Courtesy of the WSJ.
Simple Question About U.S. Troops in Afghanistan Stumps Officials
This report has bipartisan consternation
More below.
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R., Calif.) had a simple question Wednesday for three of the Obama administration’s top Afghanistan specialists: How many American troops have been killed in Afghanistan this year?
None of the witnesses at the House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on Afghanistan had an answer.
How much is the U.S. spending in Afghanistan? Mr. Rohrabacher asked.
No one could say.
“We’re supposed to believe that you fellas have a plan that’s going to end up in a positive way in Afghanistan?” Mr. Rohrabacher asked. “Holy cow!”
More
Rep. Gerry Connolly (D., Va.) called the witnesses’ inability to rattle off the facts “a stunning development.”
“How can you come to a congressional oversight hearing on this subject and not know” the answers? He asked. “Like that wouldn’t be a question the tip of one’s tongue.”
Yet More
Ambassador James Dobbins, the administration’s top envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, eventually provided some facts: The State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development spent about $2 billion a year and there have been about 2,200 “casualties” since 2001.
In fact, there have been 2,292 American fatalities since 2001. So far this year, 113 Americans have been killed, the lowest number of U.S. fatalities since 2004, according to iCasualties, the website that tracks U.S. military deaths in Afghanistan.
Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Ed Royce (R., Calif.) later noted that the U.S. spends about $6.7 billion a month on the war in Afghanistan.
Well is it $2 B a year or $80.4 B a year? These aholes can't even agree on how much this f'g war costs! Oh, and for those keeping score, 3/4's of those fatalities have occurred
after the present Admin took office.
And finally
But Democrats and Republicans both expressed frustration with Mr. Karzai, who surprised American and Afghan officials last month by refusing to sign the Bilateral Security Agreement that both countries spent the last year negotiating.
“The patience of the Congress and the American people is wearing thin,” said Rep. Ted Deutch (D., Fla.), the committee’s top Democrat.
Well good for you congressman, yes my patience is "wearing thin" with Afghanistan, Karzai, Taliban, Pakistan, and this cluster*ck that you and your cohorts just can't pay attention to or get enough of.
LEAVE NOW.
STOP THE MADNESS.
THERE IS NO WIN HERE FOR ANYONE.
LEAVE THESE PEOPLE TO THEMSELVES.
STOP THE WAR!