US Shutting Down Fast-Food Restaurants on Afghan Bases

(March 25) -- President Barack Obama may be planning to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan starting in 2011, but one part of the American military force is already packing up and leaving: Dairy Queen, Orange Julius, Burger King and TGI Friday's restaurants located on U.S. bases in the country.

Fast-food restaurants, one of the trappings of home seen in larger bases in Kabul and Kandahar, are being shut down as part of the military's plans to increase troop levels.

"In the coming weeks and months, concessions such as Orange Julius, Burger King, Pizza Hut, Dairy Queen and Military Car Sales will close their doors," Sgt. Maj. Michael T. Hall wrote on his official blog.

U.S. Soldiers in Kandahar, Afghanistan, leave the new TGI Friday's restaurant on March 23.

Dion Nissenbaum, MCT

U.S. soldiers leave a TGI Friday's restaurant in Kandahar, Afghanistan, on March 23. The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan has ordered the closure of many Western restaurants on U.S. bases in the country.

"Supplying nonessential luxuries to big bases like Bagram and Kandahar makes it harder to get essential items to combat outposts and forward operating bases, where troops who are in the fight each day need [to be] resupplied with ammunition, food and water," Hall wrote, in explaining the decision.

Hall is the command sergeant major for the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan.

Though Hall cited concerns about logistics as the primary reason for shutting down the fast-food restaurants, these imports of American culture have also been held up as signs of Western imperial ambitions in Afghanistan.

The massive bases in places like Kabul and Kandahar have become unusual mixes of restaurants like TGI Fridays, seen in every strip mall in America, combined with elements of an Afghan bazaar. U.S. and NATO troops can buy a side variety of kitsch that even includes, according to McClatchy Newspapers, "$280 Afghanistan U.S. v. Taliban chess sets featuring (for the Americans) Bush as king, the Twin Towers as rooks, and the Statue of Liberty as the queen v. (for the Taliban/insurgents) Osama bin Laden as king, a woman in a burqa as queen and suicide bombers as bishops."

A few things won't be shutting down, however. Afghan shops and other businesses that employ Afghans will remain. So will the ever-popular Green Beans Coffee.