74% of U.S. Afghan Casualties Came After Obama Ordered Troops Increased

(CNSNews.com) - Seventy-four percent of the U.S. military personnel who have given their lives serving in the Afghan War died after Feb. 17, 2009, when President Barack Obama announced his first increase in the number of U.S. troops deployed in Afghanistan, according to CNSNews.com’s database of U.S. casualties in the war.

In the more than twelve years that have passed since U.S. troops first entered Afghanistan with the aim of removing al Qaeda from its sanctuary there, 2,162 U.S. service personnel have given their lives in and around Afghanistan in support of U.S. military activities in that country.

1,593 of those 2,162 U.S. casualties—or 73.7 percent—have occurred since Feb. 17, 2009, when Obama announced the first of his multiple increases in U.S. military personnel deployed to Afghanistan.

74% of U.S. Afghan Casualties Came After Obama Ordered Troops Increased | CNS News

Rocketman said:

(CNSNews.com) - Seventy-four percent of the U.S. military personnel who have given their lives serving in the Afghan War died after Feb. 17, 2009, when President Barack Obama announced his first increase in the number of U.S. troops deployed in Afghanistan, according to CNSNews.com’s database of U.S. casualties in the war.

In the more than twelve years that have passed since U.S. troops first entered Afghanistan with the aim of removing al Qaeda from its sanctuary there, 2,162 U.S. service personnel have given their lives in and around Afghanistan in support of U.S. military activities in that country.

1,593 of those 2,162 U.S. casualties—or 73.7 percent—have occurred since Feb. 17, 2009, when Obama announced the first of his multiple increases in U.S. military personnel deployed to Afghanistan.

74% of U.S. Afghan Casualties Came After Obama Ordered Troops Increased | CNS News

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Dont surges "work so good"? Now the Taliban is back and is gonna be in serious political business here pretty soon. All this worthless bloodshed for what? The unwinable "war on terror"?

The OP is a despicable LIE - a lie started by Bush, bought by the media - and now just the lie always told.

"Casualty" ALWAYS meant the combination of those killed and those wounded to the extent no longer combat capable. Given the massive numbers of American servicemembers being blown up, shot up - but lived (without arms, legs, face, functioning brain) - Bush and the military shifted to ONLY releasing the number of those "killed in action" as "casualties."

Then, IF they could in any way declare it was not a 100% direct result of battle OR if they could get the servicemember out of the country - even if brain dead - before death - they would not count that servicemember as a casualty either.

So, now, the BIG lie is having replaced "casuality" to only meaning those who die while still in Afghanistan - and looking for any way to not count any of those too (which all denies death benefits to their spouses and children) - erasing everyone else including all those servicemembers with massive, permanent injuries AS IF THEY NEVER EXISTED AND SUFFERED NOTHING.

This massive organized lie REALLY pisses me off - and the kiss-ass media went right along with it. First, they would at least say "killed" to clarify. Now they don't even do that in converting "casuality" to mean killed - thus reducing the true "casualty count by 500% or more.

Damn liars always in bed with the politicians and military for war now. It used to not be so. Look at any stats for wars prior to Iraq and Afghanistan for how "casualties" were reported by the media and government. Now it's all a HUGE LIE to deceive the real casualty counts.

IN FACT, there have been over 15,000 American service member CASUALTIES in Afghanistan.

Makes sense that if you ramp up the war and send more troops into harm's way, that more troops will die...idk what the amazing revelation is here.

Rocketman said:

(CNSNews.com) - Seventy-four percent of the U.S. military personnel who have given their lives serving in the Afghan War died after Feb. 17, 2009, when President Barack Obama announced his first increase in the number of U.S. troops deployed in Afghanistan, according to CNSNews.com’s database of U.S. casualties in the war.

In the more than twelve years that have passed since U.S. troops first entered Afghanistan with the aim of removing al Qaeda from its sanctuary there, 2,162 U.S. service personnel have given their lives in and around Afghanistan in support of U.S. military activities in that country.

1,593 of those 2,162 U.S. casualties—or 73.7 percent—have occurred since Feb. 17, 2009, when Obama announced the first of his multiple increases in U.S. military personnel deployed to Afghanistan.

74% of U.S. Afghan Casualties Came After Obama Ordered Troops Increased | CNS News

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Who gives a ****. There should have been zero US deaths in Afghanistan.

TheDemSocialist said:

Dont surges "work so good"? Now the Taliban is back and is gonna be in serious political business here pretty soon. All this worthless bloodshed for what? The unwinable "war on terror"?

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It's not actually a "surge" if you're not allowed to fight. :roll:

Gathomas88 said:

It's not actually a "surge" if you're not allowed to fight. :roll:

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Troop surge and a massive offensive isnt "fighting"?

TheDemSocialist said:

Troop surge and a massive offensive isnt "fighting"?

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A "massive offensive" where we've been hamstrung at every turn by bitching about air strikes and civilian casualties and an un-cooperative Afghan government actively working against us?

Nope. This "surge" was always a half-assed stop gap measure, and the administration was well aware of this fact. They never wanted it to succeed, so they turned it into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Most of those troops are doing little more than sitting around on various FOBs and waiting to get shot at.

Gathomas88 said:

A "massive offensive" where we've been hamstrung at every turn by bitching about air strikes and civilian casualties and an un-cooperative Afghan government actively working against us?

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When you airstrike a bunch of civilians its usually used as propaganda against you for recruits for the local "mujaheddin" to fight in that "holy war"....

Nope. This "surge" was always a half-assed stop gap measure, and the administration was well aware of this fact. They never wanted it to succeed, so they turned it into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

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Yea.... But if they never wanted it to suceed why do it in the first place? Why increase drone strikes in the area? And why do a massive offensive? Doenst make much since at all...

The surge wasn't large enough or long term enough to accomplish the objectives under consideration. McChrystal originally wanted 50,000-80,000 troops but knew this was a politically impossible figure to ask for, even his middle option of 40,000 wasn't palatable enough though he believed anything short of 40,000 was to bring the risk of failure to unacceptable levels.

TheDemSocialist said:

When you airstrike a bunch of civilians its usually used as propaganda against you for recruits for the local "mujaheddin" to fight in that "holy war"....

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If you're going to dump 30,000 men on a region and then simply leave the sitting on the ground with their thumbs up their asses instead of allowing them to do the job they were sent to do, you can't really expect results, now can you?

Yea.... But if they never wanted it to suceed why do it in the first place?

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So he can buy time for withdrawal without looking like a weakling who abandons his allies at the earliest possible opportunity.

Nevermind the fact that he's simply opted to do so at a slight later opportunity instead, of course. :roll:

Why increase drone strikes in the area? And why do a massive offensive? Doenst make much since at all...

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There never was an especially massive "offensive" in the first place; just some minor skirmishing here and there.

The only reason they've agreed to expand the drone campaign is because it is comparatively quiet and costs little in the way of political capital.

TheDemSocialist said:

When you airstrike a bunch of civilians its usually used as propaganda against you for recruits for the local "mujaheddin" to fight in that "holy war"....



Yea.... But if they never wanted it to suceed why do it in the first place? Why increase drone strikes in the area? And why do a massive offensive? Doenst make much since at all...

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Because the White House never the less hoped it would succeed and it was probably politically impossible for the President to do nothing, nor could he put an immediate withdrawal into motion. The surge was an effort to provide both political cover and practical breathing space for the withdrawal from Afghanistan.

I would have thought a ***** like Obama would have wanted to withdraw from Afghanistan on his first day in office. What a bad idea Afghanistan was. The retaliatory attacks Bush made after 9/11 were well handled and well executed. Mission was accomplished. Then, for inexplicable reasons :roll: we decide that it's a great idea to stay and fight a obviously unwinnable war in a nation of religious lunatics. Good luck with that. But Obama was probably forced to be a manly man and really get over there and kick him some Taliban ass. Because if we had quit, he would have been laughed out of office.

We are victims of our own savagery. We feel compelled to intervene in the most ludicrous situations. As if we had no problems of our own, we must fix someone else's.

"We have met the enemy, and he is us"
Pogo

Gathomas88 said:

If you're going to dump 30,000 men on a region and then simply leave the sitting on the ground with their thumbs up their asses instead of allowing them to do the job they were sent to do, you can't really expect results, now can you?

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There "job" is to indiscriminately bomb and invade every village and house they can find? I thought part of the mission was "winning the hearts and minds"...

So he can buy time for withdrawal without looking like a weakling who abandons his allies at the earliest possible opportunity.

Nevermind the fact that he's simply opted to do so at a slight later opportunity instead, of course. :roll:

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So he wanted "time to withdrawal" so he sent more troops to withdrawal?

There never was an especially massive "offensive" in the first place; just some minor skirmishing here and there.

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U.S. Marines Open a New Offensive in Afghanistan - Photo Essays - TIME
US prepares for what could be last major Afghan offensive | Fox News
NATO launches major offensive in Afghanistan - CNN.com
US Marines Launch Large Offensive In Afghanistan

There was in fact many major offenses in Afghanistan as a whole during that surge.

The only reason they've agreed to expand the drone campaign is because it is comparatively quiet and costs little in the way of political capital.

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Well when your fighting an enemy that takes place with a lot of hit and run attacks its hard to get into all out combat.

Sherman123 said:

Because the White House never the less hoped it would succeed and it was probably politically impossible for the President to do nothing, nor could he put an immediate withdrawal into motion. The surge was an effort to provide both political cover and practical breathing space for the withdrawal from Afghanistan.

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Then why would POTUS take the option the compiled with the 2nd larges troops in the Afghanistan?

specklebang said:

We are victims of our own savagery.

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We are victims of our own latent bi-polar schizophrenia. :lol:

It's like we get ourselves all in a self-righteous huff about how we're going to give someone the beating of a lifetime, and then lose our nerve halfway through delivering the first punch. Sure, any fist that connects with it's target is still going to do damage anyway regardless, but that's not really going to help you much when your heart simply isn't in the fight, and you haven't got the will to see things through to their conclusion.

The only inevitable outcome such an attitude can result in is defeat.

TheDemSocialist said:

Then why would POTUS take the option the compiled with the 2nd larges troops in the Afghanistan?

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I don't understand your question. Why would he choose the option he did? Because it was a compromise number between the minimalist approach that Biden and others favored and the heavily modified but maximal position McChrystal took and still seemed large enough so that it 'might' tip the scales while clearing a path for a withdrawal.

TheDemSocialist said:

There "job" is to indiscriminately bomb and invade every village and house they can find? I thought part of the mission was "winning the hearts and minds"...

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Their "job" is to kill the enemy and break the backbone of the insurgency badly enough that the local populace might be willing to stop cowering in fear of them.

The Afghans ultimately respect brute strength a Hell of a lot more than they respect kindness or consideration.

So he wanted "time to withdrawal" so he sent more troops to withdrawal?

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Yes, because it would have been political suicide to simply withdraw immediately.

I fail to see how this is a hard concept.

There was in fact many major offenses in Afghanistan as a whole during that surge.

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Just because the media or military propaganda machine calls something "major" doesn't mean that it really is.

The surge wasn't "major" enough, and never was. That's always been the problem.

Sherman123 said:

I don't understand your question. Why would he choose the option he did? Because it was a compromise number between the minimalist approach that Biden and others favored and the heavily modified but maximal position McChrystal took and still seemed large enough so that it 'might' tip the scales while clearing a path for a withdrawal.

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He had many other choices besides the troop surge such as limited air strikes, pulling out completely, leaving only advisers, and a barrage of increasing troops such as a surge another 40,000 troops, a middle scenario sending about 30,000 more troops, and a lower alternative involving 20,000 to 25,000 reinforcements. He did infact send the middle ground but i dont see how the made a lick of a difference seeing that its done little to no good but made the situation more unstable.

Gathomas88 said:

Their "job" is to kill the enemy and break the backbone of the insurgency badly enough that the local populace might be willing to stop cowering in fear of them.

The Afghans ultimately respect brute strength a Hell of a lot more than they respect kindness or consideration.

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So kill as many of civilians until they respect you... Howd that work in Vietnam, Iraq?

Yes, because it would have been political suicide to simply withdraw immediately.

I fail to see how this is a hard concept.

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With the vast vast vast vast majority supporting withdrawl for quite sometime now not to well...

Just because the media or military propaganda machine calls something "major" doesn't mean that it really is.

The surge wasn't "major" enough, and never was. That's always been the problem.

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Major in whose book? Yours personally?

Gathomas88 said:

We are victims of our own latent bi-polar schizophrenia. :lol:

It's like we get ourselves all in a self-righteous huff about how we're going to give someone the beating of a lifetime, and then lose our nerve halfway through delivering the first punch. Sure, any fist that connects with it's target is still going to do damage anyway regardless, but that's not really going to help you much when your heart simply isn't in the fight, and you haven't got the will to see things through to their conclusion.

The only inevitable outcome such an attitude can result in is defeat.

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Also, you can't impose your will on other nations even if you win on the battlefield. This isn't WW II with a clearly defined sense of whose ass needed kicking. How would you even know if you won? Why would you care?

TheDemSocialist said:

So kill as many of civilians until they respect you... Howd that work in Vietnam, Iraq?

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Kill the bad guys until the locals respect you. There is a bit of a difference.

It worked just fine in Iraq. That's exactly what made the original "surge" so successful in the first place.

Local tribal leaders saw that they didn't have to take Al Qaeda's crap anymore, so they allied with us instead.

With the vast vast vast vast majority supporting withdrawl for quite sometime now not to well...

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Keep dreaming. If we had withdrawn immediately in '08, Afghanistan would have gone to pot, the media would have had a field day, and Obama almost certainly would have lost re-election.

Major in whose book? Yours personally?

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The generals who planned the operation, obviously. :roll:

They wanted 50,000 to 80,000 men and possibly more, not 30,000 hamstrung by all sorts of ridiculous political concessions.

specklebang said:

Also, you can't impose your will on other nations even if you win on the battlefield. This isn't WW II with a clearly defined sense of whose ass needed kicking. How would you even know if you won? Why would you care?

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Honestly, the only way to really "win" here would be to either leave Afghanistan as a stable US client state, or to neutralize Iran in some fashion. That way, we could be assured some measure of either regional stability, or regional dominance.

The problem is that we can't really seem to make up our minds on which we want to do. We're trying to be both imperialistic conquerors and selfless philanthropists at the same time, and the end result is that we simply wind up being wildly mediocre at both.

TheDemSocialist said:

He had many other choices besides the troop surge such as limited air strikes, pulling out completely, leaving only advisers, and a barrage of increasing troops such as a surge another 40,000 troops, a middle scenario sending about 30,000 more troops, and a lower alternative involving 20,000 to 25,000 reinforcements. He did infact send the middle ground but i dont see how the made a lick of a difference seeing that its done little to no good but made the situation more unstable.

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I think you need to re-read my reply. I said it was a middle ground choice between the maximalist position and the minimalist one. The maximal position was the 40,000 McChrystal officially request, the minimal was Biden and others proposal for substituting a troop surge with more special forces, drones, advisers, etc. It hasn't made any difference, my whole point was that the troop surge was too small.

Gathomas88 said:

Honestly, the only way to really "win" here would be to either leave Afghanistan as a stable US client state, or to neutralize Iran in some fashion. That way, we could be assured some measure of either regional stability, or regional dominance.

The problem is that we can't really seem to make up our minds on which we want to do. We're trying to be both imperialistic conquerors and selfless philanthropists at the same time, and the end result is that we simply wind up being wildly mediocre at both.

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And you can see how welcome we are by recent challenges from the leaders of this unstable society. We're not wanted or needed. They are incapable of a civilized society. It's tragic really but just like we leave crazy NK alone to their terrible fate, we must do so with these people. We can NOT win here. We are throwing blood and treasure at an unfeeling wall.

Imagine if we took every penny we spent in Afghanistan and spent it on education. We'd have a University on every corner and everyone could afford it. Or on NASA, we'd be building colonies in the Oort Cloud. Or roads, so I don't have to bounce through the potholes. Anything.