You remember when the action of one Marine Unit in an Iraqi prison warranted accountability of “all the way to the top”? Well, Dont expect any calls of this kind any time soon. The AP Via VIN Reports:

The Marine Corps confirmed Thursday that one of its scout sniper teams in Afghanistan posed for a photograph in front of a flag with a logo resembling that of the notorious Nazi SS.

Use of the SS symbol is not acceptable, and the Marine Corps has addressed the issue, Lt. Col. Stewart Upton said in a statement. However, he did not specify what action was taken.

Upton said the Marines in the photograph on an Internet blog are no longer with the unit they were assigned to at the time. The picture was taken in September 2010 in Sangin province, Afghanistan.

The Military Religious Freedom Foundation in Washington said it was outraged by the photograph and wants a full investigation.

Fox News Reports: Eight U.S. soldiers deployed to southern Afghanistan  have been charged in connection with the shooting death of a fellow soldier, the  Army announced Wednesday.

Pvt. Danny Chen, 19, was found dead in a guard tower  in Kandahar province in October with an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound,  officials said.

It was first believed that he may have committed  suicide, but an investigation by the military revealed that Chen, an  Asian-American from New York City’s Chinatown, was the victim of harassment and  ethnic slurs by his fellow soldiers.

During a news conference Wednesday with Chen’s  family, New York Rep. Nydia Velazquez said soldiers called Chen “Jackie Chen” in  a derisive accent. She said Chen was dragged across a floor, had stones thrown  at the back of his head and was forced to hold liquid in his mouth while upside  down as part of apparent hazing.

2011 is the second worst for the U.S. Military in Afghanistan, losing 411 troops. It’s down from last year’s 499, but still worse than any of the other years including the 317 lost in 2009 which in itself was twice as worse as any of the preceding eight years of the war.

(Stats by http://icasualties.org/)

Many on the Left claimed for years that former President Bush should have backed off Iraq and focused more on “the real war,” in Afghanistan to capture terrorists.  Their argument was flawed considering that most Senior Al Qaeda members to be apprehended or eliminated took place when the USA was “focused” on Iraq (perhaps most striking was capturing 9/11 Mastermind KSM in March 2003; just weeks before Iraq War II started.)

With the end of Osama Bin Laden (which “proves” that we needed to be focused on Afghanistan…), one would think that Democrats and Libs are all in on the war. But looking at polls, we see it aint so:

In a Quinnipiac Poll of Mid-April, only 27% Dems said the USA is doing the right thing by being in Afghanistan. In the post-OBL poll, the number is up to 41% Dems; which is still less than the 46% Repubs who supported the mission in the April Poll, or the 59% Republicans who support it now. In a Post-OBL CNN Poll, only 36 Democrats (and 28% Liberals) are in favor of the Afghan War, while 57% Republicans (and 57% Conservatives) are in favor of it.

These results show that Dems are not at all serious with their talking-point about needing to be “focused” on Afghanistan! By no means should Dems pump their chest with a “see, told you so” when anything good is coming out of Afghanistan since it is NOT a mission that they support, be it before Osama being killed or in the aftermath.

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Contact: yossi@yossigestetner.com

While everyone’s eyes are on the Market Boards on Wall St. and on the new Supreme Court pick, I checked up where the US stands in Afghanistan.

In terms of the death toll, the USA lost this year 118 soldiers, which is less than the 316 of last year, and the 155 of Bush’s last year, but it is more than any other year since this operation started at the end of 2001. Worse, the current colander year is only in its first half.

It makes me sad thinking what the next six-plus months 0f 2010 may hold for the US forces in Afghanistan.

I am not discussing here the military might of the US Armed Forces. I am focusing here on its political might; its power to force a democratic-elected President to follow its lead.

Few out there believe that President Obama is sending more troops to Afghanistan because this is what he really wants. The President dragged his feet as much possible, and then announced that the build-up will start coming down just a few months later. For a President who is “in command” of his team, one would wonder why he is sending more troops in the first place.

The answer is General Stanley McChrystal, the top US and NATO commander in Afghanistan. Months ago, he made public his request for more troops, and a short while later he gave a widely publicized speech in England laying out – forcefully – his plan. Following this, President Obama had two options. 1) fire McChrystal as the Bush Administration did with a general who “went rogue.” 2) follow McCrystal’s lead.

Both options had political perils with the President’s voting base. Therefore, Obama took a so-called middle way, i e. following General McChrystal’s request, yet only with one foot. If not for the military’s political might, Obama would have sided with his left base and Vice President who claim that small, fast-attack military teams can do the job to finish the Taliban.

Minutes ago, a friend of mine sent me an IM saying “Obama finished strong.” I asked him to read what I wrote earlier today. Namely, that the speech is irrelevant to the facts on the ground, and therefore I will not even listen to it.

So it was. I didn’t listen to it, and I am sure I didn’t miss anything. The Left will probably say that this is “one of the best speeches.” Those on the Right will say otherwise. I am saying what I said in the morning: it makes NO difference on the ground. All what matters is America’s will to defeat the enemy once and for all. Anything beyond that is just political claptrap.

Later today, President Obama will lay out to the American people his plans for Afghanistan.

Much is being made of the words Obama will or will not use, i.e. if he will use the term “exit strategy,” etc. The fact however is that his speeches become more irrelevant by the day in the face of new facts. For example, does anyone, besides a few pundits, remember what the President did or didn’t say months ago in his Health Care speech to Congress? Does anyone remember what Obama said a week after the Ft. Hood Shootings?

The answer is no. More than most people do not remember. Instead, what counts and will count, are the successes on the ground. Therefore, listening to the speech might be a waste of time. Instead, I will continue to follow the news from Afghanistan. I hope that on this front, President Obama does not fail. However, I don’t have much confidence that his plan to add troops on a slow pace will do the job.

The Pelosi-Reid controlled Capitol Hill who had no worries how to cover an Omnibus Spending Bill earlier this year despite it being $32 billion larger than a year before; the Democrats who didn’t think twice about cost when debating the $787 billion Stimulus Bill, are now very concerned of how to pay for the war in Afghanistan, despite that it is according to them “a war of necessity.”

Well, here is how to cover the war: The Democrats claim that health care reform pays for itself by more people having insurance, thus more have access to preventative medicine. In turn, billions of would-be health expenses that the nation has now due to an uninsured population, would vanish in coming years. Using this thinking, Afghanistan pays for itself. How? By crushing the Taliban and the terrorists, the United States will prevent a lot of instability in the region and terror attacks worldwide, thus sparing the Treasury billions in future war costs, in addition to the fact the in times of peace and stability, world economies can grow strong, thus bringing in more money to the Treasury.

Bingo!

I don’t have military experience, but the little I do understand about warfare, I don’t “get” the Obama Plan on Afghanistan 

The leading U.S. General asked for an additional 40,000 troops to quell violence, but the Obama Team is pulling their legs due mainly to two overt reasons.

One, the Obama-appointed ambassador wrote recently that he has reservations about more troops being sent into that country. In other words, a political appointee on a diplomatic post has more weight than does a general which was by the way appointed as Afghan’s top military man by President Obama. However, the General is apparently too independent in his thinking. Therefore, Obama opts, as of now, to his Ambassador’s opinion. Funny.

Two, Team Obama wants to first see a more viable government in Afghanistan before committing more troops to the mission. Such an excuse is totally off the wall, because in a war torn country you need first a strong military presence with a good mission at hand, and only after that you wary about the political stability of the government. Heck, once the government is strong enough to do its own business, it is time for the foreign military to stand down, instead of stepping up its work.

Obviously, these two official reasons are just lame excuses for an administration that cannot bring itself, for whatever REAL reasons, to send more troops into that country.