Study: Almost 75 Percent of All Afghanistan Deaths Occurred Under Obama

For many years, this and other blogs have criticized President Barack Obama and Democratic leaders for their failure to pull out of Afghanistan after his election. There was clearly an unwillingness to risk the political costs of being blamed for a withdrawal or a perceived defeat. As a result, our personnel were left in harm’s way, even as the country’s president called us “demons”, our allies denied basic rights to woman and religious minorities, and polls showed intense anti-American sentiments. Hundreds of billions were spent to provide political cover for leaders who needed to show that they were tough on terror. Of course, many were made millionaires off the war while others paid the price on the ground. Roughly 75 percent of the fallen were from working class families. Now, a study by a conservative organization has shown that 73 percent of all U.S. Afghan War casualties have occurred since Jan. 20, 2009 when Obama was inaugurated. While another site shows slightly different numbers, the result is the same: most of the deaths have occurred under Obama (a fact that is seldom reported)

There have been 91 U.S. casualties in Afghanistan just in 2013. You can compare that to the 30 and 31 troops killed in 2002 and 2003. This is the result of Congress giving Bush a blank check on September 14, 2001. While leaders like Hillary Clinton and John Kerry agreed to the language, many at the time objected to the resolution as a transparent effort to avoid accountability for an actual declaration of war as required by the Constitution. Instead of showing leadership, they approved a resolution authorizing the president “to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons.” Once started, none of them had the courage to demand that it end while lobbyists continues the streaming of billions into the pocket of contractors. By last count, 2,144 U.S. military personnel have killed in the war and 1,575 of those occurred under Obama.

There are differences between the numbers of the conservative site and icasualties.org, though the difference still shows a vast majority of deaths occurring with Obama.  Here are the CNS statistics:

Total U.S. Combat Deaths in Afghanistan

2001: 5

2002: 30

2003: 31

2004: 49

2005: 94

2006: 87

2007: 111

2008: 151

2009: 303

2010: 497

2011: 494

2012: 294

2013: 91 (From Jan. 1, 2013 to Sept. 10, 2013)

Here are the statistics from icasualties.org:

Year US UK Other Total

2001 12 0 0 12
2002 49 3 18 70
2003 48 0 10 58
2004 52 1 7 60
2005 99 1 31 131
2006 98 39 54 191
2007 117 42 73 232
2008 155 51 89 295
2009 317 108 96 521
2010 499 103 109 711
2011 418 46 102 566
2012 310 44 48 402
2013 97 6 20 123
Total 2271 444 657 3372