Free Republic

To the American people an American military life is worth far more than the life of an Afghan soldier or civilian. For the current occupants of the White House and the Administration’s staff it seems to be just the opposite. It appears that to them Afghan civilian’s lives are more highly valued than American soldier’s lives, though this could never be publicly voiced in the politically correct game of semantics that combat commanders are forced to play these days. Still, to a military commander in the thick of battle the unintended killing of enemy civilians is collateral damage, one of...

The number of U.S. battlefield fatalities exceeded the rate at which troop strength surged in 2009 and 2010, prompting national security analysts to assert that coinciding stricter rules of engagement led to more deaths. A connection between the sharp increase in American deaths and restrictive rules of engagement is difficult to confirm. More deaths surely stemmed from ramped-up counterterrorism raids and the Taliban’s response with more homemade bombs, the No. 1 killer of NATO forces in Afghanistan. But it is clear that the rules of engagement, which restrain troops from firing in order to spare civilian casualties, cut back on...

” ROEs are , and shall ever be , a philosophical policy weapon used to further the ideology of the controlling political power at any given time . The power is in the politics , NOT the military . The military is expected to ‘submit’ to the politics of those in power . Those in political power determine what the mission objective is , as well as the policies involved with the country they occupy , such as Iraq or Afghanistan , for whatever reason ; even if it is detrimental to and opposed by the men and women from...

... "Said retired Army Col. Ken Allard, now a military analyst: “Call me crazy, but what on earth is the point of remaining there under these [rules of engagement], much less subjecting American soldiers to another set of restrictions that make sense only in proportion to your distance from the combat zone?”

Now that U.S. and Afghan negotiators have agreed on terms of a seemingly open-ended -- if reduced -- U.S. military presence in Afghanistan, Afghan president Hamid Karzai and the Obama administration alike breathlessly await the verdict of the world's greatest deliberative body. No, not the U.S. Senate -- the "loya jirga." It is alarming to realize that this treaty renewing America's military commitment to Afghanistan under wholly disastrous terms for the United States seems to hinge on the say-so of some 3,000 "village elders" now gathered in Kabul -- and not, apparently, that of our own elected representatives. News reports...

Listen to broadcast interview of retired Marine 1st Sgt John Bernard give his opinion after the Benghazi hearings and the non-response of the GOP and the explanation for the faulty reasoning behind COIN and the present rules of engagement.

Streamed live on Sep 19, 2013 Taped in September 2013, this show is a look into the lives of Billy & Karen Vaughn, parents of fallen SEAL Team 6 warrior, Aaron Vaughn. The United West meet the Vaughns' back in 2011, right after the horrible loss of Extortion 17, Chinook helicopter that was shot down by the Taliban in Afghanistan. This show gets our viewers and listeners caught up with the very busy Vaughns as they battle with Congress, the Obama Administration and any others who get in their way to hold the US Government responsible for the failed ROE...

Congress has launched an investigation of the helicopter crash that killed 30 Americans in Afghanistan, including members of the Navy’s elite SEAL Team 6 unit, The Hill has learned. [WATCH VIDEO] The victims’ families say the Pentagon hasn’t provided answers to their many questions about the deadly attack, which took place on Aug. 6, 2011, three months after Osama bin Laden was killed in Pakistan by Team 6 forces. Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee on National Security, told The Hill, “We’re going to dive into this.” Chaffetz said he met with the...

FULL TITLE: "Army officer gets 20 years' jail for murder after he ordered troops to open fire on Afghan men approaching their checkpoint - but his lawyers say he was protecting platoon" First Lieutenant Clint Lorance was found guilty of two counts of second-degree murder on ThursdayProsecutors said Lorance recklessly ordered his men to open fire on three men on a motorcycle approaching his patrol in July 2012, killing twoHis mom, Anna Lorance, says he was only doing what he had to to ensure the safety of his troopsHe was sentenced to 20 years in prison, forfeiture of all pay...

As I said in a previous column, one could be forgiven for believing that political correctness is only one step removed from insanity. Unfortunately, as the latest report from Afghanistan reveals, it can also be deadly. Last week, in a move the Obama administration would undoubtedly like their useful idiot buddies in the media to ignore as much as possible, a long-standing order was reversed: U.S. troops are now required to carry loaded weapons at all times while on base. In other words, prior to this new directive, troops were required to remove the magazines from their weapons while quartered...

A British soldier awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross died in vain because of an order to prevent damage to Taliban mud huts, an inquest will be told this summer. Colleagues of Lance Corporal James Ashworth – who won the UK’s highest gallantry medal – are expected to tell a coroner they were denied powerful weapons to take on the Taliban due to fears mortars and rockets could damage buildings. Soldiers from the Grenadier Guards will claim James died because he was forced to crawl to within a few feet of an enemy sniper in a mud hut while clutching a...

I’ve said before that the Rules of Engagement are a much bigger scandal than Benghazi. I don’t have much else to say, except watch this video. Find an Obama supporter who still has some sense of right and wrong and show them this video. “The hearts and minds of the enemy are more valuable to this government than my son’s blood. This is submission and the cost of that submission on August 6 was my only son.”

"America’s muddle in Afghanistan is not merely an unwise policy, two prominent American authors — one a serious analyst (and former badass warrior) the other a bestselling novelist (who created one of our biggest badass heroes) worry that it is an affront to American manhood as well." ************* "West proposes we change from a counterinsurgency protocol (winning hearts and minds in order to recruit allies against the terrorists while building a civil society) to a counter-terror strategy (kill them whenever and wherever we can find them and let the Afghan government build its own society)."

Exclusive: Pamela Geller tells of corporal gunned down by Afghan 'ally' SNIP: The event was illuminating in many ways. One speaker insistently emphasized that all religions teach the same core values, and another heralded our “nation building” efforts in Afghanistan. But then something happened that showed all that up as the politically correct nonsense that it is: the club presented a Supreme Sacrifice award to the family of Lance Cpl. Greg Buckley Jr., who was murdered by one of our Afghan “allies” while working out in the base gym after a long day of work “nation building” among those allies...

To celebrate the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade we didn't buy a ruby. Instead, the Center for Reproductive Rights asked Mehcad Brooks of the USA Network's "Necessary Roughness" and HBO's "True Blood" to prepare a special video message just for you. To learn more and to sign the Bill of Reproductive Rights visit DrawTheLine.org.

PRINCETON, NJ -- The 41% of Americans who now identify themselves as "pro-choice" is down from 47% last July and is one percentage point below the previous record low in Gallup trends, recorded in May 2009. Fifty percent now call themselves "pro-life," one point shy of the record high, also from May 2009.

At last week's signing of "executive actions" designed to combat gun violence in America, President Obama, flanked by schoolchildren, said, "...when it comes to protecting the most vulnerable among us, we must act now." There's no doubt that children, especially schoolchildren, are vulnerable to all kinds of threats, but are they "the most vulnerable," as the president claimed, or is there another category of human life that qualifies for that designation? Forty years after a Supreme Court majority opened the door to legalized abortion, the number of aborted babies has reached roughly 55 million. Think of that. Fifty-five million potential...

Two videos at link. Badass military heroism: Medal of Honor Recipient Dakota Meyer's Into the Fire is this generation's To Hell and Back. Into the Fire A Firsthand Account of the Most Extraordinary Battle in the Afghan War By Dakota Meyer and Bing West Random House, $27, 239 pp. Does this sound familiar? 1. A group of Americans on a diplomatic mission to reach out to Muslims are pinned down by al-Qaeda and come under overwhelming fire. 2. They repeatedly call for support fire missions, which are denied because they cannot absolutely guarantee no civilians are in the area. 3....

The continued spillover of the fighting in Syria into Israel has caused the IDF to change the rules of engagement along the Syrian border. According to a Channel 2 News report on Friday, the new orders instruct soldiers to respond if fire from Syria is dangerous and persistent. The report noted that while Israel wants to avoid such confrontation with Syria as much as possible, the main concern is that Islamist elements are contained along the Syrian border. At the beginning of the week, IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz warned that Syria's civil war might soon become "an Israeli...

THIS IS AN EXCERPT: For years, many veterans and active military have been alarmed about the idiocy of the changes in battlefield evacuation known as Dust Off. For reasons having nothing to do with patient care, Dust Off has been removed from the control of the professionals, the medics, and put under the control of amateurs, aviation staff officers. According to Gen. Creighton Abrams, former U.S. Army chief of staff and former supreme commander in Vietnam: “A special word about the Dust Offs … Courage above and beyond the call of duty was sort of routine to them. It was...