Article

2007-11-26 Afghanistan

Nearly 80 Taliban killed in Afghanistan airstrikes

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Posted by Fred 2007-11-26 00:00|| || Front Page|| [6 views ] Top
File under: Taliban

#1 Something just isn't adding up with all these reports of huge Taliban casualties. These strikes of ours HAVE to be having some serious impact on these populations according to basic arithmetic. For example, North and South Waziristan have fewer people combined than the city of San Jose, California. If you kill 80 military aged males in San Jose in one night, you have made a dent in the population. Do that week after week after week and you are going to start ending up with so families having major problems surviving because their primary producers are all dead. You begin to have hundreds or thousands of women with mouths to feed. It has GOT to be having some kind of significant impact on further impoverishing the tribes who are supplying the fighters for the Taliban.

Those tribes would be going backwards in economic production and their families forced to support growing numbers of women and children with a decreasing number of able bodied men.

From last month:

KABUL, Afghanistan, Sept. 27 (UPI) -- The number of Taliban insurgents killed in two battles in Afghanistan this week has risen to at least 169 with coalition forces escaping nearly unscathed.

These regions are not bustling with large cities. Death tolls like this are the size of some of the mountain villages from which these people come. I just don't see how it is physically possible to kill 150 or more a week, week after week, and still have people left to kill.

Posted by crosspatch 2007-11-26 00:47|| 2007-11-26 00:47|| Front Page Top

#2 Is there some place where you can go check life insurance or social security new claims for terrorists?

Posted by gorb 2007-11-26 01:22|| 2007-11-26 01:22|| Front Page Top

#3 Croospatch. You should check your numbers.

There are about 30 million Pashtuns and most of them not in Afghanistan but in Pakistan. Also, in pre 9/11 times when Massood was fighting the Taliban time and again his men captured dozens of non-Pastoon Pakistanis. In fact time and again after he had inflicted a crushing defeat on the Taliban these were saved by a fresh influx of thousands of those non-Pashtoon fighters fresh from the Madrassas.

Posted by JFM">JFM 2007-11-26 06:31|| 2007-11-26 06:31|| Front Page Top

#4 Also, this is most probably an area with a very young median age population (think of the average gazaland primitive, who's aged a mere 15), and lotsa children per family, thanks to (western) modern medecine and subsequent relatively low infant mortality.
So, the number of young men in fighting age is probably much higher than what you'd expect to find in San José. Also, there's factors like a society where a man is expected to be fierce and roll eyes, and the all-mighty Jihad, all this processed by thez madrassas robot factories. My un-informed guess is that there's an huge pool of potential fighters.

I seem to recall that the muslim world taken as a whole has something like 4x the number of men in fighting age as the West, because of these factors.

Posted by anonymous5089 2007-11-26 07:05|| 2007-11-26 07:05|| Front Page Top

#5 Old enough to fight, but many not very good at it, thus the kill numbers. Carry on!

Posted by M. Murcek">M. Murcek 2007-11-26 08:11|| 2007-11-26 08:11|| Front Page Top

#6 They've been coming straight from the madrassas for a while now, crosspatch, told not much more than which end of their rifle to hold and which to point at the enemy, then shoved across the border. JFM is right, the so-called Taliban are not coming just from the Waziristans, or even just from the Frontier territories. A goodly proportion of the madrassa boys are excess population for whom the family cannot provide jobs, afford wives or, likely enough, even feed. Their life options are pretty much becoming maulanas and imams or enlisting in the Pakistani army as cannon fodder. Or becoming jihadis on the promise of finding wives and hot meals in Paradise.

Posted by trailing wife">trailing wife 2007-11-26 08:27|| 2007-11-26 08:27|| Front Page Top

#7 Somebody should build a McDonalds in Wazoo and put those kids to work. Of course, all the usual teen motivators like girls, cars and music are haram.

Posted by SteveS 2007-11-26 10:33|| 2007-11-26 10:33|| Front Page Top

#8 I've said before that maybe we ought to concede a portion of Afghanistan to the Taliban so the locals can learn (again) the joy of living in a sharia paradise.

Posted by mhw">mhw 2007-11-26 12:18|| http://hypocrisy-incorporated.blogspot.com/]">[http://hypocrisy-incorporated.blogspot.com/] 2007-11-26 12:18|| Front Page Top

#9 Pakistan has what, 160 million or so people? And they multiply like rabbits as long as you don't keep killing the sister because she showed her little pinky one day. It doesn't really take that much to re-populate the talibunnies with more cannon fodder. What we need to do is make sure the death rate is always greater than the birth rate.

Posted by Jack is Back!">Jack is Back! 2007-11-26 12:47|| 2007-11-26 12:47|| Front Page Top

#10 I was talking about the population of Waziristan. There are something like 361,246 in North Waziristan and 429,841 in South Waziristan. Combined there are less than the population of San Jose, California.

If you want to talk about Pashtun people in total, sure there are 25.6 million in Pakistan and 13.3 million in Afghanistan but that includes the populations of some rather large cities and we would be talking about a large part of Pakistan outside of the tribal territories too. Pashtuns populate areas from Iran to India. I wasn't talking about the entire Pashtun population because that would be irrelevant to the discussion.

The point that I am making is that if these people are coming from the tribal areas along the border, then we should have about wiped out that population, or at least an entire generation of males by now because THOSE areas are not heavily populated. Think Western Wyoming or Western Colorado and Eastern Utah or Eastern Idaho and you get an idea of the kind of country we are talking about (only the Pakistan/Afghanistan border area is at even higher altitude).

Posted by crosspatch 2007-11-26 12:49|| 2007-11-26 12:49|| Front Page Top

#11 If the Kashmiri model is uphold, wouldn't "militants" come from madrassas all over pakistan, or at least pashtun lands?

Posted by anonymous5089 2007-11-26 12:55|| 2007-11-26 12:55|| Front Page Top

#12 I wasn't talking about the entire Pashtun population because that would be irrelevant to the discussion.

But they are relevant. A significant majority are not residents of the region. They get recruited, move from the cities to the region; the 'students' get a few days' training, then get sent out.

Essentially what is being fought is not the 'native' Waziristani population.

Posted by Pappy 2007-11-26 14:10|| 2007-11-26 14:10|| Front Page Top

#13 The points being made here all support the claim I've made which is that we will never achieve our goals in Afghanistan as long as Perv is in control. Of course it's debatable that either Bhutto or Nawaz would be any better but it seems to me like it's time to roll the dice. Then again there is the question of who is funding the Talibunnies and where the money to run the madrassas comes from. Soddy Arabia then emerges as the prime suspect and the root of all evil.

One suggestion I've seen here before is to dissolve Pakistan and partition it so that India gets half and Afghanistan gets half. US troops would then be free to do what needs doing in Wazoo and India would get the nukes. Pakistan is a failed state and a danger to the security of everybody on the planet.

Posted by Ebbang Uluque6305 2007-11-26 14:28|| 2007-11-26 14:28|| Front Page Top

#14 Would India want half?

Posted by KBK 2007-11-26 15:34|| 2007-11-26 15:34|| Front Page Top

#15 Dunno. It might be more trouble than it's worth. OTOH they wouldn't have to worry about Pak nukes anymore. Also, they'd be free to do what needs to be done about Kashmir.

Posted by Ebbang Uluque6305 2007-11-26 16:03|| 2007-11-26 16:03|| Front Page Top

#16 Which brings up my favorite tactic, genocide.
Oh, sure you can call me Hitler and such, but when a nation is so utterly worthless, and we have so many similar nations, why not erase a few million just for experimental purposes ? Is there some reason they should live ? Some unmentioned global worthyness of being a Paki ? They seem to be one devilish clone after the next, a never ending line of dirty hands in a world short of clean water.
Just kidding.

Posted by wxjames 2007-11-26 17:19|| 2007-11-26 17:19|| Front Page Top

#17 Genocide, crop circles and the CFR. Lawz.... I LOL

Posted by Thomas Woof 2007-11-26 17:51|| 2007-11-26 17:51|| Front Page Top

#18 Troll 'em

Posted by Thomas Woof 2007-11-26 17:51|| 2007-11-26 17:51|| Front Page Top

#19 18.75 times this day to equal the terrs let loose in Saudi today.

Posted by 3dc 2007-11-26 17:58|| 2007-11-26 17:58|| Front Page Top

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