, so what does our SOFA say?
And while we’re at it, have we closely reviewed any of our treaties, defense memos and the like to see what exactly they were supposed to pay for but haven’t?