MOAB attack on Isis was a baffling choice in cold-blooded terms of cost

[HAB911]

Using ‘mother of all bombs’ in Afghanistan to kill 36 militants – at $450,000 each – will not change its reputation as a white elephant

War, boiled down to its most brutal calculation, is a business of accounting: “blood and treasure” in the horrible expression.

Cost calculations underpin warfare in terms of hard cash damage to economies and societies – what is called resilience.

Which makes the use of one of the US military’s largest non-nuclear explosive devices – the MOAB – to kill 36 jihadis in Nangarhar province, Afghanistan, somewhat baffling in military terms.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/apr/14/moab-attack-isis-baffling-choice-cold-blooded-terms-cost-afghanistan?CMP=edit_2221

[Freethinker65]

1. Trump knows how to waste other's $$$$. He has made a living at it and is an expert.

[rzemanfl]

2. Follow the money. Who benefits? n/t

[alarimer]

3. It was a message, nothing more.

The justification for using it is flimsy. Trump did it to show of; maybe to N. Korea, maybe to everyone.

[bagelsforbreakfast]

4. Definately a message - to North Korea n/m

[caraher]

5. This is all posturing

Trump can say "I used the biggest bomb I could find." It's not about results, this is for domestic consumption.

[HoneyBadger]

6. I suspect that it was paid for 10 years ago

At this point we were paying to store it.

Like keeping VHS tapes in the UStoreIt.

But I am not familiar with military accounting. It is possible that we do not pay for it until we use it.

Then again, a financial planner could make a case that we will be paying for it as long as we run a deficit; ie every purchase the government makes will never be paid off. Which leads to a new perspective on spending.

[Nevernose]

7. We had 18 left

Two were used for the initial tests, back in 2003. The remaining 18 have just been sitting around an AF base, all lonely, nobody to kill... In fact, the AF transferred this bomb to Afghanistan while Obama was still president.

[HoneyBadger]

8. So if we ever leave Afghanistan, we have to ship them back?

[Nevernose]

9. No, apparently the other 17 are still in the US

Which is good, because it means we won't be dropping them all willy-nilly, but strange, in that we can't use them here; they have to be shipped to the theater first.