With six U.S. service members killed in Afghanistan it brings the total for July to at least 66 thus making it the deadliest month for American forces since the war began in 2001.
President Obama since taking office in January 2009, has ordered a surge of forces of 17,000 troops in the spring of 2009, and last December added an additional 30,000 as part of his comprehensive surge strategy. Military commanders have stated that with the additional forces being added into Afghanistan there would be a spike in casualties as was the case during the Iraq surge but would eventually come down as the counterinsurgency strategy began to take hold.
Since the surge strategy went into effect numerous changes have taken place in Afghanistan. First being the replacement of the overall commander General Stanley McChrystal being replaced by General David Petraeus who had made disparaging comments about senior administration officials, the second with Wikileaks releasing thousands of classified documents to various news organizations.
The administration needs to begin communicating with the American people and end the rift in his foreign policy team over Afghan policy. Having Vice President Joseph Biden speaking on Afghanistan is not a wise course of action as he gives conflicting and contradictory analysis of U.S. strategy. The Vice President is also part of a group of foreign policy advisers to the president not in favor of the surge strategy the president initiated in December.
President Obama has to start telling the American people why we are in Afghanistan, and what the strategy is. Since the surge strategy he rarely speaks about Afghanistan or talks in terms of winning. to many it signals that his heart is not in the fight and sends a wrong message to our adversaries.
Failure in Afghanistan will only embolden our adversaries and threaten the security of this nation.
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