Obama's Afghanistan Errors Are Producing the Same Results He Got in Iraq

Six US troops were killed near Bagram air base in Afghanistan yesterday when a suicide bomber on a motorbike struck their patrol. It was the deadliest attack on US forces this year. The victims included New York City Detective Joseph Lemm, a 15-year veteran of the NYPD who also volunteered in the US Air National Guard and was on his third deployment to war zones. New York Police Commissioner Bill Bratton said : "Detective Joseph Lemm epitomized the selflessness we can only strive for: putting his country and city first." Statesboro, Georgia, media identified another victim as serviceman Chester McBride, Jr. The other dead US soldiers included Serviceman Michael Anthony Cinco of Rio Grande Valley, Texas, Staff Sergeants Peter Taub, whose family lives in the Washington, D.C., area and whose wife is pregnant, and Louis Bonacasa from New York. ~~~~~ The Taliban, which claimed responsibility for the strike, is still a force 14 years after the beginning of US military operations in Afghanistan. It has increased attacks this year, inflicting heavy casualties on Afghan security forces. European media have reported that the Afghan government is frightened and not sure how it will hold off the Taliban. Last week, the Pentagon warned of deteriorating security in Afghanistan and assessed the performance of Afghan security forces as "uneven and mixed." Predictably, Pentagon data show there have been 10 so-called "hostile" deaths of US service members in Afghanistan this year, as well as 10 non-hostile deaths, largely from aircraft crashes. ~~~~~ Also yesterday, the UK rushed a deployment of British military to Helmand province in Afghanistan. The new deployment comes as reports suggest the Taliban is close to overrunning Sangin town. A small number of personnel were sent in an "advisory role," the Ministry of Defense said, adding that they will not be in combat and are part of a larger NATO team. UK combat operations in Afghanistan ended in 2014, but 450 troops remain in mentoring and support roles. The Taliban surge, in Helmand and a number of other provinces, has highlighted the dysfunction in the Afghan government and the continuing problems of the Afghan military. In addition, the Taliban is suffering from a lack of unified leadership and the resurgence is partly a reflection of different factions vying for power. And, ISIS is slowly infiltrating Afghanistan because of the unstable Taliban and government, adding a new dimension to the conflict. The BBC also quoted Major Richard Streatfield, who spent seven months in Sangin in 2009 and 2010, as saying : "I won't deny, on a personal level, it does make you wonder - was it worth it? Because if the people we were trying to free Afghanistan from are now able to just take it back within two years, that shows that something went badly wrong at the operational and strategic level." ~~~~~ The Taliban are very close to overrunning the strategically important town of Sangin and all of Helmand province. Helmand Governor Rahimi says the authorities are still in control, but his deputy says the Taliban control most of Sangin and the main administrative building has been abandoned. Some reports say the Afghan forces are trapped without food or weapons and with no replacements on the way. There are 12,000 foreign soldiers deployed in the NATO-led Resolute Support international coalition, meant to underpin Afghanistan's own security forces. But, the head of Helmand's provincial council told AP that "around 65%" of Helmand is now under Taliban control. ~~~~~ Dear readers, it feels like Afghanistan is going down the same road to chaos as Iraq. And President Obama's shifting decisions lead the way. In May, he was praising a war to be soon over for America. In October, he changed his mind and said he would keep 9,800 troops in Afghanistan indefinitely. Why do we even bother to listen to him anymore? Only because we care greatly about the young American and allied lives he is toying with.