Pentagon wasted $28 million on Afghan uniforms

If we knew the half of wasteful spending in the government, we would be appalled.

Undermining national defense spending is cowardice and borderline treason. Why do you hate the troops?

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“We had camouflage patterns,” Sopko said. “Dozens of them. For free!”

The inspector general’s report concludes that neither the Pentagon nor the Afghan government knows if the uniform still being issued there is “appropriate to the Afghan environment, or whether it actually hinders their operations by providing a more clearly visible target to the enemy.”

Those soldiers may be the ultimate losers in the uniform debacle, Sopko said. “I feel sorry for the poor Afghan soldiers,” Sopko said.

“I mean they’re walking around with a target on their backs, ‘Shoot me.’ Because only 2% of the country is forest woodland, and that’s the outfit that the Afghan minister picked.”

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Wasting money and making it more dangerous for the troops.

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Early in 2007, the Afghan Defense Ministry decided it needed a “new and distinctive uniform” to set the Afghan army apart.

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I can sorta see an argument for this. You do want your soldiers to be easy to distinguish from the people trying to kill them after all. And it isn't like standard issue uniforms are all that hard to see anyway.

I've done a lot of government contract work over the years and it's 100% true when they talk about the $10,000 toilet seat. The product we were selling, basically a pass through, was marked up 4 times before it was sold to the government. It's really amazing with all of the bid/solicitation regulations that this is able to occur.

Don't even get me started on the Small Business set asides, minority, veteran, and disabled owned stipulations they mandate on some solicitations as well. Bids should be awarded on pricing alone.

Tangent over.

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Meanwhile if I get a hole in my cammies I have to go spend 50 dollars on new pants

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I give to different "care package" collections at work and other places when they come up, but the always infuriate me. Not the soldiers or the person asking. It just pisses me off. SOCKS and K-cups!!! You poor bastards are over in shitholes and can't get fricking socks or coffee? Or a few hundred other bullshite daily items. Why crates of cheap shite like god damned socks aren't sitting there waiting on guys is beyond me. "Hey, I'm getting fricking shot at and I have a hole in my fricking sock. Can I get some new ones so I have one less thing to think about?" The reply should be "here is 5 pair. See ya!"

This is not WW2 and sending shite to the South Pacific takes weeks. Just makes my head explode. Poor guys.

thanks trump.

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Even more stupid:
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with a woodland camouflage pattern appropriate for a tiny fraction of that war-torn country,

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Even more, more stupid:

When I was there in 2008, the ANA was using the old BDU woodland camo pattern and it was obvious to everyone it was inappropriate. So, having already demonstrated that green and dark brown didn't camouflage anyone, they doubled down on it.

I wonder who got the kickback.

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Think of all the dumbassery society has created in military and LEO alone.

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Palm Beach County 2017 budget includes:

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$594.1 million for the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office, which happens to be the amount Sheriff Ric Bradshaw requested.

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One year in a single county for one sheriff's office. To be fair, the Sheriff's office has annexed several local cities for which they provide law enforcement services, but that's a lot of money on LEOs for one county.