Obama’s Rules Of Engagement In Afghanistan Costing Our Troops Lives

Flopping Aces ^ | 09-09-09 | Curt

[Starman417]

Four Marines died yesterday in Afghanistan when the Taliban laid a trap:

Four U.S. Marines died Tuesday when they walked into a well-laid ambush by insurgents in Afghanistan’s eastern Kunar province. Seven Afghan troops and an interpreter for the Marine commander also died in the ambush and the subsequent battle, which lasted seven hours.

Three American service members and 14 Afghan security force members were wounded.

It was the largest number of American military trainers to die in a single incident since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion.

The battle took place around the remote hamlet of Gangigal, in a valley about six miles from the Pakistani border, after local elders invited the U.S. and Afghan forces for a meeting.

American officers said there was no doubt that they’d walked into a trap, as the insurgents were dug in at the village, and had preset their weapons and their fields of fire.

It was a trap alright....but one they could of extradited themselves out of if not for the rules of engagement laid out by Obama's General, General Stanley McChrystal:

Airstrikes by coalition forces in Afghanistan have dropped dramatically in the three months Gen. Stanley McChrystal has led the war effort there, reflecting his new emphasis on avoiding civilian casualties and protecting the population.

NATO fixed-wing aircraft dropped 1,211 bombs and other munitions during the past three months — the peak of the fighting season — compared with 2,366 during the same period last year, according to military statistics. The nearly 50% decline in airstrikes comes with an influx of more than 20,000 U.S. troops this year and an increase in insurgent attacks.

The shift is the result of McChrystal’s new directives, said Air Force Col. Mark Waite, an official at the air operations center in southwest Asia. Ground troops are less inclined to call for bombing or strafing runs, though they often have an aircraft conduct a “show of force,” a flyby to scare off insurgents, or use planes for surveillance, Waite said.

The Marines who were killed were not the ones less inclined to call for a bombing run, in fact they were depending on it to get them out of the trap....and none came:

[Piquaboy]

That POS could care less what happens to our troops.

[ApplegateRanch]

If the Senate had been majority Republican he would have been out of office.

If ifs and ands were pots and pans, there'd be no need of tinker's hands.

Futile gestures are just that: futile, and remain only gestures.

Might as well say, "if the electorate was informed, and the MSM honest, Obama would still be a nobody living in Chi-Town."