With news today that the US is planning to keep almost 10,000 troops in Afghanistan–a day after seeing some headlines about the war’s “end”–you might wonder if journalists can get the troop counting right in the first place.
On NPR’s Morning Edition (5/26/14), Scott Horsley told listeners:
Some 32,000 Americans are currently serving in Afghanistan, a war the president is determined to wind down by year’s end.
Moments later, he added this history:
This is Obama’s fourth visit to Afghanistan as president and his first since 2012. Since that time, US troop levels here have been cut by about two-thirds.
This is incomplete–and misleading.
Hearing that “US troop levels here have been cut by about two-thirds” shortly after you hear that Obama is determined to end the war gives a very distorted picture of the war under Obama’s watch.
In reality, current US troop levels–about 32,000–are actually about what they were when Obama took office (Think Progress, 6/22/11). A graph that accompanied an NPR story (6/29/11) shows this pretty clearly.
Late last year the New York Times offered similarly misleading spin (FAIR Blog, 11/25/13), reporting that Obama “has reduced the forces in Afghanistan from about 100,000 in 2010 to about 47,000 today.” That’s technically true, but ignores the fact that the troop levels had only gotten that high as a result of Obama’s policy of massive escalation.
It’s often said that Afghanistan is America’s forgotten war. But when the war is remembered, the barest facts about US involvement manage to disappear, too.
But Peter, how can the Conserva-trolls in the Major Lame-stream Media bash Obama and declare it is his fault for Putin attacking Crimea by pulling out of Afghanistan, if they are going to have to also mention that he stuck Afghanistan with an additional 60,000 plus troops in the first place.
Its like the toffee nosed git who tattles on someone, telling their superiors that ‘Johnny stole the cake’, but conveniently forgets to mention that Johnny brought the Cake in the first place.
All true enough, but you still have to admit he was handed this war. He didn’t start it.
What does the PR in NPR stand for?
Best if we just watch BBC
Doesn’t the PR stand for National Public Relations? I don’t find that people who listen to/watch NPR or BBC have a much better idea of what is going on in the world than people who watch NBC, CBS, or ABC. NPR and BBC both dish up propaganda for their respective governments; a good example was listening to BBC and comparing it to Free Speech Radio News. BBC read what seemed to be a Mexican government press release regarding what was happening in Chiapas; the so-called reporter was in Mexico City. FSRN had a reporter IN Chiapas reporting on what was actually going on. I’ve seen this same set-up many times on BBC. NPR is too busy talking about how “entitlement” programs need to be cut to even know where Chiapas is.
US foreign fighters in the AfPak theater under Commander-in-Chief Obama suffered 12 casualties in the week ending May 28 as the official casualty total for the Iraq and AfPak wars* rose to 121,902.
The total includes 81,334 casualties since the US invaded Iraq in March, 2003 (Operations “Iraqi Freedom” and “New Dawn”), and 40,568 since the US invaded Afghanistan in November, 2001 (Operation “Enduring Freedom”)
AFGHANISTAN THEATER: US foreign fighters suffered 12 combat casualties during the week ending May 28 as the total rose to 40,568. The total includes 21,602 dead and wounded from what the Pentagon classifies as “hostile” causes and 18,966 dead or medically evacuated (as of Dec.3, 2012, when it stopped making the count public) from what it called “non-hostile” causes.
IRAQ THEATER: The total of US military personnel in Iraq is unclear, with estimates ranging from a few hundred to several thousand. Most armed US employees are designated as civilians. The casualty total now stands at 35,766 dead and wounded from “hostile” causes and 45,568 dead or medically evacuated (as of Dec 3, 2012) from “non-hostile” causes.
US media divert attention from the actual cost in American life and limb by reporting regularly only the total killed (6,809 4,489 in Iraq, 2,320 in Afghanistan) but rarely mentioning those wounded in action (52,022 – 32,238 in Iraq; 19,784 in Afghanistan). They ignore the 59,908 (44,607 in Iraq,18,463 in AfPak (as of Dec 3, 2012) military casualties injured and ill seriously enough to be medevac’d out of theater, even though the 6,809 total dead include 1,463 (961 in Iraq, 502 in Afghanistan) who died from those same “non hostile” causes of whom almost 25% (332) were suicides (as of Jan 9, 2013).
LIBYA: Operation “Odyssey Dawn” launched in March, 2011 officially ended Oct 31, 2011 with no reported US casualties.
WIAs are usually updated on Wednesday at http://www.defense.gov/news/casualty.pdf
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On his first day in office, he should have called in both the Iranian and Afgan ambassadors and said “Unfortunately, my government made you dependent on us and while we won’t abandon you but, you’re going to have to do your own fighting, on the ground, from now on. We’ll provide you with all the air support you need. I’m withdrawing all our ground forces into fortresses. We’ll provide with all the training you need for the next two years, and will send our troops out only in an emergency ”
There is a civil war in Iraq that will probably go on for another 30 years because out government messed up. Hussein may have “killed his own people” (After daddy Bush stirred them up and didn’t drop them a single bullet) but, they were better off than now and Al Quieda wouldn’t be all over the Middle East.
Face it, Britain and France created this mess, Arab and Jew, Christians, Muslims, lived side for centuries until they came on the scene. Then our government, knowing nothing of the area or the languages therein, made it worse. We should get out totally.
We lose on all fronts by being there. Even when you station troops in a friendly country, your soldiers spend US money in those countries, not in the US because they have to, there’s no choice
Just think of the trillions that we send to these countries and we still don’t have national health for Americans. The AFA, a gift to insurance companies, is not national health, in fact, it will probably make it harder to achieve.
Obama has done only one thing right. He saved the Economy. Other than that he has been a disaster.
Seamus i would say the worst thing he has done by far and away is the economy.The military situation that he hears daily briefings on is beyond your pay grade(or mine) to even comment.I mean lets face it….99% of it is secret.Generally I do believe we should leave them to their own hell.Leaving the ability to respond if they come at us again.But I am not so quick to lambaste Obama on this.Though I would love to hear ANYTHING on what he envisions in this theater.
Thank you us trops and us government for helping Afghanistan for better education and better life and better economy and peaceful life my father professor Dr mohammad hassan Muti father science and engineering and technology helping Afghanistan for good higher education and science and technology by international levels my father education was in America in 1955