The Oklahoma Republican argued that the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) 2001, passed by Congress and signed into law by the U.S. president at the time, grants the top commander the authority to use the necessary force against the Taliban.
Rep. Bridenstine questioned, “Yet, the president, it seems, is saying you can’t attack the Taliban even though they were responsible for September 11?”
“What I think is we adjusted our mission in 2015,” explained Campbell. “We went away from combat operations and we worked with the Afghans to build their capabilities to go after the Taliban.”
President Obama declared an end to the U.S. combat mission in December 2014, marking the beginning of the train, assist, and advise (TAA) role for the American troops on January 1, 2015.
While testifying, Gen. Campbell noted that with only 9,800 U.S. service members in Afghanistan, carrying out the TAA mission is difficult.
“Again if the Taliban are attacking or pose a threat to coalition forces, I have everything I need to provide that force protection,” reiterated Campbell. “To go after the Taliban because they’re Taliban, I don’t do that sir.”
At least 21 American service members have been killed and another 79 wounded since President Obama adjusted the mission so that U.S. troops are unable to attack the Taliban from an offensive position. The majority of the total 2,227 American military deaths and 20,109 injuries since the war began in October 2001 have taken place under President Obama’s watch.
Rep. Bridenstine quoted the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) 2001.
“That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons,” states the AUMF.
The Taliban has been accused of providing safe haven to al Qaeda members involved in orchestrating the September 11, 2001 attacks on the U.S. homeland, including the late jihadist leader Osama bin Laden.
President Obama is currently expected to reduce the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan to 5,500 troops by the time he left office in 2017.
“We’ll have a very limited ability to do TAA with 5,500,” said Gen. Campbell, who signaled that the U.S. military will stay in Afghanistan for years beyond 2017.
Obama has nominated Army Lt. Gen. John Nicholson, Jr., to replace the outgoing commander.
President Obama has been hesitant to call the Taliban a terrorist group.
WarSclerotic 
February 3, 2016 at 8:57 AM
So . . . ?
February 3, 2016 at 2:28 PM
USA – a dying nation – thanks to the muslim sitting in the WH….
February 3, 2016 at 4:03 PM
These Are the 5 Reasons Why the U.S. Remains the World’s Only Superpower
http://time.com/3899972/us-superpower-status-military/
Meanwhile, the Obama administration is running out of time and will soon be tossed into the trash bin of history.
February 3, 2016 at 11:50 PM
Dear LS – I would like to share your conviction / hopes – but I think that till the next president takes office ( 1 year ), the muslim in the WH had more than enough time to finish off your beloved homeland – the main pillar of the western world ! US citizens blew it up long ago – europe even before….Neither of these societies is willing nor able to stop their downfall ! ” He who curses Israel will be cursed !”
February 4, 2016 at 4:29 PM
I respectfully disagree WG. How I feel is not based upon convictions and hopes. It’s based upon what I see and what I see is something profoundly different.
I see hard working folks everyday achieving some of the highest standards of living in the world. I see friends and neighbors who have an undying faith in this country and it’s values. I see our children growing up with more than I ever had. I see a tax season with rising incomes. I see people with growing careers. I see folks planning for a comfortable retirement. I see clients dealing with large cash reserves looking for legal ways to minimize their taxes. And most of all, I see a lot of happy people pursuing their dreams.
As for the media and the leftist liberals, they do not want you to see any of this. They want you to think the system has failed and people are oppressed in one way or another throughout my country. In doing so, they paint a totally different picture in order to gain more power by exploiting all the suffering their broken policies have inflicted on many of our citizens.
What you see in the press today is not the downfall of America. It’s a desperate attempt to reel in folks like you and me. It’s also an opportunity for us to clean house and change for the better and they do no like that one bit. After all, we are a nation of citizens and not a nation of immigrants (my apologies to, I believe, Mark Levin).
February 5, 2016 at 3:02 AM
February 5, 2016 at 4:00 PM
http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/data-mine/2016/02/03/even-americans-cant-afford-the-american-dream
February 5, 2016 at 4:09 PM
#1 This week we learned that for the first time ever recorded, middle class Americans make up a minority of the population. But back in 1971, 61 percent of all Americans lived in middle class households.
#2 According to the Pew Research Center, the median income of middle class households declined by 4 percent from 2000 to 2014.
#3 The Pew Research Center has also found that median wealth for middle class households dropped by an astounding 28 percent between 2001 and 2013.
#4 In 1970, the middle class took home approximately 62 percent of all income. Today, that number has plummeted to just 43 percent.
#5 There are still 900,000 fewer middle class jobs in America than there were when the last recession began, but our population has gotten significantly larger since that time.
#6 According to the Social Security Administration, 51 percent of all American workers make less than $30,000 a year.
#7 For the poorest 20 percent of all Americans, median household wealth declined from negative 905 dollars in 2000 to negative 6,029 dollars in 2011.
#8 A recent nationwide survey discovered that 48 percent of all U.S. adults under the age of 30 believe that “the American Dream is dead”.
#9 At this point, the U.S. only ranks 19th in the world when it comes to median wealth per adult.
#10 Traditionally, entrepreneurship has been one of the engines that has fueled the growth of the middle class in the United States, but today the level of entrepreneurship in this country is sitting at an all-time low.
#11 If you can believe it, the 20 wealthiest people in this country now have more money than the poorest 152 million Americans combined.
#12 The top 0.1 percent of all American families have about as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent of all American families combined.
#13 If you have no debt and you also have ten dollars in your pocket, that gives you a greater net worth than about 25 percent of all Americans.
#14 The number of Americans that are living in concentrated areas of high poverty has doubled since the year 2000.
#15 An astounding 48.8 percent of all 25-year-old Americans still live at home with their parents.
#16 According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 49 percent of all Americans now live in a home that receives money from the government each month, and nearly 47 million Americans are living in poverty right now.
#17 In 2007, about one out of every eight children in America was on food stamps. Today, that number is one out of every five.
#18 According to Kathryn J. Edin and H. Luke Shaefer, the authors of a new book entitled “$2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America“, there are 1.5 million “ultrapoor” households in the United States that live on less than two dollars a day. That number has doubled since 1996.
#19 46 million Americans use food banks each year, and lines start forming at some U.S. food banks as early as 6:30 in the morning because people want to get something before the food supplies run out.
#20 The number of homeless children in the U.S. has increased by 60 percentover the past six years.
#21 According to Poverty USA, 1.6 million American children slept in a homeless shelter or some other form of emergency housing last year.
#22 The median net worth of families in the United States was $137, 955 in 2007. Today, it is just $82,756.
http://themostimportantnews.com/archives/sayonara-middle-class-22-cold-hard-pieces-of-evidence-that-show-the-middle-class-in-america-is-dying
http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/the-american-dream-is-dead-and-now-even-the-mainstream-media-is-starting-to-admit-it
February 5, 2016 at 4:10 PM
-Wal-Mart is closing 269 stores, including 154 inside the United States.
-K-Mart is closing down more than two dozen stores over the next several months.
-J.C. Penney will be permanently shutting down 47 more stores after closing a total of 40 stores in 2015.
-Macy’s has decided that it needs to shutter 36 stores and lay off approximately 2,500 employees.
-The Gap is in the process of closing 175 stores in North America.
-Aeropostale is in the process of closing 84 stores all across America.
-Finish Line has announced that 150 stores will be shutting down over the next few years.
-Sears has shut down about 600 stores over the past year or so, but sales at the stores that remain open continue to fall precipitously.
http://themostimportantnews.com/archives/retail-apocalypse-2016-brings-empty-shelves-and-store-closings-all-across-america
http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/the-american-dream-is-dead-and-now-even-the-mainstream-media-is-starting-to-admit-it
February 5, 2016 at 4:53 PM
All leftist sources.
February 5, 2016 at 5:28 PM
But are the given facts true or not ?
February 5, 2016 at 5:30 PM
You tell me. You’re the one who posted this why-to-hate-America list.
February 5, 2016 at 10:27 PM
You are not getting it , nothing to do with hate , but with reality !
February 5, 2016 at 5:39 PM
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-02-04/worlds-biggest-containership-hard-aground-baltic-dry-crashes-below-300-first-time-ev
February 5, 2016 at 11:19 PM
You have no idea what the reality is here in the US.
February 6, 2016 at 11:17 PM
Exclusive — Donald Trump: America Is Currently in a ‘Jobs Recession,’ when ‘Bubble’ Pops ‘It’s Going To Be Ugly’
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/02/06/exclusive-donald-trump-america-is-currently-in-a-jobs-recession-when-bubble-were-in-pops-its-going-to-be-ugly/
February 5, 2016 at 11:34 PM
You’re not getting it:
US economy still strong despite world woes
Strong hiring report eases concerns about overseas slowdown
CHRISTOPHER S. RUGABER | Associated Press
WASHINGTON – The U.S. economy is motoring ahead despite slowing global growth that caused upheavals in financial markets around the world this week.
Employers added a robust 292,000 jobs last month, and the unemployment rate stayed low at 5 percent, the Labor Department said Friday.
Job gains in the October-December quarter averaged 284,000, the best three-month increase since last January.
The strong hiring underscores the resilience of the United States at a time of slow global growth and financial turmoil. Healthy consumer spending, modest gains in home construction and an uptick in government spending should offset drags from overseas and bolster growth this year, economists said.
The report “immediately puts to rest a lot of the worries that the U.S. economy will come undone due to the intensifying global headwinds coming out of China and the Middle East,” said Mark Vitner, an economist at Wells Fargo.
For all of 2015, employers added 2.65 million jobs, a monthly average of 221,000. That made 2015 the second-best year for hiring since 1999, after 2014.
The unemployment rate has held at 5 percent for the past three months, despite the solid job gains, because nearly 1 million more Americans have begun seeking work since September.
Wages were the one weak spot in December, as average pay slipped a cent to $25.24 an hour. Hourly pay has risen 2.5 percent in the past year, only the second time since the Great Recession ended in mid-2009 that it’s reached that level. Yet pay growth remains below the roughly 3.5 percent pace typical of a healthy economy.
The U.S. “is uniquely positioned among the major industrial economies to withstand a global slowdown,” Vitner said.
February 6, 2016 at 4:54 PM
obama is doing a good job ?
February 6, 2016 at 5:54 PM
Is that what you think?
February 6, 2016 at 7:49 PM
Not me, but according you everything is honky dory !
http://sputniknews.com/business/20160206/1034346323/china-russia-new-silk-road.html
February 8, 2016 at 4:27 PM
Hunky dory?? Like I said, you have no idea what the reality is here on the ground here in the USA. Citing another Russian propaganda site is not going to help your argument.
As we speak. Walmart has just opened another 40,000+ square foot store in our little community, making this the second. Furthermore, Academy Sports is finishing construction on another 40,000+ retail outlet here as well. This is not something you do in what you call a ‘dying’ economy.
Meanwhile, I see where your friends in Russia are closing another two more banks due to economic woes.
You ask me if Obama is doing a good job for America? How about I ask you if you think Putin is doing a good job for Israel.
By the way, I’ve been celebrating Mardi Gras the last couple of days, and no one seems to have dampened spirits by your economic predictions. Turn out was bigger than ever and the carnival ‘throws’ were off the charts. Every buy a case of beads? They’re not cheap. Of course, that’s just the reality on the ground here in Louisiana.
Got to get to work now. I’d retire only my clients still need me and I enjoy making money. You know, all that economic depression and all.
February 8, 2016 at 4:43 PM
Be happy , and i wish you all the best !
February 8, 2016 at 5:03 PM
Here’s another taste of reality. Thanks for the well wishes. Hope you’re sincere.
Walmart Closing Stores Worldwide, But Opening More in Arizona
http://kjzz.org/content/252992/walmart-closing-stores-worldwide-opening-more-arizona
February 8, 2016 at 5:29 PM
Absolutely sincere, do you really think that i like what is happening with the USA and the people ?
But fact are facts, i can not demises the fact , even if they are to bad !
February 8, 2016 at 7:21 PM
You know I like you Joop. I wouldn’t spend so much time on other folks on the net.
February 5, 2016 at 5:13 PM
Originally published at National Review Online.
America is under attack as never before — not only from terrorists but also from people who provide a justification for terrorism. Islamic fundamentalists declare America the Great Satan. Europeans rail against American capitalism and American culture. South American activists denounce the United States for “neocolonialism” and oppression.
Anti-Americanism from abroad would not be such a problem if Americans were united in standing up for their own country. But in this country itself, there are those who blame America for most of the evils in the world. On the political left, many fault the United States for a history of slavery, and for continuing inequality and racism. Even on the right, traditionally the home of patriotism, we hear influential figures say that America has become so decadent that we are “slouching towards Gomorrah.”
If these critics are right, then America should be destroyed. And who can dispute some of their particulars? This country did have a history of slavery and racism continues to exist. There is much in our culture that is vulgar and decadent. But the critics are wrong about America, because they are missing the big picture. In their indignation over the sins of America, they ignore what is unique and good about American civilization.
As an immigrant who has chosen to become an American citizen, I feel especially qualified to say what is special about America. Having grown up in a different society — in my case, Bombay, India — I am not only able to identify aspects of America that are invisible to the natives, but I am acutely conscious of the daily blessings that I enjoy in America. Here, then, is my list of the 10 great things about America.
America provides an amazingly good life for the ordinary guy. Rich people live well everywhere. But what distinguishes America is that it provides an impressively high standard of living for the “common man.” We now live in a country where construction workers regularly pay $4 for a nonfat latte, where maids drive nice cars and where plumbers take their families on vacation to Europe.
Indeed, newcomers to the United States are struck by the amenities enjoyed by “poor” people. This fact was dramatized in the 1980s when CBS television broadcast a documentary, People Like Us, intended to show the miseries of the poor during an ongoing recession. The Soviet Union also broadcast the documentary, with a view to embarrassing the Reagan administration. But by the testimony of former Soviet leaders, it had the opposite effect. Ordinary people across the Soviet Union saw that the poorest Americans have TV sets, microwave ovens and cars. They arrived at the same perception that I witnessed in an acquaintance of mine from Bombay who has been unsuccessfully trying to move to the United States. I asked him, “Why are you so eager to come to America?” He replied, “I really want to live in a country where the poor people are fat.”
America offers more opportunity and social mobility than any other country, including the countries of Europe. America is the only country that has created a population of “self-made tycoons.” Only in America could Pierre Omidyar, whose parents are Iranian and who grew up in Paris, have started a company like eBay. Only in America could Vinod Khosla, the son of an Indian army officer, become a leading venture capitalist, the shaper of the technology industry, and a billionaire to boot. Admittedly tycoons are not typical, but no country has created a better ladder than America for people to ascend from modest circumstances to success.
Work and trade are respectable in America. Historically most cultures have despised the merchant and the laborer, regarding the former as vile and corrupt and the latter as degraded and vulgar. Some cultures, such as that of ancient Greece and medieval Islam, even held that it is better to acquire things through plunder than through trade or contract labor. But the American founders altered this moral hierarchy. They established a society in which the life of the businessman, and of the people who worked for him, would be a noble calling. In the American view, there is nothing vile or degraded about serving your customers either as a CEO or as a waiter. The ordinary life of production and supporting a family is more highly valued in the United States than in any other country. America is the only country in the world where we call the waiter “sir,” as if he were a knight.
America has achieved greater social equality than any other society. True, there are large inequalities of income and wealth in America. In purely economic terms, Europe is more egalitarian. But Americans are socially more equal than any other people, and this is unaffected by economic disparities. Alexis de Tocqueville noticed this egalitarianism a century and a half ago and it is, if anything, more prevalent today. For all his riches, Bill Gates could not approach the typical American and say, “Here’s a $100 bill. I’ll give it to you if you kiss my feet.” Most likely, the person would tell Gates to go to hell! The American view is that the rich guy may have more money, but he isn’t in any fundamental sense better than anyone else.
People live longer, fuller lives in America. Although protesters rail against the American version of technological capitalism at trade meetings around the world, in reality the American system has given citizens many more years of life, and the means to live more intensely and actively. In 1900, the life expectancy in America was around 50 years; today, it is more than 75 years. Advances in medicine and agriculture are mainly responsible for the change. This extension of the life span means more years to enjoy life, more free time to devote to a good cause, and more occasions to do things with the grandchildren. In many countries, people who are old seem to have nothing to do: they just wait to die. In America the old are incredibly vigorous, and people in their seventies pursue the pleasures of life, including remarriage and sexual gratification, with a zeal that I find unnerving.
In America the destiny of the young is not given to them, but created by them. Not long ago, I asked myself, “What would my life have been like if I had never come to the United States?” If I had remained in India, I would probably have lived my whole life within a five-mile radius of where I was born. I would undoubtedly have married a woman of my identical religious and socioeconomic background. I would almost certainly have become a medical doctor, or an engineer, or a computer programmer. I would have socialized entirely within my ethic community. I would have a whole set of opinions that could be predicted in advance; indeed, they would not be very different from what my father believed, or his father before him. In sum, my destiny would to a large degree have been given to me.
In America, I have seen my life take a radically different course. In college I became interested in literature and politics, and I resolved to make a career as a writer. I married a woman whose ancestry is English, French, Scotch-Irish, German and American Indian. In my twenties I found myself working as a policy analyst in the White House, even though I was not an American citizen. No other country, I am sure, would have permitted a foreigner to work in its inner citadel of government.
In most countries in the world, your fate and your identity are handed to you; in America, you determine them for yourself. America is a country where you get to write the script of your own life. Your life is like a blank sheet of paper, and you are the artist. This notion of being the architect of your own destiny is the incredibly powerful idea that is behind the worldwide appeal of America. Young people especially find irresistible the prospect of authoring the narrative of their own lives.
America has gone further than any other society in establishing equality of rights. There is nothing distinctively American about slavery or bigotry. Slavery has existed in virtually every culture, and xenophobia, prejudice and discrimination are worldwide phenomena. Western civilization is the only civilization to mount a principled campaign against slavery; no country expended more treasure and blood to get rid of slavery than the United States. While racism remains a problem, this country has made strenuous efforts to eradicate discrimination, even to the extent of enacting policies that give legal preference in university admissions, jobs, and government contracts to members of minority groups. Such policies remain controversial, but the point is that it is extremely unlikely that a racist society would have permitted such policies in the first place. And surely African Americans like Jesse Jackson are vastly better off living in America than they would be if they were to live in, say, Ethiopia or Somalia.
America has found a solution to the problem of religious and ethnic conflict that continues to divide and terrorize much of the world. Visitors to places like New York are amazed to see the way in which Serbs and Croatians, Sikhs and Hindus, Irish Catholics and Irish Protestants, Jews and Palestinians, all seem to work and live together in harmony. How is this possible when these same groups are spearing each other and burning each other’s homes in so many places in the world?
The American answer is twofold. First, separate the spheres of religion and government so that no religion is given official preference but all are free to practice their faith as they wish. Second, do not extend rights to racial or ethnic groups but only to individuals; in this way, all are equal in the eyes of the law, opportunity is open to anyone who can take advantage of it, and everybody who embraces the American way of life can “become American.”
Of course there are exceptions to these core principles, even in America. Racial preferences are one such exception, which explains why they are controversial. But in general, America is the only country in the world that extends full membership to outsiders. The typical American could come to India, live for 40 years, and take Indian citizenship. But he could not “become Indian.” He wouldn’t see himself that way, nor would most Indians see him that way. In America, by contrast, hundreds of millions have come from far-flung shores and over time they, or at least their children, have in a profound and full sense “become American.”
America has the kindest, gentlest foreign policy of any great power in world history. Critics of the United States are likely to react to this truth with sputtering outrage. They will point to long-standing American support for a Latin or Middle Eastern despot, or the unjust internment of the Japanese during World War II, or America’s reluctance to impose sanctions on South Africa’s apartheid regime. However one feels about these particular cases, let us concede to the critics the point that America is not always in the right.
What the critics leave out is the other side of the ledger. Twice in the 20th century, the United States saved the world — first from the Nazi threat, then from Soviet totalitarianism. What would have been the world’s fate if America had not existed? After destroying Germany and Japan in World War II, the United States proceeded to rebuild both countries, and today they are American allies. Now we are doing the same thing in Afghanistan and Iraq. Consider, too, how magnanimous the United States has been to the former Soviet Union after its victory in the Cold War. For the most part America is an abstaining superpower; it shows no real interest in conquering and subjugating the rest of the world. (Imagine how the Soviets would have acted if they had won the Cold War.) On occasion the United States intervenes to overthrow a tyrannical regime or to halt massive human rights abuses in another country, but it never stays to rule that country. In Grenada, Haiti and Bosnia, the United States got in and then it got out. Moreover, when America does get into a war, as in Iraq, its troops are supremely careful to avoid targeting civilians and to minimize collateral damage. Even as America bombed the Taliban infrastructure and hideouts, U.S. planes dropped food to avert hardship and starvation of Afghan civilians. What other country does these things?
America, the freest nation on Earth, is also the most virtuous nation on Earth. This point seems counterintuitive, given the amount of conspicuous vulgarity, vice and immorality in America. Some Islamic fundamentalists argue that their regimes are morally superior to the United States because they seek to foster virtue among the citizens. Virtue, these fundamentalists argue, is a higher principle than liberty.
Indeed it is. And let us admit that in a free society, freedom will frequently be used badly. Freedom, by definition, includes the freedom to do good or evil, to act nobly or basely. But if freedom brings out the worst in people, it also brings out the best. The millions of Americans who live decent, praiseworthy lives deserve our highest admiration because they have opted for the good when the good is not the only available option. Even amid the temptations of a rich and free society, they have remained on the straight path. Their virtue has special luster because it is freely chosen.
By contrast, the societies that many Islamic fundamentalists seek would eliminate the possibility of virtue. If the supply of virtue is insufficient in a free society like America, it is almost nonexistent in an unfree society like Iran’s. The reason is that coerced virtues are not virtues at all. Consider the woman who is required to wear a veil. There is no modesty in this, because she is being compelled. Compulsion cannot produce virtue, it can only produce the outward semblance of virtue. Thus a free society like America’s is not merely more prosperous, more varied, more peaceful, and more tolerant — it is also morally superior to the theocratic and authoritarian regimes that America’s enemies advocate.
“To make us love our country,” Edmund Burke once said, “our country ought to be lovely.” Burke’s point is that we should love our country not just because it is ours, but also because it is good. America is far from perfect, and there is lots of room for improvement. In spite of its flaws, however, American life as it is lived today is the best life that our world has to offer. Ultimately America is worthy of our love and sacrifice because, more than any other society, it makes possible the good life, and the life that is good.
Read more at National Review Online.
Dinesh D’Souza’s latest book is Stealing America, an exposé of the corruption and crookedness of modern progressivism and the Democratic Party.
My mind’s made up. I’ll stick with America…thank you.-LS