What's the score in Afganistan?

[MarkyDeSade]

How many dead Taliban/Al Qaeda?
How many captured?

I know that's a horrible way to put it, but I haven't seen any real numbers in the news. I can find information-a-plenty about Americans killed/injured, but nothing about the 'enemy'.

Just wondering.
Thanks.

[kniz]

It has an "H" in it.

[MarkyDeSade]

You're right. Sorry. I meant Afghanistan.

So, what's the score?

[happyheathen]

Bush's popularity still positive - objective achieved

[dtilque]

As far as body counts, the Pentagon is deliberately not reporting them. Reminds them too much of Vietnam, which they don't want to be reminded of.

[msmith537]

Score so far:

Them:
4 Passenger planes
2 110 story skyscrapers
Several smaller buildings (if you can consider a 50 story building "small")
About 3000 people on their way to work
About a dozen or so US soldiers (including accidents, etc)
A few helicopters

Us:
One backward, totalitarian regime
A couple of hundred Al-Quaida and Taliban waking up in Guatanimo bay every morning, glad they decided to fight the great satan
An indeterminant amount of terrorists who have been blown to dust by daisy-cutters and AC-130 gunships.

[jjimm]

Originally posted by msmith537
Us:
One backward, totalitarian regime
A couple of hundred Al-Quaida and Taliban waking up in Guatanimo bay every morning, glad they decided to fight the great satan
An indeterminant amount of terrorists who have been blown to dust by daisy-cutters and AC-130 gunships.

You missed out the civilian 'collateral damage', the total of which was discussed extensively in another thread (now lost). Reckoned IIRC from between 3,000 to 6,000.

[Balor]

In the European newspapers I read, there is more open discussion about the dead and maimed in Afghanistan.

No one is totally sure, because Afghanistan is a staggeringly poor country where people were starving to death before the US bombing. Also, a huge proportion of the population lost their homes and became refugees

However, the usual estimate (guesstimate?) is about 5,000 dead in Afghanistan. About 2,500 of these are estimated to have been Taliban/Al Qaeda, while the rest were the usual babies and children, and other innocents who "got in the way", because bombs are not selective.

The above are conservative estimates. Some European journalists claim that more non-combatants have been killed in Afghanistan than died in 9/11. No one knows how many have been maimed.

We can not, we must not forget the horror of 9/11. However, please remember that the evil perpetrators of 9/11 such as Osama Bin Laden were not Afghans, but mainly from Saudi Arabia. Most Al Qaeda funding comes from Saudi Arabia, not from Iraq, Iran or North Korea.

Why has Saudi Arabia not been added to the list of terrorist states? One word answer - oil.

[Balor]

A search on Google.com for <Afghanistan deaths> gives a lot of cites for civilian death figures. This is a news report from the BBC -

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/wor...00/1740538.stm

Even higher than the estimates I quoted above.

[msmith537]

Originally posted by jjimm
You missed out the civilian 'collateral damage', the total of which was discussed extensively in another thread (now lost). Reckoned IIRC from between 3,000 to 6,000. [/b]

Yes, that is tragic. The problem is that war is not about "keeping score". It is not a matter of "we killed x more of them than they killed of us so we win".

[kuroashi]

Yeah, it's not about keeping score. Odd though, when I saw those numbers of civilian dead, and then outnumberinig those killed in WTC, Pentagon and plane passengers, the fact that we do tend to keep score indicates the sad attempts we make to rationalize war, and to criticize it.

Bombs are not selective. I think it was Franks who said that they had been very successful in the air campaign. From the outset I was waiting to hear the "collateral damage" reports. When they came in, I was saddened. Even as advanced as military technology has become, they still can't avoid innocents.

IF we were to keep score, we'd have to take into account that the US has a population outnumbering Afghanistan's more than 100 times. You'd think life would be held even more precious...

[jjimm]

Originally posted by kuroashi
the US has a population outnumbering Afghanistan's more than 100 times.

Er... "more than 10 times" I think you mean:

Afghanistan:&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;26,813,057
United States: 278,058,881

CIA World Factbook

[Milton De La Warre]

The Taliban is out of power presently, but are they so reduced in numbers and influence that they will not be able to regain their position? I am unsure. I hear reports that they are still quite popular in the southern half of Afghanistan. Perhaps the locals there prefer the Taliban's medieval severe stability to the banditry and corruption of the northern warlords.

Is Al-Queda destroyed or just redistributed?

If someone had the time, they could pull the Pentagon claims on "Operation Anaconda" to compare all the numbers about how many of the enemy there were estimated to be there at various times, how many were known and beleived to have been killed and captured, and how many are estimated to have successfully escaped to fight another day. It seems to me that initially the number of "bad guys" was estimated high, then reassessed much lower when it became known that some portion of the total had walked out of the Anaconda's supposedly inescapable grip.

As we saw in Vietman, body count puts a lot of emphasis on bloodshed and indirectly encourages including those who "got in the way" into the total of enemy fighters killed. One seldom-reported touchstone for the accuracy of the count in those days was the number of weapons captured (not to include pointed sticks and throwable rocks, please). We are not seeing this number reported in this war, either......

[kuroashi]

...hehe, sticky 00 key here. See, I did it again!

Lotsa folks who who made up the "majority" ethnic group (can't think of the name off the top of my head, somebody gimme a hand) are now feeling very nervous since the new government is largely made up of non-majority components. Many military figures (former Mujahideen, now militia/military) still have bones to pick. History repeats itself, but I hope we don't see another civil war there or it'd be a contender for world record for least amount of time between civil wars.

[Johnny L.A.]

I think it's 27-13, with the Americans coming on strong in the second half. Will it go into overtime?

[dudes a plenty]

happyheathen, are you for real? You really think going after Taliban is to keep Bush's approval rating high, not to get rid of these violent freaks and save our country ? Oh my..

[Bromley]

Originally posted by kuroashi
...hehe, sticky 00 key here. See, I did it again!

Lotsa folks who who made up the "majority" ethnic group (can't think of the name off the top of my head, somebody gimme a hand)

Pashtun

[galrion]

well dudes a plenty I wouldn't doubt that Bush's popularity has something to do with it. After all he is able to now say that anyone disagreeing with him is unpatriotic, so every bill he offers should be passed immediately or you're against America. If I recall he did say this regarding the budget bill (I think I read that in U.S. News and World Report). And it sure helps him when raising funds for those Republicans. Just to be fair, I would think it a load of bull if it came from the lips of Democratic president too.

That aside, the numbers game is uncertain. How many depends on who you're talking to. I've heard reports the placed the death toll somewhere under 1000. Just of clarity those were anti-American reports which were trying to say something along the lines of "ha ha, you failed to do anything, terrorists will come and kill you in your sleep"

Collateral damage is also different. US sources will tell you there has been no collateral damage, after all our missles can shoot down a hallway, and hit a specific room in a specific apartment. Well, except for that village recently. But for some reason people refuse to believe that we have the technology to do this. We do, have for a decade. Now I'm not a government official so I don't have to say there has been no collateral damage, but I rather doubt its anywhere near 1000 people.

[dudes a plenty]

galrion, are you saying this war shouldn't be fought? What should Bush have done? Nothing? That would send the message to the nasty violent people/countries of the world that you can kick our ass, we don't care. Come on, kick our ass. I admit I like Bush and I'm fairly conservative and I think you're the opposite, but that shouldn't play into a logical discussion amongst nice polite people such as ourselves !

[galrion]

no no, I don't think we shouldn't be going in there and doing something. I just think that its always bad form when a president starts to say that you shouldn't disagree with him or his bills because its unpatriotic in a time of war. Frankly as far as a "time of war" goes it has no similarity to other wars the US fought. The basic survival of the United States is not at stake, our drafted boys aren't over there dying by the thousands. We've had a handful of deaths against an outclassed opponent. To call for unity in "this time of war" is ridiculous when what is meant by the call is rubberstamping the bills of the president.

I'm not the opposite, just somewhere in the middle, a fencesitter as someone called me on monday

[Balor]

Originally posted by galrion
US sources will tell you there has been no collateral damage, after all our missles can shoot down a hallway, and hit a specific room in a specific apartment. Well, except for that village recently. But for some reason people refuse to believe that we have the technology to do this. We do, have for a decade.

Hello? Reality check?

Whose hallway were they shooting down when the US Air Force demolished the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade? When they destroyed a convoy of pro-US elders on their way to Kabul? No matter how accurate weapons are, if the target is wrong, innocent people are cooked or gutted. There is no serious doubt that thousands of innocent people have died in Afghanistan - the only question is how many thousands.

What do you mean "except for that village"? Which of the innocent Afghan villages destroyed by bombing are you referring to?

Do you really believe that some villages are carefully marked "Taliban" or "Al Qaeda" by their occupants, to distinguish them from innocent ones? If they were, then you could use weapons technology to crisp the bad guys and not the good. Targets are picked by human beings, who often get it wrong. That is the nature of warfare.

About accuracy - during the Gulf War, the US military claimed that its Patriot missiles were incredibly accurate and had successfully downed a large number of Iraq's Scud missiles. A few months ago, they admitted that most Patriots had missed their targets, and had actually caused more damage than the Scuds themselves.

When will they make equivalent admissions about their present technology?

[UDS]

Originally posted by dudes a plenty
galrion, are you saying this war shouldn't be fought? What should Bush have done? Nothing?

I think you can legitimately hold the position that WTC-type attacks are morally indefensible, and that the US is entitled to respond to them, and to seek to prevent further similar attacks, through the use of military force, and at the same time question whether the Afghan campaign is, in the long run, an effective response or an effective deterrent.

Even if we grant that there is a moral case for a military response, it doesn't follow that every military response is going to be effective, and if it's not likely to be effective then it's not justified. Nor, for that matter, does it follow that there is necessarily any military action which the US can take which will be an effective defence.

I think it is therefore possible to question the morality of the Afghan campaign without being unpatriotic (if American) or anti-American (if of any other nationality).

I also think it is possible that a US president might be justified in undertaking military action in response to the WTC attacks, and at the same time unjustified in seeking to milk public feeling on the issue for his own political advantage. I'm not close enough to US domestic politics to say whether this is happening but, again, those who argue that it is are not necessarily unpatriotic or anti-American.

[medstar]

From what I've read in the Washington Post newspaper and seen on TV, there's good news and bad news:

1) The good news is that the Taliban and Al-Qaeda have been defeated and are on the run. There is a fledgling government in place, schools are being rebuilt, and boys and girls are back in school.

2) The bad news is that the Taliban and Al-Qaeda are like cockroaches; they scurry around and just regroup and strike back. There is a lot of support for these monsters in western Pakistan; sympathizers give them shelter and supplies. What passes for government in western Pakistan refuses to let American soldiers come in to check for Taliban/Al Qaeda--they say they will deal with them (yeah, right).

This struggle won't be over soon; we still have plenty of hornet's nests to clean up.

[Tedster]

The "We Have It Coming" crowd with respect to the Al-Queda mass murders in New York, Arlington and Pennsylvania on 9-11-2001 are quick to whine about civilian deaths in Afghanistan, I suppose with the twisted logic that as soon as the death toll over there hits 3,202 or whatever, that makes us "even" or worse, or whatever.

Standard chomskyist "We Hate Everything America" type BS; most thinking individuals make a distinction, and a very great one at that, between accidental deaths and purposeful murder of civilians. The military goes to great lengths to try (yes, _try_; remember that word?) and prevent civilian deaths.

We are dealing with ultra-religious islamo fascists, "Poverty" has nothing to do with this, despite what we hear in the press and from the talking heads. IIRC, Osama himself is fairly well off, if he's not under tons of rubble in some cave.

[kuroashi]

Tedster, I smell what you're cookin', but I gots ta aks you a question. Do you think that the military would be more or less selective in their air campaign if their targets were hiding in Idaho?

Can you explain the "We have it coming" Crowd reference? Who constitutes this crowd?

[msmith537]

Originally posted by galrion
The basic survival of the United States is not at stake, our drafted boys aren't over there dying by the thousands. We've had a handful of deaths against an outclassed opponent. To call for unity in "this time of war" is ridiculous when what is meant by the call is rubberstamping the bills of the president.

I'm not the opposite, just somewhere in the middle, a fencesitter as someone called me on monday [/b]

So how many airplanes have to crash into skyscrapers before you feel the United States is at stake? No we are not in danger from being overrun by Taliban. That does not mean that terrorists do not pose a clear and present threat to the US. What if one of those planes crashed into a nuclear power plant in a populated area?

The fact that American soldiers are not dying by the thousands has nothing to do with the level of threat. How big a threat US were the Viet Kong to the? How many Americans died fighting them.