In Kabul's 'Obama Market,' U.S. Military Rations On Sale

Mcclatchy:

KABUL, Afghanistan -- First came the Brezhnev Market. Then the Bush Market.

Now Afghans are beginning to call their notorious bazaar full of chow and supplies bought or stolen from the vast U.S. military bases by the name of the current American president, a modest counterweight to his Nobel Peace Prize.

Read the whole story: Mcclatchy

Comments

[AirViceMarshalPark]

05:04 AM on 11/13/2009

Same thing happened in the Nam. Everything you could think of in military stores was for sale in city markets, some in partnership with US troops. Much more found its way into Charlie's hands.

[ICorpsDoc]

09:34 AM on 11/13/2009

And some of it found its way into the hands of the US Marines.

A better pack for the bush, a jungle hat, a few plastic canteens, they were all purchased by me a few days after reporting into my BN. Equipment the Marines did not have at that time.

Stolen stuff? Maybe.

But much of it was no doubt stuff sold by Army supply clerks to the locals.

[noweknow]

01:55 AM on 11/13/2009

U.S. soldiers sold government stuff to make money.
It's not about the war. It's all about the money.

[Squeezer55]

07:40 PM on 11/12/2009

This is nothing new. When I went through Pakistan and Afghanistan in 1978 as a young man, there were foreign aid packages in stores in practically every village. The packages all said " Gift from U.S.A. or Britain or Canada, etc. This is just local economics in motion. There's probably close friends of Karzai and members of the Afghan army and police who are stealing the stuff and selling it to middle level merchants for further selling on down the line. The reality is that if they were caught stealing, they would be sorry - sorry they got caught, not sorry they stole it. It's the way they think over there.

[whitehawk]

07:19 PM on 11/12/2009

Probably Blackwater running the markets!!

[Durango]

06:38 PM on 11/12/2009

There is always coruption associated with war.

What makes anyone think Americans are immune?

[Mnemanth]

03:52 PM on 11/12/2009

Privatization of "war". While exorbinant amounts of money go to US corporations to support operations, largely these same corporations simply pay the locals (in peanuts) to do the work. The locals are unsupervised, have no incentive to do some exemplary job, and this is what you get. "Lost" cargo, "lost" funds, "lost" people...and no accountability.
Yes, yes, there's all this stuff on what amounts to a black market. So what? It's not the locals fault. It's our fault- oh yes, ours, including you and me- for allowing this privatized "war" to continue.
Don't blame the Afghans. We're occupying their country under pretty shady circumstances. Fighting a guerilla "war" is always a sure loser for the invaders, just as the concept of fighting an idea ("terrorism") is an open ended fight with no solution.
We allow it to go on. Just take this story and others like it as a real indicator of what we're really doing. Saying anyone other than ourselves is responsible is ridiculous. Step up, Americans, and lets tell our government- you know, by the people and for the people- to knock it off!

[davidwayneosedach]

01:37 PM on 11/12/2009

We should send our military in a nd seize every last piece of that property.

[thepoliticalcat]

01:52 AM on 11/13/2009

Why? The people in the market are on the very bottom of the food chain and they paid for the goods they got. They're not the ones who did the stealing. Chances are the fish at the top of the heap is rotten from the head down -- or rottin' from the head down. Ask your friends, relatives, and neighbours who are VN vets -- they'll tell you that the people at the top get paid or bribed with food, goods, and money, which they then turn over to a million people under them, and eventually it gets to some little local market where its sold. Chances are, the military's hands aren't entirely clean either because some low-level grunts supplement their wages by siphoning off goods for the black market. This has happened since time immemorial.

I say catch the crooks at the top. The people at the bottom make a few pennies. Karzai's cronies need wheelbarrows to carry *their* money around.

[changeself]

01:28 PM on 11/12/2009

make sure osama stays alive,

make sure the taliban's well funded and supplied,

make sure insurgents' morale is high.

make sure to fund each and every actor in the wars,

so that we can keep the wars going forever.

that's how our economy grows and prospers.

[AwakeNow]

12:38 PM on 11/12/2009

Just another slap in the face to U.S. by the Afghan kleptocracy! I guess they believe "We've gotten away with this for this long, you're not going to do anything." Come on Mr. President we need an entirely new strategy. Think outside the Washington box. We could use all that embezzeled war funding right here on our own homeland soil to help the many hurting american citizens pull their life and their future back together.