NATO's high estimate of Taliban killed stirs doubt

[maddezmom]

KABUL, Afghanistan — NATO's estimate of Taliban killed this month has created skepticism and worry in Afghanistan. Local officials say that either the militant force has grown bigger than imagined or too many innocent Afghans are being killed.

NATO says its forces, backed by the Afghan army, have killed more than 500 Taliban militants near Afghanistan's main southern city of Kandahar in Operation Medusa, a sweep launched Sept. 2.

The figures, if accurate, make it the deadliest battle since U.S. warplanes bombed the extremist militia, host of Osama bin Laden.

"If they kill that many, the Taliban must have thousands of fighters on that front," said Mohammed Arbil, a former Northern Alliance commander. Recently, Taliban units have been described in terms of dozens or hundreds at most.

more:http://www.azstarnet.com/dailystar/news/146899.php

[Henny Penny]

1. Which is it?

The Taliban has grown huge?

or

An awful lot of innocent Afghans are being killed?

The way this admin is going, probably both.

[acmavm]

2. NATO probably has the same policy as the US has in Iraq, Kill

anything that moves.

[IndianaGreen]

3. Where is the Warsaw Pact when we need it?

We were raised to believe that NATO was good and the Warsaw Pact was evil. Since the end of the Cold War, NATO has been used as the aggressor organization that it always was. American Cold War propaganda always portrayed NATO as the good guys, when in fact, the Warsaw Pact was created in response to the establishment of NATO.

NATO is primarily a conduit for arms sales to its members!

[DavidDvorkin]

4. Or they're making the numbers up

That's the third possibility.

We saw that in the Viet Nam war, those absurd body counts that were really numbers plucked out of thin air in order to pacify higher ups in the US chain of command.