Posted on 01/06/2009 10:56:53 AM PST by Scott Martin
Have you noticed that hardly anyone ever inflates their kill numbers anymore? Americans and Europeans see no political benefit to claiming to kill more people than they are, rightly surmising that it would just lead to further peace protests.
But things are different in the Middle East, especially among terrorist regimes like the Taliban and Hamas. It seems the less accomplished, the more backwards-thinking the regime, the greater the need to overstate one's fearsomeness.
Apparently the Taliban is re-living the Crusade period.
The Taliban has long exaggerated its military successes, but its figures for 2008 may be the militia's most startling claims yet...
(Excerpt) Read more at patriotroom.com ...
Okay....
Importantly, there are very good reasons for the US and NATO to undercount enemy casualties. This is because the enemy is reliant on those counts to estimate their strength in the field. That is essential planning information, and planners never want to overestimate their strength.
It was mentioned a year or two ago that the Afghan army was utterly puzzled why the US and NATO would be this way, but the penny dropped, and now it is lucky that if a hundred enemy are killed even ten are accounted for. The rest just vanish.
For their part, the Taliban and al-Qaeda don’t know if they are dead, wounded, deserted, or as I imagine many are doing, malingering and avoiding the fight.
The only thing I would add, beyond the strategic intel associated with enemy body count, is that intel that would lead one to understand how many have been captured or injured.
Most forget that American’s collect the injured from a battlefield, whether friend or foe and treat them. If they are enemies, we likely nurse them back to health before interrogations. It is the captured and injured that we likely get intel from. The enemy casualties are more for PR both good and bad than tipping off the enemy about their own troop strength.
A conversation over the holidays with a veteran was enlightening about this. A “small” skirmish ended in zero American casualties and 5 enemy casualties. What apparently didn't get accurately reported was that 20 additional enemies were taken into custody after being injured or surrendering. I was left with the impression that the captured number is often understated and there is usually very little mentioned about the injuries of those enemies captured on the battlefield.
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