President Obama: Afghanistan is yours! You wanted the job, you've got it!

Make of this what you will.

US Military Fatalities In Afghanistan/OEF By Year (from icasualities)
Year-----US
2001-----12
2002-----49
2003-----48
2004-----52
2005-----99
2006-----98
2007-----117
2008-----155
2009-----276
Total-----906

Note the numbers for the last four months (June - October) as compared to all the previous history. President Obama announced his new strategy last March, three months before the monthly death toll jumped into the seventies from previous highs in the forties.

Coalition Military Fatalities by Month and Year.













Note the sharp upward trend in KIA by IED:

Washington Post, March 28, 2009
Obama Outlines Afghan Strategy
He Pushes Stability and Regional Partnerships

By Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, March 28, 2009

President Obama introduced his new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan yesterday with a threat assessment familiar from the Bush administration. "The terrorists who planned and supported the 9/11 attacks," he said, are continuing to devise plots designed to "kill as many of our people as they possibly can."

Charles Krauthammer points out what should be obvious:





From a CRS (Congressional Research Service) Report to Congress, November 2007, entitled "Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs)in Iraq and Afghanistan: Effects and Countermeasures":

In July 2007, DOD officials reportedly accused four captured Iranians of smuggling explosives and personnel from Iran into Iraq. Iran is suspected of supplying Iraq insurgents with training and new IED technology, such as “passive infrared” electronicsensors that are used for triggering roadside bombs. The new sensors are more resistant to electromagnetic countermeasures now employed by U.S. forces. DOD officials also suspect that Iran is supplying Iraq insurgents with a more lethal IED bomb design called an explosively formed projectile (EFP). An EFP is made from a pipe filled with explosives and capped by a specially shaped metal disk. When the explosives detonate, they transform the disk into a jet of molten metal capable of penetrating armor. EFPs reportedly strike with enough power to cause pieces of a targeted vehicle’s heavy armor to turn into shrapnel, making them much more deadly than traditional IED weapons.

DOD officials report there were 69 attacks utilizing EFPs in April 2007. The same type of EFP device has been used by Shiite organizations in Lebanon, where Hezbollah receives military support from Iran. However, Iranian government officials deny involvement with any transfer of these weapons to Iraq.

UPDATE: As to what Krauthammer calls Obama's "disgusting" continuous bashing of his predecessor, there is a precedent for that and it might be what Obama is following. That was how FDR and the New Dealers treated Hoover, with never ending attacks for years that were often bold faced lies but served a political purpose for FDR. Roosevelt stands as a giant success to Democrats not because he ended the Great Depression but because he won four Presidential elections in a row. Truman respected and came to rely on Hoover for counsel, but Truman didn't carry the FDR baggage.