NPR reported recently that the US army in Afghanistan will be destroying 2000 "excess" MRAP's out of a fleet of 11,000. It is deemed too expensive to ship them back to the states so they will be scrapped and broken down (a task that will take 12 hours per vehicle) in Afghanistan. The cost of each vehicle is $ 1 million (could that be right?). This all amounts to some $ 7 billion worth of war equipment that will be destroyed after being used for a few years. I wonder how many classrooms can be built for $ 7 billion and how long they will last. I know the elementary schools in Cresskill where I went to school are still in use some 60 years later. The decision to destroy the vehicles is based on the fact that the only way to get them out of Afghanistan is to fly them out. Pakistan is directly to the east and with ocean access, they are an ally, so why can't they be driven across Pakistan and loaded on ships to transport home? An interesting comment in the NPR report was that the "need for the used equipment (was) too low". Again, this seems to me to be the folly of spending our money on war material; they have a short life span and provide no lasting benefit once their initial use is over. The MRAP is a modern day jeep. It stands for "mine-resistant, ambush protected" vehicle. I am not saying the soldiers who use them should not have the protection; I am saying that if we were not in Afghanistan there would be on need for such vehicles.
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