Featured Article - Obama's Blunders

Blood on Obama’s Hands

By Floyd and Mary Beth Brown - FrontPage Magazine

"With the deaths of three additional U.S. troops on July 29, July officially became the bloodiest of the nine-year conflict in Afghanistan. The death toll for July was 63 and it captured the record as the deadliest month for Americans so far.

We all need to understand that the increase in deaths is directly the result of Obama’s personal mismanagement of the war. The blood of our servicemen is on his hands.

Why? Upon taking management of defense policy, the Obama administration intervened to change the rules of engagement. Ralph Peters explained it this way in the New York Post: “Unless our troops in combat are absolutely certain that no civilians are present, they’re denied artillery or air support. If any civilians appear where we meet the Taliban, our troops are to ‘break contact’ — to retreat” [my emphasis].

Peters concludes, “When our own moral fecklessness murders those in uniform, it’s unforgivable. In Afghanistan, our leaders are complicit in the death of each soldier, Marine or Navy corpsman who falls because politically correct rules of engagement shield our enemies.”

Obama dithered in adopting a new policy in Afghanistan deep into 2009. This led to criticism from even a left-wing dove like Sen. John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts. Of Obama’s indecision, Kerry said in a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, “At the very moment when our troops and our allies’ troops are sacrificing more and more, our path and our progress seem to be growing less and less clear.”

Next came the wrongheaded announcement of our deadline for withdrawal. Obama basically told our enemies the date of our leaving; now they are emboldened by foreknowledge of our defeat.

And who can forget the Stanley McChrystal firing and all the interruption to the chain of command and subsequent uncertainty over policy?

Now we face the Wikileaks scandal, and even this cannot focus the foreign policy team lead by Obama. Obama is downplaying the importance of this leak of thousands of classified secret documents.

But he won’t be able to laugh off the latest allegations. We have now learned that with quick action he and his White House staff may have been able to limit the damage, but they were too incompetent to act.

A video interview by Judge Andrew Napolitano on Fox Business News blows this scandal wide open. When asked by Judge Napolitano why he should not be held responsible for potential deaths caused by the leak, Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, answered that he contacted the White House about the leaks before they were released and asked them to review them."