The Taliban and other groups carried out a record number of attacks in Afghanistan during the last several months of 2019, according to an inspector general report released Friday. The increase in violence occurred during a period in which President Trump tweeted that the United States was âhitting our Enemy harder than at any time in the last ten years!â
The number of attacks, detailed in the quarterly report from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, a government watchdog formed in 2008, highlights once more the disparity between talking points on suppressing the Taliban and the reality on the ground: Despite a concerted bombing campaign and American and Afghan offensive ground operations, Taliban fighters are still able to attack at levels similar to those a decade ago.
"Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction"
âWe should charge them rent,â Trump said of South Korea. âWe should make them pay for our soldiers. We should make money off of everything.â (...)
âI want to win,â he said. âWe donât win any wars anymore .â.â. We spend $7 trillion, everybody else got the oil and weâre not winning anymore.â
Trump by now was in one of his rages. He was so angry that he wasnât taking many breaths. All morning, he had been coarse and cavalier, but the next several things he bellowed went beyond that description. They stunned nearly everyone in the room, and some vowed that they would never repeat them. Indeed, they have not been reported until now.
âI wouldnât go to war with you people,â Trump told the assembled brass.
Addressing the room, the commander in chief barked, âYouâre a bunch of dopes and babies.â
For a president known for verbiage he euphemistically called âlocker room talk,â this was the gravest insult he could have delivered to these people, in this sacred space. The flag officers in the room were shocked. Some staff began looking down at their papers, rearranging folders, almost wishing themselves out of the room. A few considered walking out. They tried not to reveal their revulsion on their faces, but questions raced through their minds. âHow does the commander in chief say that?â one thought. âWhat would our worst adversaries think if they knew he said this?â
This was a president who had been labeled a âdraft dodgerâ for avoiding service in the Vietnam War under questionable circumstances. Trump was a young man born of privilege and in seemingly perfect health: six feet two inches with a muscular build and a flawless medical record. He played several sports, including football. Then, in 1968 at age 22, he obtained a diagnosis of bone spurs in his heels that exempted him from military service just as the United States was drafting men his age to fulfill massive troop deployments to Vietnam.
âAll these countries need to start paying us for the troops we are sending to their countries. We need to be making a profit,â Trump said. âWe could turn a profit on this.â
Dunford tried to explain to the president once again, gently, that troops deployed in these regions provided stability there, which helped make America safer. Another officer chimed in that charging other countries for U.S. soldiers would be against the law.
If he was in N Korea he could put them out in a field and fire artillery pieces at them
âWe should charge them rent,â Trump said of South Korea. âWe should make them pay for our soldiers. We should make money off of everything.â (...)
âI want to win,â he said. âWe donât win any wars anymore .â.â. We spend $7 trillion, everybody else got the oil and weâre not winning anymore.â
Trump by now was in one of his rages. He was so angry that he wasnât taking many breaths. All morning, he had been coarse and cavalier, but the next several things he bellowed went beyond that description. They stunned nearly everyone in the room, and some vowed that they would never repeat them. Indeed, they have not been reported until now.
âI wouldnât go to war with you people,â Trump told the assembled brass.
Addressing the room, the commander in chief barked, âYouâre a bunch of dopes and babies.â
For a president known for verbiage he euphemistically called âlocker room talk,â this was the gravest insult he could have delivered to these people, in this sacred space. The flag officers in the room were shocked. Some staff began looking down at their papers, rearranging folders, almost wishing themselves out of the room. A few considered walking out. They tried not to reveal their revulsion on their faces, but questions raced through their minds. âHow does the commander in chief say that?â one thought. âWhat would our worst adversaries think if they knew he said this?â
This was a president who had been labeled a âdraft dodgerâ for avoiding service in the Vietnam War under questionable circumstances. Trump was a young man born of privilege and in seemingly perfect health: six feet two inches with a muscular build and a flawless medical record. He played several sports, including football. Then, in 1968 at age 22, he obtained a diagnosis of bone spurs in his heels that exempted him from military service just as the United States was drafting men his age to fulfill massive troop deployments to Vietnam.
âAll these countries need to start paying us for the troops we are sending to their countries. We need to be making a profit,â Trump said. âWe could turn a profit on this.â
Dunford tried to explain to the president once again, gently, that troops deployed in these regions provided stability there, which helped make America safer. Another officer chimed in that charging other countries for U.S. soldiers would be against the law.
The decline of discourse in the anti-Trump echo chamber.
David Brooks
Love or hate him, Trump has used military force less than any other president since Jimmy Carter. When it comes to foreign policy, he is not like recent Republicans. He is, as my colleague Ross Douthat put it, a Jacksonian figure, wanting to get America out of foreign entanglements while lobbing a few long-distance attacks to ensure the crazy foreigners stick to killing one another and not us.
âWeâre sending more (troops) to Saudi Arabia, and Saudi Arabia is paying us for it,â Trump said. âI said, âListen, youâre a very rich country. You want more troops? Iâm going to send them to you, but you have to pay us.â Theyâre paying us. Theyâve already deposited $1 billion in the bank.â
More "restrained Trump kinetics". Obomba on steroids or Don let the dawgs loose...
While US military advisers have been in Somalia since at least 2013, the effort has gotten a major boost under the Trump Administration, which volunteered to undertake the Danab advisory mission in 2017 in addition to expanding drone strikes, and in December reopened the American diplomatic mission in Mogadishu for the first time since 1991.
Trump authorized the military to carry out precision strikes targeting Al-Shabaab in March 2017. Prior to that the US military was authorized to conduct airstrikes only in defense of advisers on the ground.
So far this year, at least 255 fighters from Al-Shabaab have been killed in 30 airstrikes, according to figures released by US Africa Command. In 2018 the US conducted 47 airstrikes targeting Al-Shabaab, killing about 337 militants. In 2017 the US carried out 35 airstrikes and in 2016 it conducted just 15.
It showed evidence that's contrary to your claim, and since you can't be bothered to back up your assertions...
It only showed an isolated case out of context, the context being the entirety of Trump's military actions not just in one place and compared to prior POTUS's
It's ok, you tried your best. You can't win 'em all.
Perhaps you could come us with US only stats ? Not US and ...
Yeah, 'cus the Aussies always want to do the lion share of the attacking. I expect that many bombs is a major part of our military budget.
Ya know, it's really hard to have any kind of conversation with people who nit pick and take apart every thing I say. I have not the time nor the resources to counter all of the nonsense that comes from my opponents of which is everyone else here. Like, Oh Nose, they're gonna start the draft again !!! Stop him, we're all gonna die !!!! and so much other fear mongering going on right now.
I said that Trump has been highly restrained in his use of kinetic force as POTUS and one country out of all of the places in the world where there is fighting going on and the US is involved is offered as proof that my statement is wrong. And everyone agrees that it is proof enough that my statement is wrong.
How about we see the stats for all of the theatres the US was and is involved with in the same time period and then look at the numbers.
In Afghanistan, Trump simply turned our fighters loose to actually fight and defend themselves, unlike his predecessor who claimed that Afghanistan was the only just war that we are involved in and kept the troops hands tied so they could barely even defend themselves. The fighting under Trump intensified in order to mop up and split. It did not spread to other places, it stayed there. Yeah, and he kicked ass again taking off all of the restrictions Obama put on our troops and destroyed the IS Caliphate in short order. Obama just flailed away at it for most of his tenure and failed to even hurt them at all. But that is basically it for Trump's use of kinetic force. He used it to win quickly and effectively to get the job done.
My real point was that Trump's first choice of force against an opponent is economic, not military. Unless I'm missing something, Trump has not started any new wars. He is cleaning up the messes that he was handed when he took over, making things better for the US, not worse, which is what a POTUS is supposed to do.
... But Obama leaves a very different legacy as he prepares to hand his commander-in-chief responsibilities to Donald Trump.
U.S. military forces have been at war for all eight years of Obama’s tenure, the first two-term president with that distinction. He launched airstrikes or military raids in at least seven countries: Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan. ...
In January 2014, Obama mocked the emergence of Islamic State in Syria as a minor threat compared with Al Qaeda. “If a JV team puts on Lakers uniforms, that doesn’t make them Kobe Bryant,” he told the New Yorker. ... Yet Islamic State still controls large parts of both countries. It remains larger and more powerful than Al Qaeda ever was, luring an an estimated 35,000 foreign fighters and followers to its self-declared caliphate and sponsoring or inspiring deadly attacks around the globe.
and how about this most heinous abuse of power, killing a US citizen without due process or a trial ... certainly an impeachable offense if there ever was one.
... He even ordered the killing of a U.S. citizen — Anwar Awlaki, a charismatic cleric born in New Mexico who worked for Al Qaeda in Yemen. Obama authorized the drone strike that targeted and killed him in September 2011. (and his 16 yo son IIRC)
U.S. drones also killed at least six other Americans in attacks aimed at militants. That suggests the weapons were not as precise, or the intelligence as reliable, as the administration has claimed.
So carry on. Trump and people like me who support him are the greatest threat to humanity that the world has ever seen. Right ?
The earthquake hit on a morning when the world woke up to news of Iranian missile strikes on Iraqi bases housing US-led coalition personnel, and the crash of a Ukrainian passenger jet near Tehran's airport.
