Obama extends US military mission in Afghanistan into 2017
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama on Thursday abandoned his pledge to end America’s longest war, announcing plans to keep at least 5,500 U.S. troops in Afghanistan when he leaves office in 2017 and hand the conflict off to his successor.
It is another setback for the president in his quest to extricate the U.S. from more than a decade of war in Afghanistan and Iraq. That goal was already tarnished by the return of U.S. forces to Iraq last year to help fight the Islamic State, a military mission Obama has said will likely outlast his presidency. SOURCE
Maybe it’s just me, maybe it’s the how the POTUS keeps finding a way to extend military actions, but because OF those extensions I see some serious similarities between the war in Afghanistan and Iraq and what we fought, and our method of fighting in Vietnam. We haven’t had the massive troop escalations, not yet anyway, but there are some similarities.
We went to Afghanistan to find and KILL Osama bin Laden in response for his part in the attacks of September 11, 2001, and we went to Iraq because Saddam supposedly had a hand in those attacks as well. That was the *mission* as I remember it being told to us, retaliation for the attacks.
Saddam Hussein has been dead since December 30, 2006 and Osama bin Laden has been dead, if the reports are to be believed, since May 2, 2011, yet here we are, still in Iraq and Afghanistan, and still losing American troops, and for no worthy reason that I can discern.
The war in Afghanistan is America’s longest war? I don’t think so … The role of the United States in the Vietnam War began after the Second World War and escalated into full commitment during what is termed the Vietnam War from 1959 to 1975.
I am convinced that you don’t have to be too terribly intelligent to be a reporter for the mainstream media, I realize the mainstream media does a very poor job of reporting when FACTS are in the equation, but for crying out loud, this was a blatant misrepresentation of facts and history. We were engaged in active participation in Vietnam for 16 years. So far we have been in Afghanistan since 2002, which is, as of now, 13 years.
Maybe the mainstream media can write, at least to some degree, but has issues with math.
We haven’t lost nearly as many troops in Afghanistan or Iraq; we haven’t had nearly as many casualties, dead or wounded, or a loss of aircraft and other equipment as we did in Vietnam but once Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden were DEAD and gone that was where the mission was supposed to end, or so we thought.
George W. Bush called the war in Iraq and Afghanistan a part of the Global War on Terror, and to some degree he was very correct, I never thought we needed to be in Iraq but the actions in Afghanistan and subsequently in Pakistan were very much legitimate and truly was a war on terror in the beginning, but now it has regressed to being nothing more than an effort to keep Hamid Karzai in power in hopes that he won’t blackmail America.
Barack Hussein Obama, the Islamic Jihadist’s best friend, in an effort to not offend his Muslim brothers I presume, changed the name from Global War on Terror to “overseas contingency operations”, a ridiculous name in MY opinion, one that not only SOUNDS silly but gave nations of the world a good laugh at OUR expense, and was proof of the way Obama intended to govern and gave us a glimpse at the utter incompetency of his entire regime.
And then there is this:
US analysts knew Afghan site was hospital
WASHINGTON (AP) — American special operations analysts were gathering intelligence on an Afghan hospital days before it was destroyed by a U.S. military attack because they believed it was being used by a Pakistani operative to coordinate Taliban activity, The Associated Press has learned.
It’s unclear whether commanders who unleashed the AC-130 gunship on the hospital — killing at least 22 patients and hospital staff — were aware that the site was a hospital or knew about the allegations of possible enemy activity. The Pentagon initially said the attack was to protect U.S. troops engaged in a firefight and has since said it was a mistake. SOURCE
A mistake? Probably, but what if it wasn’t? Who is going to hold the Obama regime accountable if indeed there was a deliberate strike on a hospital as many on the LEFT are screaming there was? So far the U.S. Congress can’t do anything effective regarding the IRS scandals, Hillary’s emails and Benghazi, why would we expect them to act correctly now?
Don’t the Democrats realize that their *golden boy* is the one in charge? It’s too late to play the *It was Bush’s fault* card, it’s as worn out as the RACE CARD.
In summation; we have the most incompetent government in the history of this nation. If the Democrats hold the White House that incompetence will continue. If the GOP retakes the White House, depending on who that person may be, we could either be well led by a person with a high degree of competence and ability OR we could be even worse off than we currently are.
There’s something to think about!
Do Syrians speak Spanish? Now we have Cubans landing in Syria on Russian planes…Won’t be too much longer before ISIS lands in Cuba..
I don’t think Putin has any love for muslims in general Cowboy. Following that train of thought, I’ll bet the Castro boys aren’t too fond of them either. Assad follows a different flavor of islam that seems to be a live and let live policy towards other faiths.
Wayne, Hosni Mubarak in Egypt followed that same flavor of Islam and Obama/Clinton took him down. Mubarak protected Christians and defended Israel’s border with them from Palastinians.
Bob, I think that Sisi is more like Mubarak. Morsi was b o’s ally, being a muslim brotherhood member . The administration was very upset over Morsi being overthrown. obama won’t give Egypt the time of day now. That alone should tell you where the HNIC’s loyalties lie.
Nixon had a name for it, ‘Vietnamization’. We all know how well that went. At this point, why leave any troops in Afghanistan? They are sitting ducks with no real function.
Ron, if the current administration doesn’t change the rules of engagement, our guys are sitting ducks. I wonder if b o sent Putin a copy of how to behave on muslim turf.
Wayne, I’m sure he did. And I’m sure Putin threw it in the trash can.
A handful of ragtag militias beat the greatest military power in the world, and did it in 8 years during the Revolutionary War. In WWII, America took only 4 years to win the war with an adversary that was far better than ours at the time.
But here we are, 13 years and counting, fighting a war, with US being the greatest military power ever seen…EVER…fighting a bunch of camel jockeys armed with barely more than rifles and grenades…and we can’t win. Why is that?
This war should have been open and shut in a matter or weeks. I cannot help but feel that we are not allowed to fight. We are not allowed to engage the enemy and take them out, take out where they live, take out their supplies storage, take out those that assist them and on and on. Why, because heaven forbid, a future terrorist may get a boo boo in the process.
What happened to us. We bombed the crap out our Germany. Anyone want to explain Dresden to me and why that was considered a military target. When we fought wars in order to WIN THEM…we destroyed the enemy, his home, his people…EVERYTHING ABOUT THEM. And as for civilians, yeah…so what. I remember those very same civilians on TV during 9/11. They were cheering in the streets at the death of 3,000 plus Americans…and damn happy about it.
We need to take them out. They need to know that those that they choose to lead over them will end in their demise if they continue to allow their leaders to kill Americans. We need to put the fear in every muslim civilian so that if they hear or see anyone in their village talking about fighting and killing Americans, that they stop that shit right quick. They in essence, will police themselves, knowing that even if they are not the immediate killers of US citizens, the fact that they allowed it to happen is enough to bring a shit storm of hell down on them. I bet if we did this, this nonsense in the middle east would stop real fast. But nope, we baby our enemies, and worry more about the lives of small children who are trained to kill us, and not so much about our own soldiers. Better for some mother and father of a Marine to get a telegram of their son’s death, than for some small future terrorist be harmed.
The ROE is insane. And until we decide that when we start a war, the only goal is to finish it, and damn quick, and with the least amount of our men killed, and the complete demoralization of the enemy and his own, we need to stay out of war.
In fact, once war is declared, the politicians should not be allowed to intervene in the slightest. They declare war, and then hand that message over to the generals, whose only goal is the complete and utter destruction of our enemies, and back that up and drain the will to fight out of anyone left, so that we do not have to worry about them in the future either.
But nope, we can’t do that. I suppose the future does not belong to those that slander or kill those that praise allah…my president says so.
dekare, I agree. In Vietnam, we feared China and never should have been there. Something about stopping the spread of Communism as I recall.
In the Middle East it used to be about oil. A coalition of about 100,000 doing Sherman’s March could have done the trick in a matter of months. Of course what you’re left with is one group of rag-heads fighting the other group of rag-heads over who has the better God.
Other that defend Israel, I say we get out of there and let Saudi Arabia and the Russians take it from here.
Well we can just let God handle it. Who said that? I live where MOAB was tested. We don’t have to nuke them for them to find out it’s not nice to fool with Mother Nature. And we don’t have to lose another soldier, sailor, marine, airman, or coast guardsman. Man or woman.
Heaven forbid we drop a bomb and a “School” gets damaged. Or maybe a mosque. Or allah forbid, a child, an “innocent” child is killed. And I don’t mean a child that is taken from its family by our enemies, killed in a most brutal fashion, and quickly driven to a site bombed by Americans, and laid near other “innocent” children’s bodies who all died the same way. War is Hell. There is no way to fight a nice war. There is no way to fight a war where only soldiers die. It’s even harder to do when the soldiers are not dressed like soldiers, and everytime we kill one, they simply remove his rifle and looky here, he’s now an innocent civilian and NOT a soldier. It’s hard to win a war when we are not allowed to bomb “hospitals, schools, or churches”, when those very places are where our enemies meet and plot, and store their instruments of destruction.
I care little for their infrastructure. I care just as little for these supposed “innocent” civilians. And if they get killed…oh well. Next time, don’t elect leaders that declare war on America. You say you didn’t elect them…Fine. Then pick up a weapon, any kind you can find, and fight your “leaders” and do not allow them to take over. You say they will kill you. But so will American bombs and soldiers if they have to come in and do the job you should have done.
Life is not fair. These innocent civilians are involved in this war, whether they want it or not. They need to take back their own country. EVERY civilization has had to fight for its survival. Even civilians. War is not a game for just the military, it is for EVERYONE. So, fight and kill those that try to lead over you and declare war on the U.S.A. Or, you will suffer us coming in. We will certainly try NOT to kill you or blow up your homes and schools, but we can not make any promises.
This is nothing different than what Americans went thru during our Declaration of Independence. Many innocents were killed, and farms, schools, hospitals, and other stuff, were destroyed in the process to complete freedom. No one cried for our dead children during our Revolutionary War. Or do you think that muslims are better than us? Do you think muslim children taught to hate us and will one day pick up a gun and try to kill us, is somehow better than our very own children? Gosh, I hope not. We went thru our growing pains, paid the price, and have the civilized society we have today. It’s the middle east’s turn to do the same. There is no way to make this transition easy. As stated, WAR IS HELL. And if you as a people cannot govern yourselves, and your lands, and keep those that want to destroy America from taking over, we will do it for you. We will fight the fight you should have. We expect no thanks, though it would be nice. But don’t complain when your supposedly innocent civilians die. It’s not our fault you stayed and hung around terrorists. It is not our fault you let them store their weapons in your churches and schools. It’s not our fault you let your children near these extremists, to possibly even become one of them one day soon. It’s YOUR FAULT. You have to answer for that. And how do you expect America to take responsibility for a dead child that was questioningly killed by our bombs, yet you shun any responsibility for our three thousand dead on 9/11. If you had spoken up…if you had taken action to stop these madmen, our WTC buildings would still be standing, and THREE THOUSAND Americans would be alive.
I care more for those people in my country that did NOT cheer at the death of you and yours than of those supposed civilians that partied like it was 1999 when MY BUILDINGS were destroyed by those of YOUR FAITH…and with it, my brothers, my sisters, my mothers, my fathers, my family, my friends.
The answer is simple - the US is infiltrated with communists and now we have a President whom I believe is not only illegal but also a muslim. Speak a word against this administration or congress and many will yell, “Oh! You’re anti-government, that’s all!”
No, just pro US Constitution and anti-corruption. There IS a difference.
The US military is not allowed to win because as of this moment, Obama doesn’t want them to fight and win. It’s obvious. If someone doesn’t think so, can they explain how the US, the UK and France together, 3 world super powers, can’t have already eliminated ISIS?
We all know the Russian gov isn’t our friend…and I never thought I’d live to see the day that a russian President would be put on a pedestal, like Putin. The world is so disgusted with ISIS I believe that they would applaud anyone who has the nerve to go in and get rid of them…and this includes eliminating the Rebels. We know the rebels have been infiltrated with terrorists too. The point is that Obama wants to topple Assad - Putin intends to put a stop it and save Assad’s gov.
Let’s face it - after almost 15 years of hell in the Middle East, Obama has managed for the US to lose its standing - all because of muslim sympathizing. Russia is about to gain control. The US might as well hang it up in the middle east - at least as long as Obama is in office. Besides, he thinks there are more terrorists in the US than in the middle east.
Meanwhile, he has shifted his attention to Cameroon and Nigeria - to gather intellenge to help those governments get rid of Boko Haram - an Islamist terrorist organization that just last year pledged their loyalty to ISIS..
Don’t know about anyone else but Obama stepping deeper into affairs in West Africa….makes my skin crawl. Not that those gov don’t need the help - I just don’t think Obama is the man to do it…stayed tuned on this one.