November 30, 2013: Afghans are perplexed at why the Americans are destroying so much of the equipment that is not worth shipping back to the United States. The official reason was to deny the Islamic terrorists stuff they could turn into bombs. But another reason, not made public, was that the U.S. knew that the corruption that is endemic to Afghanistan meant that a lot of this surplus American gear would, if given to the Afghan government, end up with one Islamic terrorists organization or another and these Afghans were not bashful about advertising that they were now relaxing with American furniture, generators, and air conditioners.

So far 176,000 tons of surplus gear has been reduced to small pieces of metal, wood, and other materials, put into shipping containers and sold to Afghans for $264 a ton as scrap. So far $100 million worth of equipment has been donated to the Afghans, and there will be more before most U.S. troops are gone in about a year. But the Afghans are aware that the U.S. sent some $33 billion worth of stuff to Afghanistan and are disappointed that they did not get more of it. The U.S. has also shipped 50,000 vehicles and 100,000 shipping containers out of Afghanistan.