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A decorated retired Air Force officer who witnessed one of the most deadly attacks on Navy SEALs in U.S. history is breaking her silence, saying the government covered up evidence detailing that the 2011 downing of a Chinook helicopter gunship that killed 38 fighters in Afghanistan could have been prevented had it not been for restrictions to the military's rules of engagement that were changed under the Obama administration.

Washington The former commander of military forces in Afghanistan, retired Gen. Stanley McChrystal, this week related a striking behind-the-scenes account of the US Special Operations forces hunt for Taliban insurgents, revealing US government agency roadblocks that made his job more difficult. ... “We were not fast enough, and not precise enough to get him,” he said at the conference, sponsored by the Institute for Defense and Government Advance. “So we started trying to find out why.” To that end, McChrystal returned to Washington to meet with “one of our intelligence agencies." He recounted the conversation. “They said, ‘Well, actually, we...

The day after President Obama fired General McChrystal and demoted his boss, General Petraeus to replace him you’d have thought he had discovered the secret to life’s creation. Every leftist, drooling reporter used one word so pervasively that it may have to be retired from overuse. “Brilliant!” said our lackey Socialists in the press. The polls, in a freefall, paused and reversed for a day or two before continuing their nose-dive. Remember General “Betray us?” Ironically in 2007 and 2008 then Senator Obama and then Senator Clinton revolted against Petraeus like patriots at the original Tea Party. Hillary :“(The Surge)...

The removal of Gen. Stanley McChrystal as the US commander in Afghanistan and his replacement by Gen. David Petraeus is not, as portrayed by Obama’s political apologists, a principled defense of civilian control over the military. Nor is it, as the official line emanating from the White House would have it, a change in personnel only, not in policy. There is every indication that the change in command is the result of growing dissatisfaction with McChrystal’s counterinsurgency methods, which have failed to dislodge the Taliban-led guerrilla forces that control the bulk of southern and eastern Afghanistan. It presages a drastic...

THE CABINET MEETS: After meeting with his Cabinet, President Obama tells the pool that Gen. Stanley McChrystal "showed poor judgment" in the Rolling Stone profile of him. "I want to make sure that I talk to him before I make any decision," he says.

As if the White House behavior on the war in Afghanistan wasn’t erratic enough – General McCrystal jumped into the mess with a dopey interview for the culture icon Rolling Stone. It was clear even in 2009 that the US Commander on the ground in Afghanistan is not on the same page with our ambassador in the country. Remember how Karl Eikenberry, decided to weigh into the madness opposing sending more troops to Afghanistan when President Obama was dithering on the new strategy?. Second comes the question: which one of the two generals in Afghanistan is in charge –...

Like McChrystal or not, agree or disagree with him or not. Regardless of whether he resigns or is fired or not. Outrahe over the disrespect shown...the fact that it was shown, should not be overshadowed by the mere ourage that it was, and all who intend to learn from this, better realise that no matter what happens to McChryistal, this is a "Seldon Momement", and McChristal is the provernial Canary in the Obama Afghan coal mine. And the dirty deep hole is full of CYA 'Rats.

The military has cut short a war correspondent's embed, and there may be evidence that the decision may have been part of a smear campaign against the writer. Michael Yon, a former Green Beret, has been covering Iraq and Afghanistan for six years. He has also covered conflicts in Thailand, the Philippines, and Nepal. Following a string of events covered by Yon that cast a negative light on two top NATO commanders, the military decided to terminate Yon's embed prematurely, citing reasons that didn't add up. ISAF's reason for disembedding Yon was “embed overcrowding.” Yet in an email to Admiral...

Fourteen U.S. soldiers were honored Wednesday for risking their lives to help German soldiers in a firefight, according to The Associated Press. Gen. Stanley McChrystal accepted the country’s Gold Cross on behalf of the soldiers after meeting with German Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg in Berlin. The Gold Cross medal is one of Germany’s highest awards for valor, and this is the first time foreign troops have ever been given this award. U.S. medics braved fire from Taliban fighters to help bring wounded Germans to safety near the city of Kunduz in northern Afghanistan on April 2.

My friend is in the background of this video. He is in the file footage from the right hand side of the screen. He has asked if I can help him find a better copy of it. I have searched and come up empty. So I have come to my fellow freepers, the very best internet detectives are here, if it can be done, Freepers will do it. The video can be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PD4iABIZ3iY I have come up with a possible date of 9/23/2009 for this video because of the scores posted in the lower right of the screen,...

The ubiquitous yellow jugs joined to the hips of Florida pool owners are different icons in Afghanistan. They’re the carriers of fertilizer and diesel fuel terrorists use to blow up our boys with roadside bombs called IED’s. Question: “Was it our general and not our President doing the dithering in the 90 days of contemplation before Obama released 30,000 more of our boys to be fed into the maw of a war we refuse to win?” In a recent NPR interview Pentagon correspondent Tom Bowman (just returned from being “in country,”) told hostess Renee Montagne he observed our Marines tracking...

Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, goes before Congress this week, and with him comes this question: Who’s really in charge here, the generals or President Barack Obama? The long-awaited hearings, beginning Tuesday before the House and Senate Armed Services committees, are a bookend of sorts to Obama’s address last Tuesday at West Point committing 30,000 more troops to the war effort in Afghanistan. Implicit in the president’s decision is an effective cap of about 100,000 for the American force, but top Democrats fear that unless Obama is more assertive, the military chain of command will undermine his...

The Washington Post presents a detailed version of the lengthy process that finally resulted in President Obama's decision to send more troops to Afghanistan. The early paragraphs track the White House's self-congratulatory line that Obama's close attention to detail resulted in the speeding up of troop deployment, thus creating a true "surge." This is consistent with Obama's attempt, in his speech at West Point, to excuse the three months it took him to make a decision. He claimed that the process didn't really delay anything because the plan Gen. McChrystal presented to him would not have deployed troops rapidly enough....

President Obama ordered top military leaders to begin carrying out his new strategy for the war in Afghanistan, a move that is believed to include the deployment of more than 30,000 additional troops into the eight year old conflict, the White House confirmed Monday. In a 5 p.m. Oval Office meeting Sunday with his defense secretary, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and his top military commanders, Mr. Obama "communicated the final decision on the strategy and issued orders as to the strategy's implementation," said Press Secretary Robert Gibbs. "The commander in chief delivered the orders," Mr. Gibbs...

In anticipation of increased criticism of Obama’s mysterious handling of the request for 40,000 more troops by his hand-picked commander, General McCrystal, Senator Kerry and his colleagues trotted out a story this morning that the whole terrorist problem has been caused by the failure of American soldiers to capture Osama bin Laden. Of course, this failure occurred during the Bush presidency. Give me a break. The problem of Islamic fanaticism and terrorism is squarely in the hands of the current administration, as are all other problems we face. Stop acting like babies and stop whining.

Afghanistan: Word is out that President Obama will send 34,000 reinforcements for our military in Afghanistan. It's better than expected, but mere numbers aren't victory. A strategy and a will to win are. Still no word on that. White House leakers Tuesday disclosed that President Barack Obama will dispatch the troops and make a televised announcement about his decision on Dec. 1. After months of dithering, it's coming in just under the wire for what Afghanistan commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal called a limited time frame for a chance of victory. Maybe it will make it. The numbers are stingy, given...

President Obama will next week announce a surge of at least 25,000 new US troops to Afghanistan in a speech to the nation, according to US officials today. Mr Obama will make the announcement in an address on Tuesday, December 1, after weeks of deliberations over his Afghan strategy and a tenth session with his war council in the White House on Monday night. The final session was dominated by an issue that has been the focus of Mr Obama’s thinking in recent weeks: how to get US troops out of Afghanistan. The exit strategy for the US military has...

Better late than never (I hope). According to CBS sources when the President comes back from his trip to China, he will announce his new plan for Afghanistan. Thankfully it looks as if President Obama will give his hand picked General close to what he asked for CBS News correspondent David Martin reports that the president will send a lot more troops and plans to keep a large force there, long term. The president still has more meetings scheduled on Afghanistan, but informed sources tell CBS News he intends to give Gen. Stanley McChrystal most, if not all, the additional...

The Afghanistan commander warned his political master that “Our soldiers are not to blame. They’ve fought incredibly bravely in adverse conditions… [But] without a lot more men, this war will continue for a very, very long time.” This wasn’t an exchange between Gen. Stanley McChrystal, U.S. commander in Afghanistan, and President Obama at last Friday’s White House strategy meeting, but it could portend a future meeting. Rather, the speaker was Gen. Sergei Akhromeyev, the commander of the Soviet armed forces, testifying before the Soviet Union’s Politburo in 1986 to explain why 110,000 Russian soldiers were losing in Afghanistan. Russian generals...

"I expect to maintain this contest until successful, or till I die, or am conquered. Or my term expires, or Congress or the country forsakes me.”– Abraham Lincoln, 1862 Oh to hear those words from our President today. While our troops--the sons and daughters, husbands and wives, fathers and mothers of our fellow Americans--are dying in Afhanistan, our general in charge of the region, General McChrystal, waits for the President to consider his August 30th request for 40,000 additional troops. This request is the result of his on the ground analysis of what it would take to win in Afghanistan,...