During President Bush's time in office 625 American troops were killed, compared with 1474 under President Obama. 2638 American troops were wounded during President Bush's tenure, while under President Obama a staggering 141,817 have been wounded.
What makes these statistics all the more alarming is the fact that Obama's dead and wounded have occurred in less than 4 years, while those under President Bush occurred in 7 years.
The reason for these horrifying statistics? Put simply, under President Obama the rules of engagement for US forces have been designed to protect Afghan civilians - and the president's political ass - rather than American soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines.
When US troops come under fire they are not permitted to shoot back if civilians are in the line of fire. The rules for calling in air support are even more restrictive, requiring approval from up the chain of command.
In addition, the President's decision to announce a date certain for withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan have emboldened the Taliban and made our Afghan "allies" skittish. As a former military officer recently said, "We have the watch, but the Taliban has the time". The Afghans know that once the US leaves their country, the weak and corrupt government in Kabul will fall and those that are seen as collaborating with US and NATO troops will be slaughtered. This has led to increasing "Blue on Green" attacks by Afghans being trained to become police.
The so-called "mainstream" media and anti-war protesters who were so ready to point out every error of the Bush Administration in both Iraq and Afghanistan, are completely silent on these fact under the Obama administration.
Under current circumstances it seems clear that US casualties will only increase. Either the rules of engagement need be changed and our withdrawal date scrapped, or our forces need to be withdrawn immediately to prevent more needless bloodshed.
If our goal is to build a stable, democratic Afghanistan then we've already failed. If our goal is to prevent Al-Qaeda from utilizing Afghanistan as a training and staging area we can accomplish that with our Special Forces, intelligence assets and air power. There is no reason to have large numbers of US boots on the ground to be targets for Al-Qaeda terrorists, Taliban insurgents and Afghan infiltrators.
