It seems we are doomed-the Taliban was able to mount an attack on the most secure base in the country. This base (joint US-British) was surrounded by a concrete wall, barbed wire, with sophisticated Infra Red and radar systems, intended to detect even the slightest incursion. Yet, 16 Taliban fighters managed to enter, kill two marines, and destroy 8 Harrier fighter jets ($160 million). It looks like we will bankrupt ourselves at this rate.
Question: will the base commander get in trouble for this? And, who can you trust in Afghanistan (looks like an inside job).
Link?
We really need to get out of Afghanistan. When our people are getting lit up by the people we are training more than the “enemy,” it’s time to go home.
Link. WSJ calling it biggest single day loss of US combat aircraft since Viet Nam War. Camp Bastion, allegedly another response to the insulting movie.
If it makes you feel any better, they’re scheduled to be replaced fairly soon anyway.
The loss of 8 Harriers will barely register as a footnote on the USAF’s budget, which is $162.520 billion this financial year. The budgetted amount for combat aircraft procurement is $3,623 million for this financial year (see table 13 on page 18(paper number)/27 soft number) of this enormous PDF. So the loss of the Harriers represents something like 3.3% of the budgetted acquisition of combat aircraft for this year, hardly a harbinger of impending bankruptcy.
Nitpick: The fighters would be US marines
Bugger, okay then, $120 million is a much more significant dent in the Marines 2012FY procurement budget of $2.652 billion, with $349 million allocated for combat vehicle procurement. (Figures from this also enormous PDF).
I’m still not seeing it as an impending cause of bankruptcy though.
And it’s not like they got off scot-free. They all died in the attack. Kind of a deterrent to your average combatant.
If all they got was the planes I’d call it a fair tradeoff.