Knee Deep in the Hooah!

Having no spine of his own, Obama tells the Marines "I've got your back!"

**Check update below. It’s bad for these guys you all. Man I feel helpless.**

All of the BS rhetoric and photo ops with the troops doesn’t mean a damn thing if our Generals don’t get the men they need. Since Obama took office he has made short changing the Generals a regular practice, while Boxer talks to them like they owe her a good arse kissing. If the Obamas want to win the hearts and minds of the military and military families, they had better get busy making sure that our soldiers and marines come home safely.

We are watching what was a fairly peaceful Iraq, devolve back into chaos. Obama went on and on about Afghanistan — that was going to be a war he could get behind. Yet, his cronies have recieved more tax dollars than our military has. The Generals asked for more to begin with, but I remember Obama’s sentiment toward that during a press conference where he said “More is not always better.” Of course when it comes to wasting our tax dollars that sentiment goes out the window.  I am so sick of this crap. Sick of it.

Marine Leader: Need More Afghan Soldiers in Fight Against Taliban
Wednesday, July 08, 2009
Foxnews.com

Excerpt

WASHINGTON — The top Marine officer leading the U.S.-led offensive in southern Afghanistan says he needs additional Afghan soldiers to help defeat the Taliban.

Marines Brig. General Larry Nicholson told Pentagon reporters Wednesday that he’d like more U.S. troops as well, but that they’re not necessary in the campaign to rout Taliban militants from the country’s poppy-growing region.

Nicholson said the greatest danger to the 4,000 U.S. troops leading the operation that began a week ago in Helmand province is unrelenting heat he described “as hot as fire.”

Nicholson’s Marine unit leaves Afghanistan in the next six to eight months. A unit is scheduled to replace them but unlike the Army, Marine tours are shorter than the 12 to 15 months that soldiers can spend deployed.

There are about 650 Afghan army soldiers and police involved in the operation in Helmand. Nicholson also said it’s not clear where the Taliban who have
been pushed out have gone.

“The number one question we get from the people is, ‘when are you leaving?’” said Brig. Gen. Larry Nicholson, commanding general of Marine Expeditionary Brigade-Afghanistan.

“The answer is we’re not leaving until the transition for security is made to the provincial government, to include the Afghan forces.”

“I’m not going to sugarcoat it. The fact of the matter is, we don’t have enough Afghan forces,” Nicholson said during a telephone briefing from Camp Leatherneck in southern Afghanistan. “And I’d like more.”

READ MORE

UPDATE: New article on Foxnews.com

As Death Toll Rises, Marines Stay Focused in Afghanistan

7/9/2009
Foxnews.com
EXCERPT

HELMAND PROVICE, Afghanistan — It’s the middle of the night at the east corner guard post of Fiddler’s Green, a Marine fire base in Afghanistan’s Helmand Province, along the border with Pakistan.

Corporal Ryan Joseph Bernal is on perimeter security duty.

Armed with an M-4, night vision binoculars and an array of high-powered automatic weaponry, the 22-year-old U.S. Marine and several others keep watch for activity just outside the concertina wire, which conveys the powerful message “DO NOT ENTER” in a universal language Marines, civilians and the Taliban all understand.

Behind the sentries are the 3rd Battalion, 11th Marines, out of 29 Palms, California. They are relatively safe, and mostly sleeping.

As the American military’s summer offensive into Taliban territory gains strength, the number of U.S. soldiers who have been wounded or killed in action has increased. But just as disturbing for these Marines is a new concern: the recent security breach in the area that led to the kidnapping of an American soldier.

“Being taken hostage is not an option,” says Bernal.

A tiny red flare warns potential intruders not to approach — but it’s the figures you can’t see who pose the greatest threat to Fiddler’s Green, located at what commanders call a “chokepoint to Taliban activity.”

Yesterday, an IED was found on Route 605, a main supply route not far from the entrance to the base.

But despite the recent spate of American deaths, the Taliban kidnapping of a soldier in the Northeast and the many local opportunities for danger, the 3/ll Marines remain calm. READ MORE