US Casualties In Afghanistan

Here are US casualties in the Afghan War broken down by year (see http://icasualties.org/OEF/ByYear.aspx) -

2001 12
2002 49
2003 48
2004 52
2005 99
2006 98
2007 117
2008 155
2009 317
2010 499
2011 418
2012 310
2013 127
2014 8

When Obama took over, casualties increased several hundred percent. Even now that Obama is winding down the war, they're still higher than they were for most years under Bush.

Have you ever read about this in a newspaper? What does that say about US journalism?

Is Obama the peace candidate that many imagined when they preferred him to McCain or Romney?

Why has Obama's prolongation of the Afghan War for 5 years occasioned so little comment or protest? What about prolongation of the Iraq War for 4 years?

Does anyone remember what our objectives were in Afghanistan? Have we achieved them? Does Obama care?

Does anyone remember what our objectives were in Iraq? Have we achieved them? Does Obama care?

This is a lot to chew on, but we need to face these questions.

What do you think?

 

I think that the idiotic Obama "Rules of Engagement" have caused the deaths of Americans in the high numbers. The latest I heard that the reason for the ROE's is to influence the "Hearts and Minds" of Afghani's. Sound familiar? Obama and the "Vietnam Redux".

 

Follow the money. All is going according to plan.

 

That is the problem with Chicken Hawk Presidents.
They spend others' blood, bone and lives so cheaply.
McCain is a problem for me. I would expect him to place a higher value on such commodities.
He is certainly no "chicken", just old.

Afghanistan deserves to be called, Mr. Obama's War.


Moi

No
​

 

I think that when our enemies saw the Dems win (and thus, their message that they spouted for years that the wars were failures win) AND when they heard Obama tell them that we were leaving soon, it increased their will to fight. They saw that their fighting wasn't in vain, and that there were indications that their continued resistance would be successful. And imo, they were indications that didn't need to be indicated to the enemy during wartime. I was there from 2009-2010. I saw the difference like night and day; suddenly our enemy was attacking us with much more frequency and ferocity. I asked myself why now? The above reasons are what I determined.

 

No; this is NOT the "Hope and Change" president that chronic non-thinkers on the Left were drooling over and having leg tingling Obamagasms about in 2008; but it IS exactly the president that the thinking part of the nation KNEW that the Left was ramming down its throat. Somehow saying to those non-thinkers on the Left, "We told you so!" just doesn't seem to do the trick emotionally however. Meh . . . so let's just hope that the GOP candidate that replaces Barack in 2016 is massively better than what the idiot Leftwingers gave this nation in 2008. But then again, if he or she just has a smidgeon of common sense then that criteria will have been satisfied.

Who back in 2008 predicted that when all was said and done Barack Obama would turn out to be such a baaaaaaad president that not only would his actions begin the process of rehabilitating G.W. Bush's tarnished -- and rightfully so -- image but that of Barack Obama's spiritual father as well, Jimmy Carter? I did!

 

I think twenty years from now we will still be fighting terrorist wars because Bush defined them as such, instead of taking the Clinton domestic criminal approach. But that's where we ended up. The only way I know how to stop the crazy people is defund them, and you do know, conservatives get paranoid and worry if you defund their military.

 

there's a reason for that.. and that is because when Obama took office one of the first things he did was increase the number of troops in Afghanistan by 300%


the result of said surge has been horrendous.... and to answer the question about Obama being a peace candidate..... no I definitely do not believe he is a peace candidate, I see him as another extension of Bush's foreign policies

 

The criminal route requires functioning and willing governments. That was the whole problem that Bush was handed in the first place. That's why we went to war! Nothing has changed for the better since then. AQ and affiliates have much more control in Pakistan (proven by the fact that Osama lived for years in what is known as their West Point), Yemen, Syria, Mali, Libya, Algeria, Tunisia, Eritrea, Somalia, Sudan, Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Lebanon, Nigeria, and on and on. Some of the govts on this list have zero ability or will to hold terrorists accountable. Your solution good sir? (besides do nothing)

 

Was it because it wasn't snowing? Was it because they shifted troops from Iraq? Was it because,...........Oh, we are having a guessing game.

 

**Raises hand**. I know, I know: Conquer the Middle East. I said it before, and I'll say it again. There is no Muslim/Arabic future in the Middle East. There simply cannot be for the stability of the world. Muslim/Arabic ideology, language and politics must be replaced with the civic, common law of the Europeans/Americans and even the Asian continents. And I believe we could do so within a 2-5 year span as long as we're willing to take up an old crying call:

"Defeat the Islams(then the Nazis) unconditionally!" Sure, yes, the elimination of Arabic Culture might look barbaric to the world, but in the next decade when reform had been complete, even the Arabic nations will be richer for it, terrorism would have been pushed back into the graveyard of history and the World Powers would be able to ensure peace to ourselves and to the world.

 

Guessing is all I got. I was sent to war by Bush, who gave us a message. The MSM and Dems said Bush's message was wrong. But I was still at war, and my friends still are. So now we are killing and mangling people without a message. We are doing it while the public could give 2 craps about what we are doing. No one knows our heroes, battles, etc, like in the wars we win. We finally make a movie about one of our heroes, and many on the left say "Ew". So yeah, GUESSIN IS ALL I GOT AT THIS POINT.

 

Why are you upset that Obama prolonged the wars for several years? There was a timeline for peace with enough time to train the locals on how to defend themselves. The fact that they failed is just more egg on their faces not ours.

If you recall there wasn't an obvious war plan when Bush was in office. It seemed to be a war without end. Equal parts success and fallback. That's why some of us protested Bush and decided to wait-and-see with Obama.

Our objective in Afghanistan was to punish the Taliban for not handing over Bin Laden. We've had mixed results. Does Obama care? I think, if he's smart, he's mad at Karzai for being a dope by sucking up to the Taliban and shaping his own noose. But, at least we can run away and leave him to his fate.

We went to Iraq to punish Saddam for his past crimes. Now Saddam is gone and AlQaeda runs free. Now Obama must consider going back to Iraq. I'd say he's not happy. Maybe it's time for tougher measures?

I think we shouldn't have gone into Iraq. Maybe not even Afghanistan. Well, what's done is done. And my heart is a little more hardened against the idea that we'll ever see peace again. But, even though I don't see a way through all this, I DO think we're all doomed, doomed!!!

Time to go crush some bugs!

I've gone insane.

 

Dealing with crime in America does not require other governments, borrowing trillions from communists, moving troops, murdering troops, etc. Well of course, you don't just murder a million ME citizens, destroy their communities, homes, economy, and think you will get less violence and less AQ membership. And since nothing has changed for the better, do you think you learned a lesson about war? Solution? The UN is the solution, that's why we pay them $8 Billion a year.

 

I never agree with you on anything, but I sort of agree with you on this. Part of the problem pre-dated Obama. We never really had an exit strategy or defined goal in Afghanistan. The tighter rules of engagement under Obama just furthered the harm to our troops, but he added nothing to the nebulous of why we were there. Iraq ending brought AQ focus toward Afghanistan. I do give Obama credit for unleashing drones on Pakistan and fault Bush for allowing the US to be constrained by the border. In the end, we are never going to turn a place most suited for poppies into some kind of oasis developing nation. Heck, a lot of people are so poor they have to rent a shovel when they need one. There isn't much we can do with that kind of place.

 

We were supposed to train their security and moderates to get control before we left. I knew that would take about 20 years or more. But all I got from my leaders like Obama, Reid, Pelosi, college profs, etc., that the mission was failed and not completable from day one. Of course we failed with an attitude like that. And I saw that attitude in Iraq. We were supposed to be training, but many did not take it seriously. It was about biding time till the end of the deployment. We should have taken the mission more seriously.

 

Sounds like nam deja vu. I could probably end it in short order, pass legislation that anyone earning over $250,000. a year is getting draft notices.

 

The other problem here, the ME isn't even the hot bed of terrorism. The most logical military move would be to sweep South into Central America taking out the drug lords, and continue down into S. America to secure our own continent.

 

Yeah, I couldn't disagree more with that. Let them kill each other off without us.

 

I am not sure that many IA were fully vested in that purpose. The US should have never been there, but to the extent we were, de-Baathification in the hands of the CPA pretty much was an unrecoverable error.

 

Nope, just another Bush clusterf**k that needed to be cleaned up. In other words, another Bush legacy.

 

Strict Rules Of Engagement Are Killing More Americans Than ...
tomohalloran.com/2013/07/28/strict-rules-of-engagement-are-killing...
Strict Rules Of Engagement Are Killing More Americans ... When I deployed to Afghanistan as an ... then the next two years will be marked with more American

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~​

Tighter rules of engagement contributed to US casualty ...
rt.com/usa/battlefield-deaths-rules-engagement-change-862
Dec 06, 2013 · ... cost more American lives. The rules of engagement ... Afghanistan, the [rules of engagement] ... playground rules.” US troop strength more than ...

So now Obama negotiates with the Taliban "Winning Their Hearts and Minds" releases their prisoners while ours languish. Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl.

 

Although I disagree with your approach, history shows that unless we win the ideological argument, and convince Muslims that their extremist brethren do not serve their interests, that's exactly what will happen in the future. Just patiently await your plan, it will happen. But I intend to try and avoid it.

 

I'm not sure about the de-Baathification or the CPA and what their role was in Iraq. I go with my gut. And I was not impressed with the training program that I was deployed to augment. At the end of my deployment, I typed up a 1 page memo that explained my frustration with people not taking this training program seriously. Although I received no direct response, the indirect responses from that letter had a negative impact on me, when all I was doing was being honest, and concerned about our accomplishment of the mission.