Body counts of Afghan insurgents to be withheld from public

Source

When you climb the ladder in the military it seems you have to be politicians first, military thinkers second. When you get as high up General McChrystal you might well run for office. No wonder Ike made such a good president.

McChrystal comes from the ARSOF world, so probably knows a thing or two about hearts and minds, and how body counts don't really mean that much.

It might be smart policy but this is still 100% political policy directed at western media. Afghans are short on TVs.

Yeah, has nothing to do with pushing a message down to his commanders than body counts aren't a measure of success, and that they need to focus on other benchmarks.


No.... couldn't be that at all.

We have no problem getting body count in any war. Our military is a lean, mean, compact fighting machine.

Holding ground? That's another story.

This isn't about killing the Taliban, it's about denying the Taliban the ability to exert influence and to rule.

I figured it was an attempt to avoid the "McNamara Mentality".

I recall that during the Vietnam War, McNamara liked providing body counts as a means of showing the U.S. was winning the war. McNamara had always reasoned that as long as the U.S. was killing insurgents at a rate greater than new ones were created we would "win" the war.

Hard to believe, but in about three months, the U.S. will have been engaged in combat in Afghanistan for 8 years with about 1,000 soldiers killed.

If they're legitimate Taliban/Al Qaeda targets, I want the body count on a digital display at Ground Zero and visible around the world via webcam.

Yeah, this will change everything.

God.

Better make some more changes like this. The Taliban will fold over and die for sure then.

Homestly the only way to make the Taliban stop extering influence is to make them dead, so why not use a bodycount. Though I totally get the media angle. Every insurgent killed is used on the news to say that American troops are babykillers. Apparently we're not supposed to be fighting during our wars, just building schools and hospitals.

I'm surprised The Obama isn't cashing in on this by removing the Nation Debt clock from NY and replacing it with a Dead Towlie clock.

Two birds with one stone. He can distract you from the runaway clusterfuck that is his spending policies and boost moral at the same time.

I don't think you are getting the point.


McChrystal comes from the SOF world, where numbers don't really mean that much. What matters is meeting the objective. If you kill one or kill 5k, it doesn't matter, what matters is if your objective is met.

Regular Army doesn't work that way. Regular Army is ALL about the numbers. Do you attack? I don't know, do we have 3 to 1? Hell SF took out the entire Taleban with just a few hundred operators. Why? B/c SOF are force multipliers. They don't look at the numbers instead they look at what has to be done. McChrystal is trying to turn this from a Regular Army fight...how many of them v how many of us in X province... how many did we kill opposed to how many of us got killed into a objective oriented (SOF) fight, what do we want to get done, and how do we do it?

By taking the numbers out, he forces his (Regular Army) commanders to use different objectives... his objectives.

Apostle understands!

Azure does not.

That makes sense Anc.

Not reporting them does also give the Taliban less fodder as well though.

I do find it interesting that the administration decided to change policies and show our guys coming back in caskets a while back though....

You do know that many of the families of the deceased wanted this, don't you? They're feeling like the wars' have been forgotten and that folks don't realize that we've got people fighting and dying in foreign lands.

It also prevents the military from getting away with screw ups and not sending soldier's remains back with full military honors (as they tried to do some years back).

IIRC, the new rules are that its up to the family of the deceased if the media can be there to document the return of a fallen soldier/marine/sailor/airman, which is the way it should be.

Oh I'm sure some did, but you'd have to live under a rock to not know we were loosing soldiers in the field so I have a hard time swallowing that one. MSN made damn sure we know who died and how every day.

When exactly did we not send people back without honors? I'd be interested in that.

I assure you a number of the families of the deceased wanting to televise this probably have political motives, but yes, it should be their choice.

I know that during the height of casualties in Iraq there was a big uproar about the so called McMorials, where the Army announced that instead of holding a service for each soldier they would have combined memorials for a group of soldiers at a time.

Trust me, folks don't pay attention to such things unless its crammed down their throats.

I don't remember the exact dates, but I believe it was when Rummy was still in charge of the DoD. There were the "McMemorials" like Anc mentions, but there were also cases of the military wanting to ship the fallen back like ordinary cargo (i.e. no honor guard like regs call for). Fox News was all over the story as I recall, with interviews with the families who were appalled at what was going on.

Political motives or not, it would serve this country well if people were reminded that we are at war, and have been for years now.

Yet The Army doesn't have a problem with having three (count em' three)
separate "change of command/responsibility/retirement" full blown Pass in Review ceremonies in one month within the same Brigade.

Anc, Tex etc. can back me up on this....these take hours of organization, practice + rehearsal and tie up units' time.

Our soldiers who gave the ultimate sacrifice deserve at least as much as
higher ranking yet perfectly healthy senior soldiers.

Well, damn.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090812/ap_on_re_as/as_afghanistan

Sorry boys, but you're going to get dishonorably discharged for being truthful and honest about how many fuckheads you killed.

The Chosen One(God Bless his holy dick)....demands it.

You haven't been paying attention to what I or other ex-military types like Frontline have said here have you?

This is not about silencing talk of body counts altogether. This is about reducing their useage as evidence of success.

McCrystal doesn't really care if a Company Commander tells a reporter how many Talib his guys killed. He cares when that Commander uses the number for HIS report to his superiors on what was accomplished. Killing bad guys is a means to an end. Unfortunantly for many 'Regular' military, it is seen as an end unto itself. By forcing those underneath him to exclude bodycounts from their reports, he is forcing them to focus on what he believes to be better objectives.

You are usually a pretty intelligent guy, I don't see why are getting so bent out of shape about this. It's been explained more than a few times.

But bodycounts DO matter. The number of potential recruits is not infinate, so if enough are killed, they'll eventually start losing so many that recruitment cannot hope to replace the losses. Secondly, I think that biggest thing for the taleban is probably morale, something else that would seem to decrease with heavy losses -- especially if they can't meet THEIR objectives.

So if they lose 20% every time they try to take a certain village, they can only try that so many times before it becomes impossible to do so.

Code:

(100%)x = y(x-(20%x))

And I bet good money that before they lost half of their available men on this doomed mission, they'll give up.

http://www.amazon.com/Fog-War-Eleve...3LUE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1250119854&sr=8-1

Buy it, watch it, learn.


Sorry but you are just dead fucking wrong. Our experience in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan have proven time and again that killing bad guys DOES NOT end an insurgency.

I'd like them to stop releasing body counts for our side, too. Our media should not be doing the enemy's damage assessment for them.