Quote Originally Posted by Ken White View Post
are known and shared by the troops that are there and have been there. Unfortunately, they are severely constrained by Politicians and policy makers on those two major issues you cite as well as on the rules they must follow. That and the very significant terrain difference which you also tend to ignore lead to some odd conclusions on your part.
I ignore terrain? You got the wrong guy Ken.

I maintain the more time spent in-country the better the understanding of the terrain, the climate, the people and their culture etc etc. In other words continuity.

For example:What's classified? I get several e-mails a day from a US DoD automated system that gives me the daily casualty reports. Anyone in the US can sign up for it, don't know about overseas. While the opponents have an obvious desire and need to conceal their losses and while truly accurate data on those losses is difficult to obtain, the news media have numerous tales, some specious but a thread is detectable -- they get pounded pretty heavily in most contacts.
ISAF force causalities are not classified I know that andi suppose they are close to being 100% accurate.

It is the Taliban casualties that I talking about. What I'm saying is if this ratio ISAF KIA / Taliban KIA were in any way reasonable it would be released.

It might aid the discussion if you were to do your own research and avoid asking leading questions in what appear to generally be an attempt to imply malfeasance or worse on the part of westerners in Afghanistan.
It is natural that where the facts are embarrassing these facts would not be released. We might even hear that they don't want to release Taliban casualties to avoid alarming the Muslim world. I believe that we can safely say that the facts are just too bad to be made public.

If you believe 'we' shouldn't be there, then you and I can agree -- unfortunately, 'we' are there. That's reality. So is the fact that the combat effort there is severely constrained on political grounds. I don't agree with that either but it is not going to change.Sometimes can sometimes not for both tactical and political reasons.Is it the right question? Given the lack of adequate troop strength, given the nature of the conflict and given the terrain involved, I think not. I agree with your contention that the basics are very important -- but that's a little too basic...

There's more to it than terrain. Far easier said than done.
War is never easy, but may become impossible to conduct under a certain level of political restraints. When that point is reached the lives of soldiers are being meaninglessly squandered.

However, I don't see all the tactical issues on the ground being all as a result of the political issues. You yourself have commented on a photo where the most basic tactics are appalling. This more widespread than one would like to admit.

As far as the poppies are concerned I find it quite frankly hilarious that the US is arguing to allow the locals to grow a crop which when processed will kill many thousands of western kids. Actually its not hilarious, its damn sad.

You need to give these relics from the stone age the message that by growing this you are killing our children. If you attempt to carry on you will see what you will see... (no one has the balls to deal with that have they?)