I find it infinitely interesting that the media so often fail to ask so many of the really important questions. For example, according to icasualties, as of the 13th of October, 2012, 1,567 of the 2,136 US troops killed in Afghanistan have died since Obama became president of the United States. That is, 73% of all troops fatalities there happened in the 45 months since Obama took office. The number of wounded has also gone up an incredible amount: almost 5 times the number of people have been wounded under Obama as under Bush.
These are amazing figures, and need to be explained. Why have so many died under Obama, when proportionately so many fewer died under George Bush’s watch, even though he began this war, and waged it longer?
The answer is easy to provide. Under Obama, the Rules of Engagement (ROE) have been progressively tightened, limiting more and more the circumstances under which a US serviceman can use deadly force. Worst of all, the ROE has become so complicated that soldiers are scared to fire for fear they will face a court martial. The aim of the changing ROE is theoretically benign: every attempt is being made to guard against civilian casualties. But US soldiers are facing people who are indistinguishable from civilians in almost every way, until they start shooting or set off a bomb. How do they know if someone involved in suspicious activities is a civilian or an insurgent?
You can see the effect of this in the following table:
2001 12
2002 49
2003 48
2004 52
2005 99
2006 98
2007 117
2008 155
2009 317
2010 499
2011 418
2012 272
Under Bush, the casualties were kept relatively low. Indeed, as Peter Szoldra, an ex-Marine commented, “When I deployed to Afghanistan as an infantry squad leader in 2004, I had the utmost confidence in my superiors, our mission to restore order to Afghanistan, and to help the Afghan people. At the time of my deployment, we had clear rules of engagement (ROE): if you ever feel that your life is threatened, you can respond with force to include deadly force.”
He adds:
“Beyond this, we also patrolled our area of operations with the knowledge that if we ever radioed “troops in contact,” our requests for air or artillery support would be approved.”
All this has changed. Now, he says:
“Instead of being afraid of the might of U.S. firepower, enemy fighters use our rules of engagement and restrictions on air support against us. When faced with a split-second decision of whether to shoot, soldiers many times must hesitate—or be investigated. Or, as in the case of the 2009 Battle of Ganjgal, excessive restrictions on air and artillery assets unfortunately meant excessive American deaths.
We are willing to restrict ourselves to the point of helplessness to avoid even a possibility of civilian casualties,” said one military officer who I’ll refer to as Evan, speaking on condition of anonymity. “I have personally watched the same man arm and disarm 12 improvised explosive devices (IEDs) over a week, with no strikes allowed due to collateral concerns.”
Simply put, Obama would rather have our soldiers die than deal with the political fall-out from accidental civilian deaths. To see the ridiculous constraints our soldiers labor under, here’s a telling quote from another article:
“On many nights, the Marines watched through their night-vision goggles as shadowy figures dug holes in the ground, and on several occasions they opened fire. At some point, the order came down: Stop shooting at night unless you can positively identify an insurgent.
“We knew what that person was doing … burying an IED for sure,” said Wimer, who is now out of the Marines and enrolled in college. “But the command would say, ‘You can’t be positive. They might be a farmer.’ Ridiculous.”
Yes, ridiculous. But the result is tragedy. To see this tragedy face-on, here’s a letter written by a grieving father to Obama, a visible manifestation of the insane military policies the Obama administration has instituted:
