During the campaign, the wingnuts tried to smear Obama as hating the troops for some very sensible remarks he made about our situation in Afghanistan:
And that requires us to have enough troops that we’re not just air raiding villages and killing civilians, which is causing enormous problems there.
That was a sensible point, and it was met with howls of outrage from the usual suspects who broke out their GI Joe action figures and pretended that this was some sort of grievous insult to the honor and dignity of our troops. When, in actuality, not having enough troops on the ground and having to rely on bombing runs in which innocents are killed is wholly unproductive, and not only that, immoral.
So where are we now? Well, candidate Obama is now President Obama, and we have elevated the number of troops on the ground and are allegedly pursuing a new strategery in Afghanisatan. Change and all that, you could say. Unfortunately for those on the ground in Afghanistan, it is just the same shit different day:
The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan said Wednesday he had dispatched a joint U.S.-Afghan team to investigate U.S. airstrikes that killed more than two dozen people in the western part of the country and prompted an outcry from Afghan officials.
Although the International Committee of the Red Cross said that women and children were killed in the U.S. strikes, Gen. David McKiernan told reporters in the capital that it was too early to know exactly what had happened. “We’re hopeful in the next couple of days we can have at least the initial truth,” he said.
According to the Red Cross, these numbers are not wildly exaggerated:
Red Cross officials are backing local reports that U.S.-led airstrikes in western Afghanistan earlier this week killed dozens of civilians. The U.S. military is sending investigators to the scene and President Hamid Karzai has pledged to take up the issue in meetings with President Obama.
Local Afghan officials say the incident occurred during a battle Monday and Tuesday in Farah province, when Afghan troops aided by U.S. soldiers were battling Taliban insurgents.
Local officials said bombing raids on the suspected Taliban positions killed as many as 100 civilians and residents are still digging through rubble looking for more bodies. A Red Cross team sent to the region backed up the claims of dozens of civilian deaths, including women and children.
I’m no pacifist. I understand there will be civilian casualties from time to time and that we will breezily call them “collateral damage,” but this has to stop. What is this accomplishing? What is the purpose in this? And why is the man who identified this as a problem a year and a half ago sitting by and letting this happen? A total damned disgrace, Obama.