We should never ever send our troops into a war if they are not allowed to win every battle! This is insane!

Twana

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http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/dec/5/increase-in-battlefield-deaths-linked-to-new-rules/

**FULL FRAME VERSION OF AFDG102, WEDNESDAY AUG. 19, 2009 PHOTO** In this full frame version of AFDG102, Wednesday Aug. 19, 2009 photo, Spc. Paul Pickett, 22, of Minden, La., centers, covers Pfc. James Gordon, 20, of Texas, both of the U.S. Army's Apache Company, 2nd Battalion 87th Infantry Regiment, part of the 3rd Combat Brigade 10th Mountain Division based out of Fort Drum, N.Y., from the rotar wash of a landing medivac helicopter after Gordon sustained leg injuries when the armored vehicle he and six others were riding in hit an improvised explosive device in the Tangi Valley of Afghanistan's Wardak Province. It was Apache company's 48th IED in a month, 7 that were attacks, 41 diffused or destroyed, resulting in 22 soldiers injured and one soldier killed in that timeframe. (AP Photo/David Goldman)**FULL FRAME VERSION OF AFDG102, WEDNESDAY AUG. 19, 2009 PHOTO** In this full frame version of AFDG102, Wednesday Aug. 19, 2009 photo, Spc. Paul Pickett, 22, of Minden, La., centers, covers Pfc. James Gordon, 20, of Texas, both of the U.S. Army’s Apache Company, 2nd Battalion 87th Infantry Regiment, part of the 3rd Combat Brigade10th Mountain Division based out of Fort Drum, N.Y., from the rotar wash of a landing medivac helicopter after Gordon sustained leg injuries when the armored vehicle he and six others were riding in hit an improvised explosive device in the Tangi Valley of Afghanistan’s Wardak Province. It was Apache company’s 48th IED in a month, 7 that were attacks, 41 diffused or destroyed, resulting in 22 soldiers injured and one soldier killed in that timeframe. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

By Rowan Scarborough

The number of U.S. battlefield fatalities exceeded the rate at which troop strength surged in 2009 and 2010, prompting national security analysts to assert that coinciding stricter rules of engagement led to more deaths.

A connection between the sharp increase in American deaths and restrictive rules of engagement is difficult to confirm. More deaths surely stemmed from ramped-up counterterrorism raids and the Taliban’s response with more homemade bombs, the No. 1 killer of NATO forces in Afghanistan.


PHOTOS: Increase in battlefield deaths linked to new rules of engagement in Afghanistan


But it is clear that the rules of engagement, which restrain troops from firing in order to spare civilian casualties, cut back on airstrikes and artillery strikes — the types of support that protect troops during raids and ambushes.

“In Afghanistan, the [rules of engagement] that were put in place in 2009 and 2010 have created hesitation and confusion for our war fighters,” said Wayne Simmons, a retired U.S. intelligence officer who worked in NATO headquarters in Kabul as the rules took effect, first under Army Gen. Stanley M. McChrystal, then Army Gen. David H. Petraeus.

“It is no accident nor a coincidence that from January 2009 to August of 2010, coinciding with the Obama/McChrystal radical change of the [rules of engagement], casualties more than doubled,” Mr. Simmons said. “The carnage will certainly continue as the already fragile and ineffective [rules] have been further weakened by the Obama administration as if they were playground rules.”

Troops say the bureaucracy has cost lives: Each Taliban fighter allowed to escape is one more terrorist free to attack Americans by fighting battles or planting bombs.

Enlarge Photo

Troops say the bureaucracy has cost lives: Each Taliban fighter allowed to ... more >

As President Obama’s troop surge began in 2009, so did new rules of engagement demanded by Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who was responding to local elders angry over the deaths of civilians from NATO airstrikes and ground operations.

Mr. Karzai now is refusing to sign a status of forces agreement for U.S. troops to remain in his country after 2014, even though Mr. Obama personally pledged to him in a letter that Afghan homes would be mostly off-limits to ground forces.

Even before the president’s edict, commanders since 2009 had to insure that a Taliban fighter was carrying a weapon before they could authorize direct fire. A unit engaged in combat on the ground and requesting airstrikes must convince commanders — and lawyers — back at headquarters that no civilians would be harmed.


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Warriors say this chain-of-command bureaucracy has cost lives: Each Taliban fighter allowed to escape is one more terrorist free to attack Americans by fighting battles or planting homemade bombs.

“We handcuffed our troops in combat needlessly,” said retired Air ForceLt. Gen. Thomas McInerney, a fighter pilot in Vietnam. “This was very harmful to our men and has never been done in U.S. combat operations that I know of.”

In 2010, the first full year of the troop surge, 499 Americans were killed, according to the research website icasualties.org. That is about five times the annual death toll compared with 2006-2007 and three times the number in 2008 — yet U.S. troop strength roughly doubled, from 40,000 to 85,000.

In 2011, as U.S. troops peaked at 100,000, 419 Americans were killed. In 2012, as the troop count began to decrease, the death toll fell to 319, three times what it was in 2006-2007.

The battle of Ganjgal in Afghanistan’s Kunar province proved to be historic. An Army captain and a Marine earned Medals of Honor for their efforts in the 10-hour firefight.

The September 2009 battle also stands as a stark example of the effects the restrictive rules of engagement had on troops under fire, fighting for their lives.

Former ArmyCapt. William Swenson, who last month pinned on the Medal of Honor, repeatedly called headquarters to request airstrikes but was denied for hours, as more than 150 Taliban fighters surrounded and attacked his position.

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  • This is destroying the morale of our men and women who are willing to sacrifice everything for the freedoms we so arrogantly enjoy

  • When I was a grunt, our weapons plt. PLT SGT used to talk about setting up ambushes with all the restrictions on their patrols; he said that they confiscated two AKs and never claimed them.  The two point men would let VC/NVA patrols into the firezone and open up on them with the AKs, basecamp would hear them first and THEN return fire from M-16s.  

    There's a way to get around the house rules...nothing is foolproof....

    Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis

    • SAD  BUT  TRUE,  Me  Navy carried  Extra  ammo  with  the  grunts  on  2  patrols( It wasn't  a  light-load)  we  all  can  back  alive,  lost  many  NVA's.  still   the  present  military  needs  that  protection  back..!!

  • The problem is that arm chair warriors are dictating the ROEs that the force is obligated to use.  The obligation is the oath they took.  Personnaly, I still have "Spastic" in my med records, served me well.  Couldn't control my arms, so sayeth the Flight Surgeon.

     

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  • All the blame for this falls directly on OBAMA's useless ass. Leave the knuckle dragging cave-people of Afghanistan so they can kill each other off.

    Our Soldiers have no obligation to listen to a CIC that doesn't care what happens to them.  That may not be the Military way, but that's the damn way I see it!

  • Yep, the War now is between We The People and obama!

  • Shades of Vietnam---I recall when we heard how Afghanistan was to the Russians--"their Vietnam." But our mere politicians wanted to prove from behind their highly polished desk , in the fresh from the cleaner expensive three piece suits-and their clean hands and dirty minds that America could do what the Russians could NOT. Now Afghanistan is our second Vietnam The problem is the ROE. The problem is Washington DC.In  my generation  we had more respect for Mr.Victor charles -rightly so-- than we had for anything that smelled of Washington DC. Those who refuse to learn from history  are doomed to repeat it --eh.? In "the Republic of -- and them SE Asian  War Games-- the ones behind the Desks in DC -at the State Dinners--cosing with the foreign nationals at the UN parties had no respect for the rice farmers inthat land that God forgot.

    WE had the best trained and the  best equipt Army And By golly we would show the yellow man how to fight. Not one of the boyz in DC  understood how to fight a tiger with primitive  gear.And the ROE kicked our butt. We lost not on the foreign battlefield --but on the streets  and college campus. I really don't think the home front has been engaged in the sandbox --but the ROE the politicians in the Pentagon are a far more deadly enemy than the bloody Muslim.

  • You can not have a war where one side has rules. This is exactly what went on in Viet Nam and Iraqi and Afghanistan now. The opposition know their oppositions hands are tied and utilize this to their advantage.

  • it is the Obama administrations intent to weaken the USA to the same levels that came after Vietnam. we should be looking for the latest version of Kerry to come out soon and appear in front of the senate to make the issue political in time for the elections.

    Pull out all our troops bring them all home place them on our borders and seal the nation from illegals crossing the border.

    then make it an issue that every one have a proper photographic identification to stay here or they are forced to return to their homeland. how stupid is it that Obama's uncle has avoided deportation this long.

  • We need to clean out that nest of black widows in DC before we send our troops again.

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