Do you remember during the eight years of the Bush administration how the MSM seemed to delight in keeping a sort of score card on our war casualties, especially those in Iraq? Everyday, whatever news outlet you read or watched on television, they kept a tally much like the ticking debt clock. It was as if George Bush and Dick Cheney were, themselves, doing the wounding and killing of our troops. I will not go into the difficulty our military administrators and brass have had in getting Obama to engage more directly with the Afghanistan war. We are talking about a man that has willingly skipped over half his intel briefings since taking office. Something else the MSM has ignored. However, the MSM has decided the casualty numbers under Obama's C-in-C watch are not that important...

On the somber 11th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, nearly 2,000 members of the U.S. military have died in Afghanistan since the war started in response to the attacks in 2011. The Defense Department has tallied 1,987 deaths. The Associated Press has counted 1,980. Other organizations put the number above 2,000. In addition, according to the Defense Department, 17,519 service members have been wounded in Afghanistan.

What is more striking, though, is more U.S. soldiers have been killed and wounded during President Barack Obama’s first term in office than former President George W. Bush’s two terms. And the anti-war mainstream media that regularly counted the number of deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan under Bush, for the most part, has been silent on the number of deaths and casualties that have resulted under Obama.

Under former President George W. Bush, 575 American soldiers died and fewer than 3,000 were wounded in Afghanistan. This means under Obama, at least 1,405 soldiers have died and nearly 15,000 additional soldiers have been wounded, which means 70% of the deaths and nearly 80% of the injuries in Afghanistan have occurred under Obama’s watch.

In 2010, Obama sent 33,000 additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan as part of the “surge,” and Americans have been received with more hostility with each passing day. In June, Obama announced he would accelerate the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, and America would transfer security duties to the Afghans in 2014.

Because Obama is a Democrat, the media has been reluctant to shine more of a light on Afghanistan's destabilization under Obama.

[...]

My good friend (retired Marine First Sergeant) John Bernard, whose own son Lance Cpl. Joshua M. Bernard was killed in action in Afghanistan just three years ago, has been stridently fighting with the powers that be in Washington D.C. against the imposed and followed new Rules of Engagement (ROEs) for our military since Obama took office, which have been a major contributing factor in the numbers of KIAs and wounded in Afghanistan. Back around the time John's son was killed, my son-in-law's Marine SGT. brother was in Afghanistan, and his unit was pinned down by RPGs and mortars from the Taliban hunched down in a village ... for over a week. Several calls were made for air support, and denied because of the villagers being used as human shields by the enemy. Nor was his unit permitted to return fire. They know our guys fight by the rules, or face strict consequences, so they take full advantage of that fact. John Bernard also rightly nails the fact this administration refuses to recognize and name our enemy, and that also continues to get people killed.

Yes, an increase of boots on the ground in a surge will result in more casualties. However, that same increase in boots under crippling ROEs will result in even greater numbers of casualties and deaths. You either ease or lift the ROEs, or you take responsibility for the blood on your hands and stop having the media hide it for you.

HT to Honey for tracking down the article.