David Axe is the national security editor at Medium.com. He has written for Danger Room, Wired and Popular Science. His most recent graphic novel is "Army of God: Joseph Kony's War in Central Africa.”
Posted on 01/22/2015 4:25:51 PM PST by Oldeconomybuyer
Earlier this month, a reporter asked the question that usually comes up when the United States gets involved in a sustained military campaign. Just how many enemy troops — in this case, Islamic State foot soldiers — have U.S. forces killed in more than five months of aerial attacks?
The military’s answer was basically the same given to all similar questions going back more than a decade. Counting the dead is “not the goal,” said Pentagon chief spokesman John Kirby, a Navy admiral.
Since the Vietnam War, with its gruesome and inflated U.S. tallies of enemy dead, the Pentagon has denied keeping body counts. But, in fact, the military does add up the number of enemy fighters it believes it has killed — and proudly boasts of the totals in official documents that it never intends for public circulation.
With few exceptions since Vietnam, the Pentagon has shied away from boasting about enemy dead, lest the kill totals imply that the United States is winning its wars — making a promise the military can’t keep.
In constantly tell themselves, in confidence, just how many of their opponents they believe they’ve slain, the armed forces seem to be reassuring themselves that the violence they inflict — and the violence the enemy inflicts in return — is definitely worth it.
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.reuters.com ...
Sometimes it’s not quantity but quality
I don’t know about the military but I’d bet a dollar to a donut that “Planned Parenthood” keeps a body count.
I’d bet a dollar to a donut that “Planned Parenthood” keeps a body count, and that they have killed more than our
military...
Hey David you little puto, what is the American body count?
Do you even care?
Does Rueters?
Does Barry?
It's a BS claim. The numbers disclosed by the Vietnamese were pretty similar to US numbers. I believe the one case where the numbers were widely off was Chinese Korean War numbers. Given that the US had to bury Chinese dead in mass graves, I'd say the US numbers (~800K) for Chinese dead were more accurate than the Chinese ones (~100K). In fact, some Chinese journalist discovered that a significant number of Korean War dead in his region were unaccounted for. My guess is that the Chinese left out MIA's, of which there were many, because of superior American firepower.
Nov. 14-18, 1965 battle of Ia Drang valley.
LTC Hal Moore’s battalion, 1st Cavalry division, expected to face a force of about 200 but instead found a vastly superior force of 2000 North Vietnamese regulars.
With air support, helicopters and artillery, Moore’s battalion survived, claimed victory and withdrew with a 16:1 kill ratio.
http://www.lzxray.com
The US Army used this battle as a template from then on, but so did Ho.
“Body counts” as a war strategy works only if you kill every one of the enemy. The Vietnamese had a lot of people and they weren’t going anymore.
The US Army doesn’t use body counts any more.
Any group of Americans in a gathering should all stand whenever a US serviceman who served and endured in Vietnam enters the room.
And to hell with Lyndon Baines Johnson.
In war it’s normal to guesstimate the number of enemy casualties as an indicator of success. Doesn’t mean you plan your strategy by body count. But you’d be stupid not to track it.
Besides which, you need to know how many you have left to kill...
Goal S/B all of them.
The writer, David Axe, is full of shit. He’s too young to have been in Vietnam (I was as a journalist) to know what happened on the battlefields. We never lost a major battle, always retained control of those fields or mountains until WE decided to leave for various reasons.
NVA loses, by their own admissions, were over 1 MILLION MEN, mainly in SVN, then Cambodia, and lastly in Laos, esp. on the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
This doesn’t count about 30,00 Red Chinese troops (AA crews/ missile crews, pilots, combat engineers rebuilding the Mu Gia Pass/road networks, and labors, both hired and transcripts).
The Russians lost some men, esp. pilots and AA Crewmen, and reports of Red Chinese individuals and No. Koreans being heard/sighted, or killed in SVN and Cambodia were from reliable intell and combat unit sources. I looked at the diary of one such “Red Chinese” soldier killed in Cambodia. The question was whether he was a Peking soldier or a Cambodian-native Chinese who went to Peking for training and was killed on his return to Cambodia. He was very dead according to the Cambodians who recovered his body, Mao buttons and diary.
So. Korean ROK troops reported many times hearing No. Koreans in-country (VN) on radio transmissions.
The Communists had far more weapons, ammunition, and a continuing resupply system that dwarfed whatever the US had for SVN, Cambodia and Laos, until the Communists and Democrats in Congress cut planned aid in half, thus assuring the conquest of those countries.
I saw how the Hanoi Lobby worked on the Hill and in Congress to bring this about. Names like Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda, Dave Dellinger, Cora Weiss (daughter of SOviet asset Samuel Rubin/CPUSA; Sid Peck (once CPUSA), Richard Fernandez, John McAuliffe, Terry Provance, Larry Levine, Pauline Rosen (CPUSA), and Rep. John Conyers (CPUSA asset); Bella Abzug (covert CPUSA and Soviet asset), Ted Weiss (need to have his files opened for his true identity); the Burton Brothers (CPUSA friends); Ron Dellums (avowed Marxist); Alan Cranston (NKVD-affiliated during WW II in the Office of War Information and the Carlos Tresca killing), etc.
Go online and look up “Roger Canfield and AmeriCong”, his massive 25 year study on the Hanoi Lobby. It’s all there with more to come.
Also, see www.keywiki.org and their pages entitled “Hanoi Lobby” and “American vistors to No. Vietnam/Hanoi During the War”, for starts.
Real eye-openers for the beginner.
“I’d bet a dollar to a donut that “Planned Parenthood” keeps a body count, and that they have killed more than our
military...”
Just for comparison, about 66,000 people died in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. How many days of abortions equal that total? Not very many.
66,000? That’s probably a year’s worth for the state of Florida.
Probably should also note that 10,076 Americans died in car crashes in 2013 who were drunk. If body counts matter...(you can fill in the rest).
Apples and oranges...
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