GOTTA SEE THIS-OP END.FREEDOM 3/18-19/02 - Strike Videos, Cave Entrance, Fleeing Terrorists, Update

DOD ^ | 3/18/02 | President Bush and the valiant US military

[Diogenesis]

STRIKE VIDEOS Justice delivered

[68-69TonkinGulfYachtClub]

[Poohbah]

Color commentary: "Ouch, that's GOT to hurt, Frank."

[tbird-james]

Dis-information
What are the numbers? Looks like a great effort to distance thems elves from any discussion of the numbers.
Initially the numberswere that there were 200 in the area that swelled to 700-1000 and that 4-500 were killed. The Afghans have said they only saw about 40 dead.
What are the real nubmers. Let's avoid the huff and puff and just deal with it wthe way that it is. If there were 700-1000 how did that many escape without being seen? What happened to infra-red and overhead recon with infra-red. If you can select a tall man in a white robe from high above why can't you detect the coming and going of hundreds?
After Tora Bora I would have thought that we would have cut off the escape routes before the attack. Pakistan seemed like the most logical route to escape to.
Back to the real numbers and what is really happening and lets avoid the fluff. If we think we are confusing the locals with false numbers, it doesn't take long for the reality to get around and then living with fluff can really work against you and erode your support.

[glock rocks]

were you absent the day rummy discussed body count numbers?

[Excuse_My_Bellicosity]

Cha-ching. Gotta love the fleeing Al Qaeda. What happened to that "fighting to the death" thing, fan-boys?

[TheBlueMax]

Remember, that when a cave gets a 1000lbs guided bomb dropped on it, it makes it a little difficult to count noses afterwards.

[tbird-james]

Did you have a follow-up site connect on the Rummy body count postings?. Best I got was that numbers were being dis-avowed and avoided after the 400 number was intially being given out. Big difference between 400 and 40 dead and 700-1000 on site and most getting away. Sure the count will never be exact but let's bring it into some sort of a reliable number.

[Henk]

They just count the arms and divide by two.

[fire and forget]

Our people aren't sifting through the rubble of collapsed caves to excavate bodies. I'm sure they've made assumptions about the number of casualties based on several factors, and these are likely in the ballpark; but they can't very well feed these assumptions to the public, or casualty figures, if they have no confirmed body count.

Seems to me to be a great exercise of discipline for them not to disseminate numbers they believe to be the case for public consumption when they can't verify absolutely the information.

[fire and forget]

Under the circumstances, we might expect a gross disparity between casualty estimates and the number of bodies actually found. Still, it's good to maintain a healthy cynicism when figures are announced to us without independent confirmation.

[madison46]

bump cause work PC views better..

[LibWhacker]

Don't know if you're old enough to remember the old body-count game during Viet Nam, but a good rule of thumb during that war was that when a side (any side) initially reported enemy causalties, you needed to divide by ten to get a better idea of how many enemy really died, and when a side reported its own casaulties, you needed to multiply by ten.

And it's funny how those numbers converge (not just during Viet Nam, btw, but many wars before and since). In other words, when side A reports 1000 enemy dead in some given battle, invariably side B will report about 10 of their men died, while the rule of thumb (applied to either figure) will tell you that in reality the number was about 100.

There are good reasons for fiddling with the battlefield data. For instance, overreporting enemy dead saps enemy morale and boosts your own, etc.

'Course, I don't know if that trick is going to hold during this war -- which seems to be a whole different ballgame, what with huge cave complexes, smart thermobaric bunker busters that can turn 1000 bodies to dust in an instant, etc. -- but it should be very interesting to keep it in mind as things progress.

[glock rocks]

you're right on the money. the worst part of public discussion of body count
is that it causes the lyndon johnson types to pull strings from dc, ultimately sending
more of our finest to their graves, all for political "image." it sucks, it's
stupid militarily, and it isn't being done here, for good reason.

[Nitro]

As usual a great job!!

[TaxPayer2000]

ever stop to think the numbers may be in the thousands? vaporized?

[Victoria Delsoul]

Thanks Diogenesis.

Bump.

[GVnana]

Bub-bye Al Qaeda! Be sure to invite us to your next goat roast! He he he.