...the U.S. Marine Corps has suffered its worst air squadron catastrophe since Vietnam, and its prized VMA-211 squadron has taken its worst hit since its defense of Wake Island in World War II.
It happened on September 14, 2012, northwest of the city of Lashkar Gah in southern Afghanistan. A team of fewer than two dozen Taliban fighters attacked the USMC's massive Camp Bastion base there, killing VMA-211 squadron commander Lt. Col. Christopher Raible and destroying or permanently disabling eight of the ten top-of-the-line Harrier AV-8B attack aircraft stationed under him. Out of production for more than a decade, these aircraft can never be replaced.
By the time the smoke cleared, roughly 7% of the total harrier fleet operated by the USMC had been wiped out on a single day by a small force of ground combatants whose most potent weapon was the suicide vest, one of which was used to breach the camp's perimeter fence.
Under Obama, the U.S. has taken 1,491 casualties in Afghanistan, over 70% of the total 2,121 casualties sustained since the fighting there began. Helmland Province, where Camp Bastion is located, has been the grounds for the lion's share of them, twice as many as any other region of the country. Things have gotten so bad that, in the wake of the attack on Camp Bastion, the International Security Assistance Force, which trains Afghan citizens to defend their country against the Islamic fanatics of the Taliban, suspended operations.
Even The Atlantic noticed that the media has virtually blacked out the story.
Ah, those bumps in the road can be so... annoying.
Despite his campaign promises, U.S. casualties have soared rather than falling, and the hand held by the Taliban has strengthened, not weakened. Obama said he would achieve disengagement with honor, but instead he has escalated the violence and carnage without improving our strategic position, and it is clear now that if the Taliban fighters can achieve victories like the one in Camp Bastion against the mighty alliance led by the U.S., then the feeble Afghan army has no chance against it and will surely descend into chaos if the U.S. leaves the field. Then we can expect the terrorist camps to spring right back, targeting the new tower rising over Ground Zero in New York City and many others besides.
And the same can be said of Obama's policy in Iraq. No less a friend of Obama's than The New York Times was forced to admit in a recent article that Obama has fallen "frustratingly short" on his withdrawal objectives in Iraq. He has failed to create a stable successor government, failed to establish security patrol oversight, and failed to establish a training program for Iraqi security forces. The NYT itself admits that the MSM has largely ignored these failures and that Obama has attempted to sweep them under the carpet. The NYT admits that Iraq is now "less stable domestically and less reliable internationally" than Obama promised it would be. And of course, Obama didn't keep his promise to have all U.S. forces out of Iraq by the end of last year, so the U.S. is getting the worst of all possible worlds.
In related, disastrous news (that you also won't be reading in obsolete media), the capture of America's Benghazi consulate represents "a catastrophic intelligence loss". Or "SCOAMF" for short.
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