Saturday, December 14, 2013

"Obama’s Afghanistan experts stumped on U.S. death toll, war costs during hearing"

President Obama’s brain trust on Afghanistan does not know much the U.S. spends on the war each year or the American cost in lost lives on the battlefield.
This embarrassing lack of basic knowledge from State Department and Pentagon experts on Afghanistan at a House hearing Wednesday prompted even a Democrat to say he was stunned.

The setting was the House Foreign Affairs Committee. The Issue: Afghanistan and the transition to fewer U.S. troops post-2014.
Washington Times, Click read more for relevant video clip of the testimony

30 comments:

Unknown said...

As Insty would accurately say - it's a Potemkin administration.

Good news for the training wheels president and his inept administration: The pathetic party loyalty media no longer mention grim milestones. It's as if our Armed Forces don't even exist.

Shouting Thomas said...

Accounting has not been the strong suit of the Obama admin.

Aridog said...
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Icepick said...

Shouting Thomas, not accounting, not website design, not rule making, not law following, not Intel security, not translation, not embassy security, not truth telling, and too many more to recount.

OTOH, he still has a fine crease in his pants, he's good at fundraising, and good at winning elections. Oh, and he apparently reads the newspapers, since that's the first he ever hears of anything "his" administration is doing.

Oh, one more thing he isn't good at: elocution. One hundred out of one hundred Marine "corpse"-men agree.

Aridog said...

Let's look at the OEF dead list by administration....

2001-2008 = 630 US dead

2009-2013 = 1663 US dead

Notice anything significant there? Hint: 2.64 times as many died in one period versus the other. WTF?

bagoh20 said...

Dude, I told you last night at the kegger that there was gonna be a pop quiz today. I warned you when you were doing that keg stand, remember?

I'm Full of Soup said...

What does Obama and his people do every day? They never seem to know what is going on?

ricpic said...

We're in it to spin it.

Aridog said...

What does Obama and his people do every day?

Among other minutia, they get 2193 soldiers killed and 17674 wounded but can't remember figures I was able to recover in 45 seconds.

No wonder 4 dead in Benghazi didn't matter to them.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

Amazing. (not)

We had a daily body count and were constantly told how horrible the Boooosh regime was. You know....Bush lied and people died. Not a day would go by without the MSM putting up names and photos of the men and women who were being killed by Bushhitler. It was relentless.

Now that we have Saint Obama in charge.....no one seems to give a shit.

The hypocrisy is stunning; or would be if it weren't so predictible.

Aridog said...

Proof that these clowns really don't care is the fact that in the hearing, with copious staffers behind them, not one motherfucker or his/her boot-licker could pull the numbers flat out off the Internet, as I did in less than one minute, on a smart phone or tablet.

Why bother, eh?

At this point what difference does it make?

Aridog said...

Another minute of time invested to find an 18 March 2013 HR 1238 which says:

(2) According to the Congressional Research Service, through fiscal year 2013, Congress has appropriated $1,500,000,000,000 for the Department of Defense, for the State Department, and for medical costs paid by the Department of Veterans Affairs. This amount includes $821,000,000,000 related to operations in Iraq and $645,000,000,000 related to operations in Afghanistan.

Giving a shit is hard work, eh?

Aridog said...

bagoh20 said...

Dude, I told you last night at the kegger that there was gonna be a pop quiz today.

Yes, and it was an open book quiz ... and they still flunked it :-))

bagoh20 said...

They didn't try to get the answer because they have watched one official after another from this administration be shown to be liars, corrupt, or stupid, and they know nothing happens afterward. These are the kind of people you get from a culture of participation trophies. They showed up, so they win. That's how they do their jobs.

Aridog said...

bagoh20 said ...

These are the kind of people you get from a culture of participation trophies. They showed up, so they win. That's how they do their jobs.

You may not know just how RIGHT you are about that phenomena in the senior ranks of federal governance. Worse, they really do forget all about learning anything more once in a senior position. Never occurs to them they got that position by A.) being a suck up and B.) being a know-nothing that others had to get out of the way so they said nice bullshit things about them. They remain convinced of their magnificence (why they do have a unique flag and special protocols for their mere presence after all!) and disdain answering to anyone remotely connected to the unwashed public.

No better examples in both demeanor and attitude exist (that have been seen on television recently) than Hillary Clinton, Steve Miller, Lois Lerner, and the all time champ, Barack Obama.

Aridog said...
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Aridog said...

A "stutter post" ...have not had one for a while :) Removed it.

I'm Full of Soup said...

None of our current Politburo members are known for much except getting elected or being married to a president. And the pukes they hire [the aforementioned like Lerner, Miller etc] are nothing but librul govt drones who give killer drones a bad name.

Aridog said...

I apologize for doing a "crazy LPN" routine on this thread (hogging it). Please, others, talk about it...it is a worthwhile issue. Why don't these administration people know even the least info about the OEF?

It is also one of those I will always react to viscerally. I am a statistics nut case, for example the airborne unit one of our regulars belonged to has lost 74 men in the OEF, including PFC Juan S Restrepo, about whom a television historical documentary was made a while back name "Restrepo" for the forward outpost named after him. You have to experience a "forward outpost" to understand perhaps. I know that some here have done so.

I will be the first to admit that I wet myself the very first time I had 82 mm mortar land near my hole. I lived, therefore I must honor those who died. Forever.

JAL said...

And the director and photographer for Restrepo, Tim Hetherington, was killed filming Obama's war Libya in 2011.

Wonder how many of these elite know that.

Meh. Collateral damage.

I'm Full of Soup said...

I've worked for a few big and small businesses and most of them had the sense to keep track of their widgets, and work volumes and headcounts etc....i.e number of applications received, number processed, number not yet processed and the number of those over 7 days old, 14 days old etc.number of FTE employees at the end of each month and on and on.

It is not rocket science. It is just basic common sense. WTF can't these govt bigwigs do the same.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Good to see the sainted military get some flak for a change. Let's remember this next time someone decides to start a war.

edutcher said...

In case Troll forgot, this current "surge" was Choom's idea, his ROE, his micromanagement, although the war, technically, was started by bin Laden and Zawahiri.

But what do facts matter?

And it's not the military, it's his civilian appointees. President Selfie, of course, knows nothing.

He gotten 3 times as many Americans killed in 4 years as Dubya did in 8.

As for brain trust, these are the same people who gave us the stimulus and ChoomCare.

Michael Haz said...

@Aridog - You do not owe any apologies here, ever. Keep doing what you do.

Michael Haz said...

In fact Ari, you should do a guest post. Gotcher ears on, Lem?

William said...

When Wolfowitz testified before Congress he could not give an accurate number as to our casualties. This was bruited far and wide as symptomatic of the Bush administration's callous attitude. Compare and contrast.

Aridog said...

AReasonableMan said...

Good to see the sainted military get some flak for a change.

I must have missed it...you saw men in military uniforms at that despondent table?

Or was that just the senior civilian SES motherfuckers who get men killed for their political benefit?

Aridog said...

... you should do a guest post ...

No thank you.

Methadras said...

The unfolding of utter incompetency continues.

AllenS said...

These people take orders. Orders originate at the top, and then they are passed down. When they are told to shut up, they shut up. When they are told to shit, they shit and know what color it has to be.

The MSM will provide whatever cover they can to protect this administration, and yes, they'll cover for these military people whom they despise. Only because they work for Obama.