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US to Spend $511 Million to Expand Kabul Embassy
KABUL, Afghanistan - The U.S. government will spend $511 million to expand its embassy in Kabul, the U.S. ambassador said Wednesday, describing the work as a demonstration of America's long-term commitment to Afghanistan.
The U.S. ambassador in Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry explains the master plan of the US embassy during a press event at the US embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan on Wednesday, Nov. 3, 2010. (AP Photo/Musadeq Sadeq) "We make this commitment by commemorating the recent award of a $511 million contract to expand the U.S. Embassy here in Kabul," Ambassador Karl Eikenberry said during a ceremony at the construction site that marked the formal announcement of the contract.
"We're going to get a day when that embassy's up and there's not going to be these barriers out there, there's no barbed wire, there's not going to be all kinds of obstacles out there," Eikenberry said.
Currently the road to the embassy, located in downtown Kabul, is blocked by large concrete barriers and the building is surrounded by armed security guards.
"This next generation of Afghans growing up, we hope that they come to this embassy, they're welcome here and this is going to be the new normal for Kabul," he added.
Eikenberry's remarks come amid Afghan concerns that the proposal to begin drawing down U.S. forces by July 2011 could leave Afghanistan alone to fight the Taliban insurgency.
Many Afghans felt abandoned by the U.S. after 1989, when the Soviet Union withdrew its army from Afghanistan and U.S. support to mujahedeen fighters dried up. The country sank into years of brutal civil war.
But Eikenberry used his speech to emphasize U.S. commitment to a peaceful Afghanistan, pointing out that the embassy has tripled its civilian staff in the past year. The new facilities will provide offices and living space for many of them.
The project started earlier this year and currently employs about 500 Afghans. Once construction gets under way, more than 1,500 Afghan workers will be employed, Eikenberry said.
Over the last two years, the U.S. has signed contracts to expand American diplomatic facilities in Kabul and consulates in Mazar-e Sharif and Herat provinces that total $790 million, he said. The figure includes the embassy expansion, which should be completed by June 2014.
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Show AllHalf a billion for a fortress in a faraway land.
Same deal as the US fortress-embassy in Baghdad.
Same implication, which is that the US intends to stay in Afghanistan as long as it has stayed in Germany and Japan.
Half a billion stimulus for war contractors.
Whoever planned that one is in obvious need of psychiatric care or a jail cell.
"My favorite thing to do is to go out on the deck and smoke a bowl of sweet hemp and play my harmonica!" Abraham Lincoln
I love that quote!
Just another half billion of insane spending, and the completely brainwashed, psychotic electorate just voted in the pathetic Repug-nuts, after the unbelievable shit that they heaped on the citizens in the tragic eight years of the criminal Bush/Cheney cabal. It will be viewed, historically, as one of the great wonders, if not mysteries, of the world the sheer stupidity of the American electorate of the late twentieth and early twentieth first century!
A half billion on the Afghan embassy, $700 million on the Iraqi embassy, and operational costs of maintaining the war/occupation in the two countries is over $10 billion a month. In additional, billions of taxpayer dollars each year to Israel which is ethnically cleansing the Palestinians.
Meanwhile, as we go bankrupt, both the Democrats and Republicans are short of ideas and funds to help this country out. 2012 can't come fast enough, time to build a third party.
_____________________
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton says [11/03/10] a shift in congressional power won't greatly affect U.S. foreign policy goals because "politics stops" at the nation's borders.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/03/hilary-clinton-election-w_n_778158.html
Maybe the citizens of the US should move to those countries where they are getting schools, hospitals and endless other nation building things. Thst is if they don't mind the risk of getting killed in a night raid. I bet the Soviets are laughing their asses off at the stupidity of the US. Going bankrupt and falling apart because of the endless wars. The sooner the better. The dems deserved to get their asses handed to them as does the wanker in chief. He will be a one termer because TPTB will want someone else. Somewhere I believe MLK is weeping
I have this feeling that peak oil is either here, or approaching very fast.
I also have a feeling that Obama cared little about mid-term elections, because his bosses told him who they wanted to be elected, to benefit his bosses' agenda, and his people strategized to favor their desired outcome.
I once TOTALLY believed that Obama wouldn't have any real power as president, and that his second term would hinge ENTIRELY on how well he served his masters. In the course of the last 2 years, I tried to convince myself otherwise. But it appears as though my first analysis was accurate... I hope I'm wrong.
Any way you look at it, when you have an electorate voting against its best interests while benefiting the richest Americans, something's out of whack.
What the heck is going on, here? All that's happening is that the rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer, and the people are perpetually kept in a state of ignorance that enables the status quo.
Probably 100% of our national politicians are sold out to the same masters. The lip service may vary A LITTLE, but the overarching objectives of most politicians are probably the same: Be elected, then reelected... to be achieved by doing whatever is "necessary"... remember, the "bosses" are a lot more monied than the people are, and they and their lobbyists don't give a flying cow about the rest of us.
The one person, one vote ideal has been cast out of reach by those whose money is worth thousands, sometimes millions of votes.
STOP MEDIA CONTROL!
Our government's commitment to violence in foreign lands is also troubling. I don't remember ever seeing a school, or a hospital, built with the labor of violence. Strange how so many of our leaders want to achieve their goals through violence.
Ew!
Unfortunately I believe you are right. Based on what I heard this morning I wrote this in the comment section on M. Moore's latest on asking Obama to toughen up:
"I heard a lot of things that Obama could do this morning vis-a-vis the Repubs' dismantling of Obamacare. Obama is supposedly talking of making it better, considering getting rid of the onerous 1099 provision for small businesses. That one he may be able to do. But how does Obama -- beholden to the Medical Industrial Complex -- seriously work to make Obamacare better -- which, at the very least would mean a very, very strong public option -- and make his corporate cronies happy? I mean, I assume he's still fighting for that pot of gold for his campaign coffers, right?"
These mega-embassies are shameful, to put it mildly. As far as I know, from the reading I've done here in the last year, Obama is behind this 100% as the latest puppet/collaborator in the WH.
I hope the helipads for the inevitable evacuation are included in the price.
Sure could use that money here.
Over a half of a billion dollars for maintaining imperial power in Afghanistan, but no money to repair public schools in the United States.
Could not have said it better.
Right! And no money so granny can still afford cat food and her gout medication.
"How does it become a man to behave toward this American government to-day? I answer that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it." Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau's comment clarifies why I wish were able to travel with something other than an American passport. I don't believe that most Americans are aware of how disliked we are in much of the world ..... and with good reason.
That Thoreau quote reminds me of another one when he was jailed for civil disobedience. Ralph Waldo Emerson paid Thoreau a visit to his jail cell and asked: " Henry, what are you doing in there ? And Thoreau replied: No Ralph, the question is what are you doing out there "! If you are not thoroughly ashamed of what this country is doing in your name, then you are either a brainwashed dumbed down, American; a war profiteer; are you are an apathetic American who has not been paying attention!
I've been lying awake at night worrying about the refinements of the Kabul embassey, finely I can get some sleep knowing that my tax dollars and those of future generations will create a fashionable yet well fortified U.S. presense in Afghanistan.
Yes. I also have been worried lately about that embassy. I heard that there is no Nautilus Fitness Center, AND, no sauna facilities. This is truly shameful for The Empire to be so poorly represented in a sovereign nation that we have devastated. I say make it a nice even billion--just print up the cash and ship it over on pallets.
Jolly good idea, I'm thinking we could send Martha Stewart for a segment on making battlement cozyies for a home-away-from-home feel and still have a few million for a lovely reflecting pool or something.
Hey, with that amount of money you'd sure be able to build a fancy Embassy!
It could have runways for the biggest cargo planes that the U.S. has, underground tank parking, 25 shopping malls complete with MacDonalds and Kentucky Fried, missile launching pads, a casino, accommodation for 100,000 troops, a golf range, twenty swimming pools, 20 brothels, and a sports stadium which holds mega-numbers.
Ah, America exports its culture to yet another place! Sigh.
http://www.dangerouscreation.com
Doesn't the USA understand that by building a big single fortress that it'll be a clear target for the Taliban air force and their navy after it's been ringed by the Taliban armoured divisions!?
Maybe they do and that's why they need all that money to fortify it.
Must be money well spent then.
So, John Boner wants to make gubment smaller, eh??? He wants to reduce spending by an outtacontrol gubment, I hear. Well JOHN--here's one for 'ya--you flaming douchebag (no offense intended to personal hygiene devices), how about cancelling the 1/2 Billion remodel of an embassy in a country that you, JOHN, cannot find on a map. The English language hardly contains enough gritty pejoratives to describe this man.
LOL!
I listened to a few newly elected candidates last night and they all said the same thing, as if it had been tatooed on their brains...the people have told us what they want, they want us to stop spending, stop spending, stop spending. When asked about the war and the enormous amounts spent on war their answer was all the same, we have to spend to keep those nasty terrorists away from us.
I wonder what excuse we would have to keep plundering for oil if there was no taliban or other 'terrorists' to fight. Would we just 'create' another boogyman? It appears that we pay a whole lot more for gasoline than the price at the pump.
P.S. Who will get this no-bid contract?
http://news.rediff.com/slide-show/2010/nov/03/slide-show-1-obama-visit-us-to-spend-rs-900-crore-a-day-on-india-trip.htm
how does that sum compare with this?............
It is mind boggling to have people still talking about the republicans and the stupidity of the American electorate.
The democrats are responsible for this little boondoggle, not the republicans. And the democrats were just voted out for their fine efforts such as this.
Time to match accusations and complaints wsith facts and reality.
The government in Afghanistan is soaked in corruption to the gills. The police force and the army are heavily infiltrated by the Taliban, as will be the local labor force that will build this embassy.
Any member of United States Congress who votes to pay for this nightmare will be guilty of providing aid and comfort to the enemy, which is treason.
Maybe some of the new Tea Party members of Congress will object to more government spending on garrisons around the world. The up-front tax dollars needed to build these outposts and the annual dollar cost of maintaining them is coming out of their constituents pockets. Maybe they will take our country back as promised now that they control the checkbook - the House. Yada, Yada, Yada, .....
FOX will make all this look good. It's the media stupid. 'The media IS the message!' Rod McKuen was right.
Not Rod McKuen....he was a poet. Pretty sure Marshall McLuhan was the guy who coined that expression
Thank you. Nobody remembers the sixties.
"some of the new Tea Party". Yes SOME, e.g. Rand Paul. But not the republican party as a whole. If they had money to spare they will surely increase military spending.
Why?
"Military justice is to justice what military music is to music."
--Grouch Marx
The short answer is that the economy has become so neo-liberally/neo-conservatively offshored and militarized that it is easier for Team Obama to spend tax revenues creating good paying jobs overseas under the all-purpose pretext of "national security" than it is to create domestic jobs, let alone good paying domestic jobs inside the U.S. Team Obysmal is also promising military veterans all sorts of expanded benefits, although real politik suggests this will be an "unfunded mandate" to put it mildly. He won't be around long enough to cash all the checks his lying mouth has written.
"Military justice is to justice what military music is to music." --Grouch Marx
I love your quote, and would like to add that
Justice that is different depending on how much you own is not justice at all.
Justice that you can purchase by hiring a better legal system and justice that only a rich man can buy is completely at odds with any true concept of justice.
The Chinese are laughing all the way to the bank.
The Chinese may very well be more than laughing. There is an old story from Chinese military history. I don't remember the names or the dates. It goes like this:
Province (Am) had long felt that their enemy, province (Ch), was weak and that the (Ch) people were cowards, backward, less than, etc... Province (Am) had a really big opinion of itself - a really big ego.
One day, General (Ch) brought his army to attack province (Am) and set up camp. He instructed his officers to have 100,000 campfires visible the first night, 50,000 campfires the second night and 20,000 campfires the third night. General (Am) assumed that the cowardly (Ch) troops were deserting en masse.
General (Am) set out with all speed, and his whole army, to overtake the retreating (Ch) army and annihilate the remainder. In the meantime, General (Ch) positioned 10,000 crossbows in ambush with instructions to fire at the first site of a torch.
At the ambush site, General (Ch) had carved on a tree, 'This is where General (Am) died'. When General (Am) came upon the carved tree with his troops he had a torch lit to read the carving. 10,000 crossbows were unleashed and his army destroyed. General (Am) killed himself in shame.
The moral of the story is that you never know who is laying in wait, who is stupid, who is laughing all the way to the bank, etc..., and more importantly - your ego can be used against you by a smarter opponent.
OMG - what will this do to the deficit?
Joe