Obama: Still Wrong

Remember Obama's really poor choice of words alleging the troops in Afghanistan were recklessly air raiding villages?

"Now you have narco drug lords who are helping to finance the Taliban, so we’ve got to get the job done there, and that requires us to have enough troops that we are not just air raiding villages and killing civilians, which is causing enormous problems there."

Liberal Blogs were quick to point out that the AP came to save the day for Obama:

And then there’s the supposed 'fact-check'.

A check of the facts shows that Western forces have been killing civilians at a faster rate than the insurgents.

The U.S. and NATO say they don’t have civilian casualty figures, but The Associated Press has been keeping count based on figures from Afghan and international officials. Tracking civilian deaths is a difficult task because they often occur in remote and dangerous areas that are difficult to reach and verify.

As of Aug. 1, the AP count shows that while militants killed 231 civilians in attacks in 2007, Western forces killed 286. Another 20 were killed in crossfire that can’t be attributed to one party.

"In other words, what Obama said was right. Again." gloated CarpetBagger.

Well, thanks to Captain's Quarters Blog, fact-checking the fact-checkers:

Obama and his campaign didn't just say that civilians had been killed in Afghanistan. He claimed that it was Bush policy to kill civilians and that his strategy consisted "solely of air raids and bombing of civilians." What's the best way to fact-check that statement?

How about seeing whether ground forces have been deployed in Afghanistan? That seems to be a rather good indicator as to whether the strategy solely relies on dropping bombs indiscriminately on civilians -- and as it turns out, the data is easy to find. The Congressional Research Office did a breakout of deployed American forces in Afghanistan. It shows that of the roughly 22,000 American troops in the country, only 3100 come from the Air Force. Over 17,000 come from the Army. You know -- ground troops.

Say ... doesn't Barack Obama belong to Congress?

In one fell swoop, Obama chastised, berated and slandered 22,000 American troops in Afghanistan, told them they were doing a bad job, accused them of war crimes, and then sticks his hand out for a donation so he can become President.

Wow, hubris.

Update: Hot Air has video of how U.S. troops are Winning Hearts and Minds in Afghanistan.

Update: Belmont Club writes:

given that Afghanistan is entirely landlocked and surrounded by Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Pakistan, it will be interesting to see what kinds of challenges a large land American force, recently having been booted out of Iraq as per Obama's plan, their former indigenous allies probably being hunted down as collaborators, will face in the Southwest Asia. New beginnings are always possible, but only to those who have some intention of seeing them through.