The United State government’s wasteful spending in post-Osama Afghanistan is horrendous. It’s gotten so bad that the Department of Defense spent $43 million to build a gas station in Afghanistan.

The U.S. Task Force for Business and Stability Operations (TFBSO) built the massively expensive gas station in Sheberghan, Afghanistan. Compressed natural gas filling stations in South Asia generally cost between $200,000 and $500,000 to construct.

This is “an exorbitant cost to U.S. taxpayers,” according to a report from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR). “Even considering security costs associated with construction and operation in Afghanistan, this level of expenditure appears gratuitous and extreme.”

What’s worse, the US government doesn’t have a good and clear explanation for why building the gas station cost so much money. Reconstruction in Afghanistan has become a veritable money pit that wastes billions of dollars of taxpayer money annually.

VICE released a video covering this exact problem.

For more on this story, visit Salon “U.S. military blew $43 million on ‘world’s most expensive gas station’ in Afghanistan”

Farron Cousins is the executive editor of The Trial Lawyer magazine and a contributing writer at DeSmogBlog.com. He is the co-host / guest host for Ring of Fire Radio. His writings have appeared on Alternet, Truthout, and The Huffington Post. Farron received his bachelor's degree in Political Science from the University of West Florida in 2005 and became a member of American MENSA in 2009. Follow him on Twitter @farronbalanced