troops in afghanistan

Again, the IOKIYAR syndrome strikes:

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) has vowed to bring the Senate to a standstill unless congressional leaders agree to allocate $40,000 for a federal study on deepening the Port of Charleston.

Graham says one out of five jobs in South Carolina stem from trade through Charleston’s busy port, and he warns the entire state economy will suffer unless the port is overhauled.

The senator suffered a setback last week when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) did not include the funding in the 2011 budget deal.

Graham said he will not block the budget agreement to keep the government funded through the end of September but that he will hold up all other business until the matter is resolved. He said he would not delay the stopgap spending measure because it includes funding for troops in Afghanistan and Iraq.

When we fund research for things like cancer, monitoring volcanoes or tsunamis or anything other thing that can save millions of lives and billions in property, the right balks at “government waste”. Here we have a Republican Senator wanting to spend federal dollars to research something that will affect a community of less than 350,000 and the right is silent. While the dollar amount is far less, for some reason I am having flashbacks of the “bridge to nowhere” and the late Ted Stevens.

We thought he was lost, but at last he was found:

"In his speech to the nation last night, President Obama claimed that 'Commanders in Afghanistan repeatedly asked for support to deal with the reemergence of the Taliban, but these reinforcements did not arrive.' Such a bald misstatement, at least as it pertains to the period I served as Secretary of Defense, deserves a response."

"I am not aware of a single request of that nature between 2001 and 2006. If any such requests occurred, 'repeated' or not, the White House should promptly make them public. The President's assertion does a disservice to the truth and, in particular, to the thousands of men and women in uniform who have fought, served and sacrificed in Afghanistan."

Well geez Don – I’ll do you one better. Remember when you said reducing troops in Afghanistan wouldn’t hurt security there?

U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said a planned reduction of U.S. troops in Afghanistan would not weaken the country's security. Mr. Rumsfeld made his comments during a joint press conference in Kabul with Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld dismissed suggestions that the U.S. troop reduction would affect the hunt for Osama bin Laden and other terrorists.

That was in December of 2005. How about now Don? Or how about in May of 2003 when you said combat missions were ending, despite the warnings by NGOs that there was a serious security issue?

While we take a day to honor those who have served our country so selflessly Harvard releases a new study with a number that should send shock waves through anyone who supports our veterans:

A research team at Harvard Medical School estimates 2,266 U.S. military veterans under the age of 65 died last year because they lacked health insurance and thus had reduced access to care. That figure is more than 14 times the number of deaths (155) suffered by U.S. troops in Afghanistan in 2008, and more than twice as many as have died (911 as of Oct. 31) since the war began in 2001.

And to really put this number into perspective:

Dr. David Himmelstein, the co-author of the analysis and associate professor of medicine at Harvard, commented, “On this Veterans Day we should not only honor the nearly 500 soldiers who have died this year in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also the more than 2,200 veterans who were killed by our broken health insurance system. That’s six preventable deaths a day.”

How can anyone claim that they “support our troops” when they can turn a blind eye to healthcare reform and ignore this sobering statistic? Perhaps part of it is a misconception – one that leaves people believing that all veterans get free healthcare via the VA. Well that is wrong:

While many Americans believe that all veterans can get care from the VA, even combat veterans may not be able to obtain VA care, Woolhandler said. As a rule, VA facilities provide care for any veteran who is disabled by a condition connected to his or her military service and care for specific medical conditions acquired during military service.

McCain talks about Obama missing stuff, well look here:

It turns out that presumptive Republican nominee Sen. John McCain has attended even fewer Afghanistan-related Senate hearings over the past two years than Obama's one. Which is a nice way of saying, McCain, R-Ariz., the top Republican on the Senate Armed Service Committee, has attended zero of his committee's six hearings on Afghanistan over the last two years.

[SNIP]

A review of the Senate Armed Services Committee hearings as listed on the committee Web site for the past two years reveals that McCain's committee has held six hearings that included the word "Afghanistan" in the title or Central Command -- which overseas U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

McCain missed them all.

(emphasis added)

McCain constantly attacks Obama on missing hearings, yet Mr. 'Foreign Policy' hasn't even mustered the gumption to attend one meeting on Afghanistan? This guy is a total joke and fraud, but I got a feeling it will be written off as another "senior moment".

Bush told the troops in Afghanistan:

"I must say, I'm a little envious," Bush said. "If I were slightly younger and not employed here, I think it would be a fantastic experience to be on the front lines of helping this young democracy succeed."

"It must be exciting for you ... in some ways romantic, in some ways, you know, confronting danger. You're really making history, and thanks," Bush said.

Yet he fought so hard to not go to Vietnam. I guess Vietnam wasn't as "romantic".

(h/t Yglesias)

Bush always equates Iraq to the war on terror, even when experts disagree with him. What is sad is how he has done this so much that he seems to have mentally drawn a disconnect from the real war on terror, which is suffering now:

More troops and sophisticated equipment are needed to bolster Afghanistan's security forces, but it is not clear whether more U.S. troops will be deployed there, U.S. and Afghan defense officials said Tuesday.

Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry told Pentagon reporters that U.S. officials will wait until after next week's NATO summit in Latvia to see how many troops other countries plan to provide before deciding if more U.S. forces must be sent to Afghanistan.

"I think it will be best at this point to wait and see what NATO is able to provide," Eikenberry said. "There's more meetings that are taking place on the military staff. And this is very high on their agenda."

U.S. military leaders have been pushing NATO members to meet their commitments and provide more troops in Afghanistan. For months, officials have said that NATO nations have provided only 85 percent of the support they promised. There is a NATO-led force of about 30,000 in Afghanistan, including some 12,000 U.S. troops. An additional 11,000 American troops are there under U.S. control, conducting counterterrorism operations and other training and reconstruction duties.

So we have had to put our vengeance for 9/11 on the hands of other nations now while we fought this failed Iraq war. They should go ahead and just charge Bush as the 20th hijacker. He has used 9/11 to hijack this country and given aide to those who did attack us by not going after them in the most vigilant way that they deserve. At least Osama is honest about who he hates and wants to kill.