Baksheesh.

This is coolbert:

King of the Khyber Pass.

MSR deja vu!

As reprinted in Freeper that original from the Washington Post thanks to Craig Whitlock!

That Main Supply Route [MSR] Afghan once again in jeopardy, but now in the reverse direction!

"In Afghanistan drawdown, U.S. forced to take costly option in transporting military gear out"
"As it intensifies its withdrawal from Afghanistan, the U.S. military is being forced to fly massive amounts of gear and equipment out of the country instead of using cheaper overland and sea routes, according to Pentagon officials."

"Military logisticians would like to send home 60 percent of their equipment and vehicles by trucking them into Pakistan and then loading them onto ships — the least expensive method by far. But cargo is flowing out on that route at only one-third the planned rate, the officials said."
...

"The government of Afghanistan closed the border this summer after a dispute over whether the Pentagon and its contractors should have to pay $70 million in customs “fines” for taking the military gear out of the country. The Pentagon has refused to pay, calling the penalties a thinly veiled attempt at a shakedown."

"U.S. and Afghan officials said last month that they had resolved the conflict, after the government in Kabul reluctantly backed down and reopened the border crossings into Pakistan."

After all you do for those people [the Afghan], the ingratitude is overwhelming! This is baksheesh [bribe and payoff and genial but undeniable extortion] in the traditional manner of central Asia as it always has been and always will be!

AND THIS on the baksheesh as having to be paid to the Afghan alone, not even taking into account the Pakistani!

Very sadly too those MRAP vehicles as having been deployed to Afghan will not be repatriated to the U.S., the vast majority of the MRAP to be cut into pieces and sold to Afghan scrap merchants.

As it was with the British during the time of the Raj, far easier to enter into Afghan than it is to get out.

coolbert.