kamikazi89

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — August has become the deadliest month yet for U.S. forces in the nearly 10-year-old war in Afghanistan, increasing pressure on the Obama administration to bring troops home sooner rather than later.

The 66 U.S. service members killed this month eclipses the previous record of 65 killed in July 2010, according to an Associated Press tally. Nearly half the August deaths occurred when insurgents shot down a Chinook helicopter Aug. 6, killing 30 American troops, mostly elite Navy SEALs.

Violence is being reported across Afghanistan despite the U.S.-led coalition's drive to rout insurgents from their strongholds in the south.

Though American military officials predicted high casualties this summer as the Taliban try to come back after recent offensives, the grim milestone increases pressure on the Obama administration to withdraw U.S. forces quickly.

The military has begun to implement President Barack Obama's order to withdraw the 33,000 extra troops he dispatched to the war. He ordered 10,000 out this year and another 23,000 withdrawn by the summer of 2012, leaving about 68,000 U.S. troops on the ground. Although major combat units are not expected to start leaving until late fall, two National Guard regiments comprising about 1,000 soldiers started going home last month.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has set the end of 2014 as the target date for Afghan police and soldiers to take the lead in protecting and defending the country, leaving international combat forces to go home or take on more support roles.

In a speech in Minnesota on Tuesday, Obama honored all the troops who have been killed in Afghanistan and Iraq.

"As our mission transitions from combat to support, Afghans will take responsibility for their own security and the longest war in American history will come to a responsible end," Obama said at the American Legion's national convention in Minneapolis. "For our troops and military families who have sacrificed so much, this means relief from an unrelenting decade of operations."

Aside from the 30 Americans killed in the Chinook crash southwest of Kabul, 23 died this month in Kandahar and Helmand provinces in southern Afghanistan, the main focus of Afghan and U.S.-led coalition forces. The remaining 13 were killed in eastern Afghanistan.

Former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, Ronald Neumann, said the recent spike in violence does not tell policymakers much on its own, yet could still have the effect of intensifying the sense of frustration about the war in Congress and elsewhere. Some U.S. lawmakers see the war's duration and cost as a "nuisance" in a time of tight U.S. budgets, he said. "That reinforces the negative," he said.

Jeff Dressler, a senior research analyst studying Afghanistan at the Institute for the Study of War in Washington, said August's high casualty count must be put in context.

"We are right now in the height of the fighting season. Despite progress in Helmand and Kandahar, there continues to be tough fighting down there as coalition forces consolidate their gains and transition areas of those provinces to Afghan lead," he said, referring to Afghan police and soldiers eventually taking responsibility for security in certain areas.

"We have to look at what commanders were saying all along throughout the course of the year — that we're really not going to know until October, at the end of this fighting season, how much progress we've had," Dressler said.

Besides the 66 Americans killed so far this month, the NATO coalition suffered the loss of 14 other troops: two British, four French, one New Zealander, one Australian, one Polish and five others whose nationalities have not yet been disclosed.

So far this year, 403 international service members, including at least 299 Americans, have been killed in Afghanistan.

Battleground: War Rugs from Afghanistan

Attached Images

 

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katie west is the best

SageTree

Thanks for posting this dude.
No comment...
But thanks for bringing stuff like this to Light.

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deadhead94

A whole 66? Damn, you guys better pull out before a you have a dangerously low population.

How many innocent civilians have those same 66 killed?


if you ask me, August wasn't deadly enough and those pussies should stop whining about the loss of 66 people from the bottom of the barrel.

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SageTree

Well.... if you ask me August was




enough.



Do you know anyone that has gone over there by chance?

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DdC

US Squandered £21 Billion on Private Contractors in Afghanistan and Iraq
Around 209,000 contractors were on the US payroll at one time - 60,000 more than the combined number of US troops now in the two countries. The coalition allies rely on hired staff for everything from feeding troops and cleaning latrines to guarding convoys, manning surveillance equipment and building schools and wells.

Teacher Layoffs and War
Our government’s perverse definition of “national security” was on display again this summer. By large majorities, the U.S. Congress approved a so-called emergency appropriation of $33.5 billion to escalate the war in Afghanistan—adding to the more than $1 trillion that the United States has already spent waging wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Meanwhile, as schools faced the potential layoff of an estimated 300,000 teachers across the country, Congress dawdled until the second week in August, finally approving $10 billion to save the jobs of about half that number. The catch was that Congress “found” the money by cutting $12 billion in spending on food stamps (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program)—a measure that the Food Research and Action Center says will hurt 40 million people, almost half of them children, when the cuts take effect in 2014.

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deadhead94

Yes I do. I ask them about their kills every time I see them. They don't like that for some reason. I suspect because the targets were unarmed.

I don't feel any sympathy for anyone who voluntarily joins a military then gets killed while occupying another country for no apparent reason.

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Roach

you would.

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לזיין את הקופים

SageTree

What do you have sympathy for in this life?

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deadhead94

I call em as I see em. I can't answer that with anything concrete.

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deadhead94

Also, that was very predictable. I knew you (like you specifically) were going to ask that (almost verbatim) before I even wrote it down.

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Kompressor

Wow you predicted Sagetree has concern.

You're so smart.

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Think like a man of action, act like a man of thought. -H. Bergson

SageTree

Pretty annoying eh, deadhead?



edit: Komp!!!

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deadhead94

Concern for what?

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SageTree

Life, Peace, Happiness....



And don't forget the granola, son!




People who volunteer for the Services don't WANT war.
Sure they are 'ready' or at least aware of the risks involved.
But I think they trust they'll only be sent responsibly into harms way.

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deadhead94

Then in that case, I don't feel sympathy for idiots.

They will be sent into harms way on the whims of the ruling class. Just like it has been since the dawn of civilization.

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Jewish Pork

When are we going to stop giving all this fucking money to the military industrial complex and get the fuck out of these countries?

SageTree

And if you can't tell, neither do many of us.


There are a lot of shitty reasons why people feel the need that the Services are their only chance, and that too comes back to the ruling class.... and it's a deep issue for sure.

Holy shit Brother.... record this date....

I agree with you, zero clarification needed.

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Jewish Pork

Why is patriotism such a novel ideal to you?

What countries' citizens do you think feel more of an obligation to other countries over their own?

Jewish Pork

I'm not a sheep, bro

deadhead94

Because until we stop being in individual nations and start just being "Earth", we are going to stagnate and die off. Not to mention the fact that we will be stuck here with no chance to find other habitable pieces of rock.


I don't like people, but I am for the long term survival of the species. The concept of nation states is counterproductive to that. Culture too (a lot of them at least).

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