|
Last night, Keystone wrote:
I know we've gotten out of the body count business, but we must have taken out a lot of bad guys during the past year or two. I read somewhere that the Marine units are really kicking butt.
As it turns out, not everyone isn't counting bodies. Last August, Strategy Page had an article on exactly that subject with regard to Afghanistan. In the past they've done similar write-ups for Iran and other War on Jihad fronts. |
August 30, 2010: According to data released by the Afghan government, war related deaths are running at the rate of 40 per 100,000 population (about 12,000 dead a year). Two thirds of the dead (at least in the last month) have been Taliban. About a quarter of the dead were civilians (mostly killed by the Taliban) and the remaining twelve percent security forces. Afghan casualties are unchanged, if you leave out Taliban losses, over the last few years. Two years ago, civilian and security force losses were 15 per 100,000. They are still at that level. The NATO effort keep civilian losses down has had an impact here. The economy continues to grow, and the number of Afghan refugees returning from Pakistan is 100,000 (so far this year), twice what it was last year. This is partly because of the growing violence across the border, as the Pakistani Army goes after their local Taliban.
January 11, 2011: Afghanistan is only half of a war that straddles the Pakistan border. Most of the hostiles are Islamic conservative Pushtun tribesmen. Northern Pakistan and southern Afghanistan are Pushtun country, where 40 million Pushtuns live (65 percent in Pakistan). Last year this war left about 15,000 dead. Over 90 percent of those killed were Pushtun. Over 10,000 were the Taliban and terrorist fighters determined to drive infidels (non-Moslems) out of the area and establish an Islamic state (under Pushtun control). Most of the other 5,000 dead were civilians, most of them killed by the Taliban. The casualties are pretty even on both sides of the border, although last year they were a bit higher in Pakistan. This year, there was a surge of fighting in Afghanistan. No one expects the Pushtuns to win this war, they never do. That's why there have been so few Pushtun kingdoms in the region, much less a modern "Pushtunstan."
Posted by: 2011-02-07 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=315549 |
|