I heard an army rep on the radio say this last week. I was truly amazed.
Good Taliban or Bad Taliban? Or both? Or are they all "bad"
This thread is nothing without pics (dead Talibs, that is)
Well there's the solution then.
All we need to do is send enough young men to die in Afghanistan, and we can't help but win.
Sorted ........ why didn't anyone think of that before ?
That's a pretty big range. Does that include civilians?
Does that include civilians?
LOL !
They're all the same ............................. aren't they ? 😕
Did you see it on the night vision film on the news last night? 6 blokes digging beside the road at night & they launched a missile at them from a helicopter - 3 died instantly & they chased the other 3 & shot them.
[i]Good Taliban or Bad Taliban? Or both? [/i]
that's AIDS, not Taliban.
They're all the same ............................. aren't they ?
We (well, you lot) didn't get an empire by splitting hairs, you know.
I don't want to sound too sceptical, as the idea is essentially plausible. But they do not actually find anywhere near enough bodies to back up those numbers, so they are pretty much conjecture I think.
Was it Operation Anaconda where US commanders believed they had killed 1,000 people but only recovered a dozen bodies?
Who decides if they are Taliban or civilians?
One persons terrorist is anothers freedom fighter. Nelson Mandela, Gerry Adams
You could well be right BD, as the rep himself said it's very difficult to get a reliable numbers.
But it could be quite feasible. It struck me that it's more of a massacre than a war.
they are pretty much conjecture I think.
Never seen a James Bond/Rambo film ? ...........1 to 100 is easily achievable.
....... and the other thing you'll learn from James Bond/Rambo films, is that foreigners (specially the ones with darker skin and/or moustaches) make a lot of noise when they die.
foreigners (specially the ones with darker skin and/or moustaches) make a lot of noise when they die.
It's those American "freedom bullets". They hurt more if you're a bad person.
One persons terrorist is anothers freedom fighter. Nelson Mandela, Gerry Adams
Gerry Adams is/was a terrorist, its just he was deemed *useful*
Why does this remind me of the US obsession with 'body counts' during the Vietnam conflict?
I did read a report (BBC online) from an embedded reporter that the Talib are very good at spiriting away their dead and wounded, also at resupply by motorbike etc but under the rules of engagement the Army are not allowed to engage them?
What sort of cretin bars soldiers from shooting at those who are carrying ammo up to the lines?
Why bother when you can just call in repeated airstrikes?
I also wonder whether it is sensible to compare numbers of people [u]killed[/u], and whether the figures look radically different if you count people who are too badly hurt to fight anymore.
Comparing actual deaths when one side has body armour, helicopter evacuations, decent field hospitals and the ablity to evacuate casualties to specialist hospitals within 24 hours is meaningless. Plenty of British troops are getting very badly hurt without getting killed. Presumably a lot more afghans who get hurt die.
BD - Thye don't often find the bodies to back those numbers up because many of the weapons used don't leave many bodies.
The numbers are usually based of pre-strike and post-strike intel, or 'now you see them, now you don't' as I believe some caring folk call it.
Of course what they don't say in the figures is that many of the casualities on the Taliban side are 'tier 3' personnel. The poorly trained 'dickers' who man the OPs keeping an eye out for allied forces, 'mules' who bring up equip from ****stan and lightly armed locally recruited irregulars who provide support to the better trained tier 1 and 2 personnel who actually carry out the attacks or lay the IEDs.
Good point BD, but that still wouldn't even out a ratio of 1:100
To the republicans he was a freedom fighter - same as mandela was a terrorist to the SA government of the time.
Moshe Dayan?
It all depends on your viewpoint
the Talib are very good at spiriting away their dead and wounded
I think the term is "the Taliban are very good at burying their dead and at not abandoning their wounded".
What I struggle with is the value of western lives vs afhgan/iraqi lives.
We had the disgusting events of 7/7, and that helped justify being in Iraq.
But at one point the Iraqis were getting suicide bombers doing a 7/7 EVERY DAY. Just crazy.
Some anti-personnel weapons are specifically designed to injure/maim rather than kill.
AP mines for example are designed to blow a foot/leg off and leave you screaming as your mates look on. It is meant to be demoralising, it endangers your rescuers who have to brave more mines to get you out (often under fire) and uses up more resources than a dead soldier does.
The Talib are using these tactics, knowing that a combat loss is a combat loss whether dead or maimed.
Either get the troops out or give them the freedom to take on the opposition without hindrance.
Kill everything! Taliban, civilians, dogs, everything.
For every British soldier killed, 50-100 Taliban have been killed
I hope that's true. It's certainly cheered me up, just a shame we have to lose any.
Bling Bling - Ah, the 'brass-up everything' approach. Not always the best plan.
One persons terrorist is anothers freedom fighter. Nelson Mandela, Gerry Adams
Unlike Mandela I don't think Adams has ever been implicated in taking part in any actual terrorist attacks
There has been intell reporting a number of Talib mass graves, this intel also seems to indicate that the Talib like to keep them secert. Both from NATO and from the Afgan's.
sootyandjim, what I meant was if unsure and you may be in dager shoot first check the body for ID later 😆
I could never be in the forces I'd be shooting eeverything in sight just in case.
BlingBling - Luckily rules of engagement exist so 'shooting first and asking questions later' (which would and has resulted in criminal charges for service personnel) is a very rare thing.
The rules of engagement are fairly restrictive, considering what is going on in Afhganistan is actually a war in all but name, which although may have accounted for a number of service personnel losing their lives has meant that the godwill with is gained from not brassing-up innocent civilians often results in less support for the Taliban, who have no quarms in killing Afgans for minor 'offences'.
Too much CoD4 for me mate, best left to the professionals I think.
i think if they are dead they get classified as taliban, that way it was a good honest kill
on the flip side does that not mean for every grieving family in the uk there are 50-100 grieving afgahn families and plenty more martyrs in the making?
The one good thing about martyrs is they never try again 🙂
Why does this remind me of the US obsession with 'body counts' during the Vietnam conflict?
Indeed, in the same vein the Vietcong suffered similar massive casulties compared to the US forces, and they lost that war resoundingly didn't they ... oh hang on ...
Yeah it must do kimbers.
Maybe that is why we are close to 'losing the war'?
ooooooo was that sarcasm or not interweb is hard to tell
Pure confusion mate!
I agree with Muddydwarf, we are repeating many of the mistakes of the Vietnam war and also of the first Afghan War when the Soviets were beaten by a rag-tag army (or hang on, wasn't the first Afghan War the one in 1879 or whatever when we got kicked out the first time?).
War cannot simply be reduced to a matter of mathematics and body-counts is an insidious way to measure success. It encourages attitudes such as the 'if it's dead and Afghan then it's a Taleban'.
Sooty, I agree re modern weapons but in cases like that don't they just take the number of arms and legs lying around and divide by four?
See, it's not a pleasant business.
(The two quotes above are paraphrased from the excellent book '[url= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Rumor_of_War ]A Rumor (sic) of War[/url]' by PJ Caputo based on his Vietnam experiences)
One persons terrorist is anothers freedom fighter. Nelson Mandela, Gerry Adams
Nope, sorry, both terrorist scum! 😀
on the flip side does that not mean for every grieving family in the uk there are 50-100 grieving families and plenty more martyrs in the making?
Indeed there are probably 50-100 grieving families on the other side, though as with the allies, I reckon a suprisingly large amount of those familes are outside of Afghanistan too.
As it was in Afghanistan during the 80's Soviets vs West by proxy it is now West vs Middle East by proxy, though for some mis-guided fools you can subsitute 'West' for 'Christianity' and 'Middle East' for 'Islam'.
Damn religion again.
[i]You can kill ten of our men for every one we kill of yours. But even at those odds, you will lose and we will win.
Ho Chi Minh [/i]
Kill everything! Taliban, civilians, dogs, everything.
I saw some footage from an A10 head-up-display a while back: half a dozen guys walking along a road at night with (probably) guns over their shoulders and a dog tagging along. The footage then shows some vibration and simultaneously you can see the magazine load figures from the 30mm cannon tumbling rapidly!!!
This is all from a range of a couple of miles, so there's a brief pause, then the dog makes a sharp exit miliseconds before the rounds arrive !!!
The impact is pretty graphic in infra red (or whatever) as you get to see the warm bits spread around.
Impersonal business it's become, killing people that is (but looked clinically effective).
The problem isn't that there are more matryrs in the making, it is that thousands upon thousands of ordinary people have lost loved ones and have their lives scarred forever as a consequence. Their love, pain, grief, pride and so on are identical to ours.on the flip side does that not mean for every grieving family in the uk there are 50-100 grieving afgahn families and plenty more martyrs in the making?
Our propaganda machine, and our natural tendencies, seeks to make us think that the other side are somehow different to us - obvious nonsense when you think about it.
Interesting.
We are pretty lucky over here really.
