text: OpEdNews - Article: Nick Turse: The Pentagon's Bases of Confusion
  General News 9/4/2012 at 09:47:06
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  Since any style of warfare emerges from the society that spawns it, we shouldn't be surprised that we carry our particular version of a consumer society to war with us. Think, for instance, of the final withdrawal from Iraq in 2011, when the U.S. military shipped out much of what we had brought in with us. That turned out to be an estimated three million objects, ranging from tanks and laptop computers to toilets and tables (with at least another four million objects turned over to the Iraqis, "including 89,000 air conditioners worth $18.5 million"). Now, as if to remind us of the profligate nature of the American way of war, comes the news that to withdraw U.S. combat troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2014, the U.S. military may have to send in extra troops to sort through the more than $60 billion worth of equipment and materiel that needs to leave with them. Think of it not as an urge but a surge to depart, and a part of the general madness of war, American-style, in these last years. Those extra troops will, by the way, be sending out at least 200,000 shipping containers and vehicles.	Big government? It couldn't get bigger. Can-do, you bet. Successful? Not for a second. Maybe the next time Washington wants to build the biggest embassy on Earth and hundreds of bases, large and small, it should do so here and create a few of the fantasy 12 million jobs Mitt Romney is promising Americans. Tom Afghanistan's Base Bonanza Total Tops Iraq at That War's Height By Nick Turse
  Despite years of talk about American withdrawal, there has in fact been a long-term building boom during which the number of bases steadily expanded. In early 2010, the U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) claimed that it had nearly 400 Afghan bases. Early this year, that number had grown to 450. Today, a military spokesperson tells TomDispatch, the total tops out at around 550. And that may only be the tip of the iceberg.
  There is much confusion surrounding the number of ISAF bases in Afghanistan. Recently, the Associated Press reported that as of October 2011, according to spokesman Lieutenant Colonel David Olson, NATO was operating as many as 800 bases in Afghanistan, but has since closed 202 of them and transferred another 282 to Afghan control. As a result, the AP claims that NATO is now operating only about 400 bases, not the 550 to 1,500 bases reported to me by ISAF. 1 | 2 | 3