Obama’s Big Afghanistan Lie

September 5, 2012 By 16 Comments

The soldiers that Obama was addressing knew it and knew what a worthless lie his boast of defeating Al Qaeda in Afghanistan was.

A few days ago, Obama appeared at Fort Bliss in Texas, and claimed, “We pushed the Taliban back. We’re training Afghan forces. The transition to Afghan lead is underway.” In the real world, the Taliban have been pushing forward and the training of Afghan forces has been aborted because of multiple shooting incidents.

Shortly after Obama flew out of Afghanistan, the Taliban carried out a major attack in Kabul and shortly after his speech at Fort Bliss, the Taliban carried out more attacks near a US base only forty miles from the Afghan capital. This is not anyone’s definition of having “Pushed the Taliban back.” The soldiers on the ground know it. The voters still don’t.

Upping the ante, Obama bizarrely decided to attack Romney for not mentioning Afghanistan. “I put forward a specific plan to bring our troops home from Afghanistan by the end of 2014. We are in the process of doing that right now.  And when I say I’m going to bring them home, you know they’re going to come home. “

But we don’t actually know any such thing. Obama had promised to bring the troops home out of Iraq, but when the deadline came, he renamed the mission and declared that the remaining 50,000 soldiers were only there in an advisory capacity. As even Politico pointed out, Obama’s Afghanistan plan is not specific and does not bring all the soldiers home.

Obama and his people have been saying that the War in Afghanistan is over. It’s not over in the sense that it has been won or that anything has been accomplished. Just like in Iraq, it’s over because Obama has decided that it’s politically convenient to pull out now or at least to claim to be pulling out now.

Two American soldiers have already died in Afghanistan in September. Thirty-eight died in August. Two hundred forty-five have died so far this year. Taliban attacks have taken place close to NATO bases.  By the end of this year twice as many soldiers will have died during the drawdown phase this year alone than were killed in Afghanistan in the last year of the Bush administration.

There have been 34 “friendly fire” attacks by Afghans this year. Twelve such attacks in August alone. Karzai continues to treat international forces as the enemy and denounces the United States at every turn.

Obama’s attempts to make peace with the Taliban failed. The Strategic Partnership Agreement being touted by his campaign is completely meaningless and is nothing but a placeholder for a Bilateral Security Agreement that does not yet exist. What it really does is continue funneling money to the untrustworthy Afghan National Security Forces while barring the United States from using Afghan territory to launch attacks into Pakistan—a concession that his campaign is naturally not touting.

The War in Afghanistan has been lost. Obama’s Surge was a horrifying disaster that cost nearly 1500 lives and isn’t through yet. American soldiers were dispatched without proper support for a task that could not be accomplished without decisive air and artillery support. Now after bleeding them for years and while bombs are going off in Kabul, Obama is retreating and claiming victory.

The dead and their families deserve better than Obama’s Afghanistan lie. So do the living.

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About

Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing on radical Islam. He is completing a book on the international challenges America faces in the 21st century.

  • pierce

    They will do and say anything to discredit Mitt Romney just to make themselves look better.

  • PaulRevereNow

    Obama is a traitor, and has kept American forces in harm's way to prop up his worthless ego; and to demoralize and destroy the U.S. military. Mitt Romney doesn't need to fortify his ego, and will evacuate U.S. troops from the Afghan quicksand, right away.

    • phxn8tv

      Has Romney said this? I certainly hope so as my son and too many others to count are fighting in that sandpit for no good reason.

  • Schlomotion

    Mr. Greenfield says "Obama is running on Bush’s successes in Afghanistan against Al Qaeda."

    OK, Mr. Greenfield. I ran that sentence by several people, none of whom like Obama, and their reply was:

    "Whhhhhhhaaaaaat?!?!"

    This article must have been written for people born a week ago.

    • Nick

      Your "people" are the ones who were born a week ago.

    • Touchstone

      Neonates are more likely to make sounds like "Whhhhhhhaaaaaat?!?!" than grown adults. Maybe you should run sentences by people who aren't still feeding at their mother's breast.

      Nobody knows what "people" you're referring to, what their prejudices are, what their knowledge of current affairs is, or to what extent you reduced, cherry-picked, denigrated, or otherwise distorted Greenfield's view in order to elicit the infantile reaction you've reported. Your "argument" is worthless.

      • Schlomotion

        A librarian, a bookseller, a computer programmer and a former editor of National Geographic. The sentence I used was "This guy Daniel Greenfield wrote today that 'Obama is running on Bush’s successes in Afghanistan.'" Every person responded the same way. You can't lie about something that was only one drivers' license renewal ago.

    • Western Canadian

      Actually, given the poor quality of your posts and your very limited success at pretending to be coherent, I suspect that most of the people you know, have a vocabulary limited to:

      “Whhhhhhhaaaaaat?!?!”

    • flowerknife_us

      George Bush went into Afcrapistan and Killed the enemy. We already knew where they hid out. Bombing and special air mobile operations chased the remnants right the frig out of the country. With a sustainable forceof some 20,000 boots on the ground. It stayed that way until Bush became a lame duck.

      Lets take a look at Obama's record in Afcrapistan.

      Some increase of 70.000 boots on the ground with no recorded causality list of the enemy for the effort.

      We do hear of all the civilians killed tho.

      We hear about targeted killings in Pakcrapistan. Usually for killing all the wrong people.

      The supply routes have been cut off and attacked repeatedly Beating the life out of our air transport capabilities. depriving Our forces of enhanced field comforts.

      Obama wants to give a Medal to those who die because they wouldn't shoot back. As they gun them down after giving them the know how.

      We even set up shop in Dubai(?) so Hitlery can talk with our ENEMY without having to cover herself from head to toe in Black cheesecloth.

      Really really sounds wonderful. The Job Obama is doing that is. So good in fact that.

      The Press says not a peep about how wonderful it all is. You would think that a Press who swore to us he could walk on water, would be blowing Trumpets about the way things are going.

      90,000 Boots trapped in the middle of bum %&$( nowhere will not make Obama an ALAMO.

  • Ar'nun

    25 March 2011: "Libyan rebel commander admits his fighters have al-Qaeda links
    Abdel-Hakim al-Hasidi, the Libyan rebel leader, has said jihadists who fought against allied troops in Iraq are on the front lines of the battle against Muammar Gaddafi's regime. "

    European Papers everywhere were running this story. The US Media, also known as the White House Propaganda Department, was silent about this. Barrack Hussein Obama was fully aware al Qaeda no longer had a large presence in Afghanistan, because he commissioned bombing missions for them in Libya. As we soldiers fought these bastards for almost 10 years, the US President betrayed us and offered them assistance. The more apt WWII comparison would have been if we defeated the Germans, and the US President decided to run bombing missions to help the Nazis conquer Russia.

    • Ar'nun

      Also, Osama Bin Laden was a Jihadist. He had sent thousands of people to deliver certain death in suicide missions. He was an aging sick man on hemodialysis. His time had come and he welcomed dieing a Martyr. Obama knew where bin Laden was the whole time (I believe Bush did too). He needed something big and if he didn't send the order when he did, bin Laden wouldn't have made it to be an October surprise this year and would have died of natural causes. The killing of obl was a ruse that morons like schlomotionless bought.

  • commwife

    I am sick over this. My husband is heading back over there. All the info I have learned re rules of engagement, making them carry weapons unchambered or not at all, the sick depravity of the culture re physical & sexual abuse of boys & girls & dogs, the blaming our guys for their own murder etc etc. He has been in over 20 yrs and ive only been this worried once. I do not trust this president

    • flowerknife_us

      Amen to that!!!! They have been let back in and were told not to shoot. They used to keep a distance and work up the caliber and accuracy and check out the remains. Usually after days of kicking in doors and running them out of town.

      A prayer for you and yours. From common ground.

  • Kyle

    This is a completely absurd article (not unlike any article written on this completely biased and misinformed website.). The freedom of speech is a fantastic thing, but when one is given such a powerful right, coming across such ignorant rants as this is inevitable. One can compare the “journalism” on this site to that of whereing ear plugs whilst attempting to decipher what the static on a radio is trying to tell you. So I urge each and every reader of this comment to take your narrow spectacles off and search for a knowledgeable news source.

  • billcarson2162

    More than 1,000 American soldiers have lost their lives in Afghanistan in the last 27 months. This is more than the combined total of the nine years before. Thirty have died in August. The commander in chief is AWOL. Not a peep, although he ordered the White House flag flown at half mast for the Sihks that were killed. There is a deep disgust, a fury, growing in the ranks of the military against the indifferent incompetence of this president. It has taken on a dangerous tone. No one knows what to do about him, but the anger runs deep as the deaths continue with no strategic end in sight to the idiocy of this war. Obama has had 4 years to end this futile insanity, during which time he has vacationed, golfed, campaigned, and generally ignored the plight of our men and women in uniform. But, there is now a movement afoot in the armed services to launch a massive get out the vote drive against this president. Not just current active duty types, but the National Guard, Reserves, the retired, and all other prior service members.

  • billcarson2162

    This is no small special interest group, but many millions of veterans who can have an enormous impact on the outcome of the November election if they all respond. The million military retirees in Florida alone could mean an overwhelming victory in that state if they all show up at the polls. It might not keep another one hundred U.S. troops from dying between now and November, but a turn out to vote by the military against this heart breaking lack of leadership can make a powerful statement that hastens a change to the indifference of this shallow little man who just lets our soldiers die.