Just because a war is kinda pointless doesn't mean it can't be won, I guess.

October 6, 2010 7:41 AM

Casualties in Afghanistan decreasing?! After a push into Taliban-controlled territory resulted in 103 Coalition casualties in June, casualties have fallen steadily and significantly, to 59 casualties last month -- lower than in September last year. October also is on track for lower casualty levels than in the year prior. With secret talks between Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Taliban intermediaries, reports of significant security gains based on tips from informers, improved ANA training and military capability, and a chaotic, bustling Kabul trying to cope with rapid growth, could the country be on the path to gradual stabilization?
posted by markkraft (43 comments total)

They siad this every year about Vietnam too...
posted by Jon_Evil at 7:44 AM on October 6, 2010 [1 favorite]

Isn't that just the summer fighting season winding down? Happens every year there. Going by the chart, it's a little early to be making projections about anything long-term.
posted by echo target at 7:51 AM on October 6, 2010 [1 favorite]

The mud roads contribute to Kabul's traffic problems, and the city's security headaches make them even worse.

Unruly police speed up the wrong side of roads, while major thoroughfares are routinely shut for the protection of government leaders going about their business.

Trigger-happy security men and convoys of heavily armed foreign troops add to the mayhem.

Traffic jams can last hours, even holding up funerals and preventing pregnant women making it to hospital to give birth.

This is from your last link.

I'm not really seeing the happy here
posted by angrycat at 7:55 AM on October 6, 2010

Except, of course, in Vietnam, the US added more troops to stabilize the country, but casualties went up.

At the height of the Vietnam war, the US lost over 3000 troops in one month. In this war? A little over 100, with casualties decreasing month-over-month.

The US could still lose Afghanistan like it lost Vietnam, but really, comparing Afghanistan to Vietnam is both inaccurate, naive, and ridiculous... especially given that most Vietnamese supported Ho Chi Minh and viewed him as a great leader and national hero, even before the war started, whereas the Taliban poll quite unpopularly in Afghanistan.
posted by markkraft at 8:07 AM on October 6, 2010 [1 favorite]

I think that the bigger numbers each year indicate more casualties, not fewer, unless I am reading it wrong. The good news is, November and December of 2010 have zero casualties, so there is clear indication of progress there.
posted by Xoebe at 8:17 AM on October 6, 2010 [2 favorites]

Yes I can see from this graph how causalities are dividing towards zero.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 8:26 AM on October 6, 2010 [5 favorites]

Look, even if the casualties are decreasing, that doesn't mean America has won or is winning the war in Afghanistan. The war in Afghanistan was lost a long time ago. Or is the fact that hundreds of billions of dollars and many, many American lives have been flushed down the toilet in pursuit of an increasingly meaningless and strategically-worthless objective not a sign of defeat? At least in Vietnam there was some kind of concrete geopolitical struggle with a concrete enemy. In Afghanistan, no one even bothers to pretend that the terrists or whatever aren't just going to move to Pakistan and other bordering areas. As for democracy promotion--give me a break.
posted by nasreddin at 8:27 AM on October 6, 2010 [1 favorite]

Er, causalities? Casualties! Damn spellcheck.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 8:27 AM on October 6, 2010

Isn't that just the summer fighting season winding down?

While it's true that casualties, year over year, tend to peak in August and then gradually decrease from there, analysts would look at the decrease in August to near 2009 levels and the decrease in September -- and likely, October -- to under 2009 levels as very positive signs.

Indeed, one thing that is also pretty positive about this is that casualties will, if they follow traditional trends, decrease and be quite low through the winter, until nearly June of next year. That's most of the time period this surge of troops will be in country, which gives them a really good opportunity to both secure territory and reconstruct, with minimal interruptions, in large part due to the closing of the mountain passes near the Pakistan/Afghanistan border.

The more troops you have in country, the more capability to fundamentally change the game when enemy harassment becomes negligible.

It reminds me a bit of what an acquaintance of mine said in regards to working in Iraq. "It's bad, and it's painful, but it's not so painful that it doesn't work". And that, ultimately, is the key. Either it's moving forward as a country, economically and militarily, or it's not... and if the Taliban can't destroy faster than the people can create, they'll ultimately be toast.

"I'm not really seeing the happy here"

You could say the same about traffic in Mumbai. That doesn't mean a doubling of cars on the road there in just a few years wouldn't reflect some serious economic growth. Also, judging from that article I cited regarding Afghans making their Army's boots, clearly, they've learned a *LOT* about how to make reconstruction actually serve the goal of increased local security and prosperity, rather than outsourcing everything.
posted by markkraft at 8:27 AM on October 6, 2010

This post is kinda axe-grindy already, markkraft, and you're not doing it any favors by policing it.
posted by nasreddin at 8:29 AM on October 6, 2010

Yeah this is sort of turning into a markkraft Q&A.
posted by shakespeherian at 8:34 AM on October 6, 2010

This post is kinda axe-grindy already, markkraft, and you're not doing it any favors by policing it.

Just give him some more time and maybe the policing will pay off and you will move to another thread.
posted by srboisvert at 8:34 AM on October 6, 2010 [2 favorites]

Ridiculous. No one I know involved in the country or fighting there really believes things are better in any sort of trajectorial sense. And while there have been many periods of several months where casualties have decreased, the general slope for casualties is one which rises dramatically.

Here are the casualties from the first link provided, by year:

2001 - 12
2002 - 69
2003 - 57
2004 - 60
2005 - 131
2006 - 191
2007 - 232
2008 - 295
2009 - 521
2010 - 562

This year will quite easily see a doubling of the number of people killed only two years ago. (And to claim that, after only five days, October is "on track" for anything is just plain meaningless.). Aside from the only slightly aberrant 2002, every year has seen an increase in deaths, with those increases being fairly dramatic ones.

War in Afghanistan won't be "won" as we know it, the real question has always been whether the Allied Forces can get out of there with any sort of grace at all, which is still quite doubtful.

One of the big problems wi Afghanistan is that our people have tended to look at things like numbers and projections and from them calculated all sorts of "positive" results, without seeming to know much about Afghanistan or the cultural mentalities of the people in the region, which differ greatly from those of the West and have - again and again - resisted our attempts to predict anything accurately. This is no different. Even if things go extraordinarily well over the next year and we can claim some sort of "victory", we lack the will to spend the extraordinary amounts of cash we'd have to to keep things rolling along for the generation or two we'd need to create a real sort of permanent stability there.
posted by Dee Xtrovert at 8:37 AM on October 6, 2010 [10 favorites]

could the country be on the path to gradual stabilization?

I sure hope so.

Tensions between the United States and Pakistan continue to grow. At the same time that NATO and Pakistan were concluding an investigation of the helicopter attack that killed three Pakistani troops, a US assessment that Pakistan is not aggressively pursuing terrorists became public. Perhaps as a result, release of a joint statement on the investigation has been delayed in a disagreement about its wording and some trucks have now been delayed at the Chaman crossing into Afghanistan, while attacks on fuel tankers continue.
posted by Joe Beese at 8:56 AM on October 6, 2010

Huh. That doesn't align with this chart, which has higher numbers.

It's also worth noting that with around 29 million people, 521 deaths in a year due to the armed conflict (with most civilian deaths coming from "anti-government elements") is less than half the number of women who die every year in childbirth there (based on my back of envelop calculations).
posted by klangklangston at 8:56 AM on October 6, 2010

Look, even if the casualties are decreasing, that doesn't mean America has won or is winning the war in Afghanistan.
...
many, many American lives have been flushed down the toilet?

I think it's pretty important to not overlook the contributions and sacrifice of other countries. Afghanistan is a coalition war, not an American one. Dozens of other countries have contributed troops, and hundreds of those troops have been killed.
posted by Adam_S at 9:28 AM on October 6, 2010

Could the country be on the path to gradual stabilization?

That seems like a naive question, looking at Afghanistan's recent history.

Whether you include the Afghani civilian deaths, the overall combined coalition death toll over the past ten (nine if you're picky) years, or all violence-related deaths since the Soviet invasion, it doesn't matter. The fact that people are still dying, violently and in significant number, due to military action precludes stabilization, gradual or no.

I really, really don't think that the Taliban was good for Afghanistan in any way--but you have to admit that for certain values of stable, the country was stable under their regime. It wasn't so long ago that people can't remember that temporary peace. If all this military action to achieve 'democracy' just makes people yearn for stability and think longingly of the Taliban, then how in the world is that a victory worthy of the name?

I think the American military went into Afghanistan with a simple mindset (find bin Laden) and assumed that Afghanis would have an equally simple mindset (overthrow the Taliban and achieve democracy). Ten years ago, a victory could have been achieved if the people in charge had listened to the folks who said it would be more complicated than that and both more effort and more people were needed. Today? Today it's too late.
posted by librarylis at 9:43 AM on October 6, 2010

I was noticing that this list doesn't give me the option of selecting Afghani as a nationality. I wonder why that is? Just because NATO is losing less troops doesn't necessarily translate into less people are being killed. Another point of contention I have with the opinions expressed by several posters in this thread is that we are only fighting the Taliban. I would argue that we are in fact fighting a general insurgency.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 10:17 AM on October 6, 2010

In what way does a decrease in ISAF casualties equal the stabilization of Afghanistan? What about Afghan military and national police casualties? Are those decreasing? What about Afghan civilian casualties?
posted by lullaby at 10:37 AM on October 6, 2010

I would argue that we are in fact fighting a general insurgency.

Terminology is everything.

The American soldiers still getting killed in Iraq are not engaged in "combat operations" - so it's like the war is over already!
posted by Joe Beese at 10:38 AM on October 6, 2010

What about the civilians or doesn't "collateral" damage count in your argument.

"UNAMA documented 3,268 conflict-related civilian casualties, including deaths and/or injuries of Afghan civilians, from 1 January to 30 June 2010, a 31 per cent increase compared to the first six months of 2009.

.
posted by adamvasco at 10:40 AM on October 6, 2010 [3 favorites]

Here is some interesting reading:

Insurgency In Iraq And Afghanistan: Change And Continuity

Understanding the Taliban and Insurgency in Afghanistan
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 11:49 AM on October 6, 2010

This first one is more favorable to our continuing efforts while the second is a bit more doubtful about our prospects for success. I tend to agree with the second article.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 11:54 AM on October 6, 2010

Afghanistan's Local Insurgency
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 12:03 PM on October 6, 2010

So ended a war begun for no wise purpose, carried on with a strange mixture of rashness and timidity, and brought to a close, after suffering and disaster, without much of glory attaching either to the government which directed or the great body of the troops which waged it...

Doubtless, the massacre of the Koord Cabul was avenged. By the destruction of their chief towns, and the devastation of their villages and orchards, the Afghans were taught that England is powerful to punish as well as to protect. And in all the encounters with the armed men who resisted them, our soldiers proved themselves to be both dauntless and enduring. But not one benefit, either political or military, has England acquired by the war. Indeed our evacuation of the country resembled almost as much the retreat of an army defeated as the march of a body of conquerors, seeing that to the last our flanks and rear were attacked, and that such baggage as we did save, we saved by dint of hard fighting. Nevertheless, the gates of Somnauth were carried back to the land whence Nadir had removed them, and British India proclaimed what the whole world good naturedly allowed, that we had redeemed our honour, and were once more victorious.

Sale's Brigade in Afghanistan, by George Robert Gleig, 1846
posted by notion at 12:50 PM on October 6, 2010 [1 favorite]

Here are the casualties from the first link provided, by year:

And the month-to-month numbers also strongly contradict the thesis of decreases as well. Comparing monthly casualties year-to-year for 2009 & 2010, you get

2009 25 25 28 14 27 38 76 77 70 74 32 35 521
2010 43 53 39 34 51 103 88 79 59 13 0 0 562

I am also nearly certain that the numbers for September aren't complete yet and would be surprised if they are lower. Christ, look at how many deaths are in October already and it's just beginning.
posted by Mental Wimp at 2:36 PM on October 6, 2010

I want to read the tea leaves and see hope, I'm holding back judgment for the moment. Yes things appears to be improving. Talks are underway with moderate Taliban elements. The operational capabilities of the Afghan army are finally getting to where we needed them to be ten years ago. The Chinese mining conglomerates have moved in and started projects that are putting some money into the economy rather than having it flown out to Dubai by the corrupt elite every night. Still its bleak. Though as previously stated, I'm not for giving up. The alternatives are bleaker. Remember when the Marines got killed in Lebanon in 1983 and we left that country to try to solve its own problems, or in 1991 when a few rangers got killed in Somalia. Somolia just reverted to peace and stability when we went home.
posted by humanfont at 7:23 PM on October 6, 2010

Just as an FYI, here's a look at the US casualty count in Iraq. Look at 2009 and 2010 - that's what a decrease in casualties looks like. Fewer dudes getting killed. Here is what Afghanistan looks like: A modest reduction year-over-year vs 2009 for the month of September. When a modest decrease like this follows many months of increases in the year-over-year casualty count, it's more than a bit dishonest to call it a trend. If October shows a reduction or leveling year-over-year, you might be looking at a trend but right now it's a hiccup til proven otherwise.

Not that I'm rooting for things to get worse over there; quite the opposite. But we must question this kind of received wisdom, when our own common sense is telling us otherwise.
posted by Mister_A at 7:30 PM on October 6, 2010 [1 favorite]

Remember when the Marines got killed in Lebanon in 1983 and we left that country to try to solve its own problems, or in 1991 when a few rangers got killed in Somalia. Somolia just reverted to peace and stability when we went home.

I know. One day I hope China decides to solve our problems for us. Maybe Russia and Iran can join in, and their coalition of idealistic young men can bring their version of peace and democracy to our shores.

I think it would work out really, really, really well for everyone.
posted by notion at 8:30 PM on October 6, 2010

One day I hope China decides to solve our problems for us.

The Chinese tried going all Rambo for us in 1979 in Nam. 29 days later they realized what an awful terrible mistake they made and came to a comprehensive settlement by which I mean settled into an off again, on again LIC that continues today.
posted by humanfont at 8:39 PM on October 6, 2010

Does anyone have a graph of showing the ratio of military deaths vs military presence. Something like casualties divided by number of troops, showing a percent. Alright, deaths are increasing, but didn't we like double our forces in Afghanistan or something?
posted by katerschluck at 8:47 PM on October 6, 2010

The alternatives are bleaker.

You mean like this example.

Also you should probably read some history about Somalia and Ethiopia and how the U.S.A. and the Soviet Union used them as proxies for fighting the cold war and the long term effects on the horn of Africa. Correct me if I am wrong but Lebanon worked out its problems and by the time I had a chance to visit Beirut in 1998 they were doing quite well for themselves. Christians, Muslims(Sunni and Shia), and Druze all living in one country in relative peace and harmony. Of course Israel had to go mess all that up didn't they.

I think you will find that the rest of the world isn't too keen on the whole Team America World Police gig. Non-USAians can you back me up on this one?
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 9:11 PM on October 6, 2010

Clearly, simple hypocrisy is a discussion for next time.
posted by notion at 9:13 PM on October 6, 2010

Fatalities are down according to the chart, the wounded numbers they have only go through July. I think it is also important to remember that battlefield medicine has changed considerably during the decades following Vietnam, resulting in a far larger number of wounded surviving their combat wounds. This may be good or bad, depending on the severity of the injuries. I only did a cursory search for more recent wounded numbers from OEF but didn't find much. By definition casualty refers to a person killed or wounded.
posted by IvoShandor at 10:48 PM on October 6, 2010

Here's the DOD clearing house on casualty info through October 4.

By month breakdown for OEF.

So . . . it says.

KIA
Jan '10 = 25
Feb '10 = 29
March '10 = 22
April '10 = 14
May '10 = 31
June '10 = 49
July '10 = 56
Aug '10 = 54
Sept '10 = 30
Oct '10 = 5

WIA
Jan '10 = 170
Feb '10 = 218
March '10 = 322
April '10 = 292
May '10 = 410
June '10 = 535
July '10 = 592
Aug '10 = 605
Sept '10 = 563
Oct '10 = 51

What this data tells me is that the one month does not a trend make. 51 wounded and 5 KIA in four days in October doesn't exactly add up to a significantly better October this year. I hate to say it but the whole premise of this post seems fundamentally flawed due to the misunderstanding of what exactly a war casualty is. I guess it depends on how you look at it, but I don't see any trend here of any significance.
posted by IvoShandor at 11:05 PM on October 6, 2010

BTW - these are numbers for American forces, the picture is even less pretty when all coalition forces, incl Afghans, are added in. I still stand by my original premise, that there is no trend of any significance here.
posted by IvoShandor at 11:07 PM on October 6, 2010

Goodness, I'm comment happy. Sorry, this'll be my last one.

What about the civilians or doesn't "collateral" damage count in your argument.

Not that it doesn't count, or that civilian casualties are an awesome thing but it's rarely the metric by which success in military operations are judged, though in the case of these non-traditional types of asymmetric warfare, it might help if it were considered more thoughtfully, which is why we've seen the ROE change in Afghanistan over time.
posted by IvoShandor at 11:19 PM on October 6, 2010

IvoShandor, you should read the links I posted upthread. They point to the fact that civilian casualties are exactly the reason we are losing and that this is a direct result of our military commanders not taking the cultural factor into greater consideration.

At the strategic level, the Taliban is fighting a classic "war of the flea," largely along the same lines used by the mujahideen twenty years ago against the Soviets, including fighting in villages to deliberately provoke air strikes and collateral damage. They gladly trade the lives of a few dozen guerrilla fighters in order to cost the American forces the permanent loyalty of that village, under the code of Pashtun social behavior called Pashtunwali and its obligation for revenge (Badal), which the U.S. Army does not even begin to understand. The advent of suicide attacks is particularly alarming. The Taliban is getting American forces to do exactly what they want them to do: chase illiterate teenage boys with guns around the countryside like the dog chasing its tail and gnawing at each flea bite until it drops from exhaustion. The Taliban, however, has a virtually infinite number of guerrilla recruits pouring out of the Deobandi madrassas and growing up in the Pashtun Afghan refugee camps in northern Pakistan. It could sustain casualties of 10,000 or more guerrillas a year for twenty years without any operational impact. Indeed, the Pashtun, who make up 100 percent of the Taliban, have a saying: "Kill one enemy, make ten." Thus, the death in battle of a Pashtun guerrilla invokes an obligation of revenge among all his male relatives, making the killing of a Taliban guerrilla an act of insurgent multiplication, not subtraction. The Soviets learned this lesson when they killed nearly a million Pashtuns but only increased the number of Pashtun guerrillas by the end of the war. The Taliban center of gravity is Mullah Omar, the charismatic cult leader, not teenage boys or mid-level commanders, and no amount of killing them will shut the insurgency down.

("Understanding the Taliban and Insurgency in Afghanistan", pg. 87-88.)
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 11:53 PM on October 6, 2010

Correct me if I am wrong but Lebanon worked out its problems...

No Lebanon has big problems. A tribunal over the assassination of Rafic Harirri has had the country in crisis for the last few years (also war with Israel/Hezbullah and the cedar revolution). Syria turned Lebanon into a colony following the first Gulf war. They got kicked out after they decided to replace the PM using a truck bomb (allegedly). Some groups back them particularly Hezbullah while others want to get Syria out ( lead by Saad Harriri). The place isn't in the 1980s, but the country has now had multiple civil wars since it's founding and none of them have been able to resolve the underlying issues that the country is basically a collection of sectarian mafias that fight continually over who has which fishing, water and drug interests. Israel didn't acre up Lebanon, but they also didn't help.

Vietnam was fine because they had a string government in the end of the war and that government was seen as legitimate in the eyes of most citizens.

Somalia is really messy. It looks like the Ugandans and other African nations are going to make another big push to help get the goverent going there again.
posted by humanfont at 11:54 PM on October 6, 2010

They point to the fact that civilian casualties are exactly the reason we are losing and that this is a direct result of our military commanders not taking the cultural factor into greater consideration.

Acrobat keeps crashing my browser but trust me, I see your point, and it was kind of what I was trying to get at. Granted I was trying to remain somewhat neutral on the issue (though I oppose the Afghan War on general principle) I agree that the operation could at least be somewhat salvaged if commanders were willing to look at through the lens described in your excerpt. To some extent I think that was part of the COIN strategy, which never really seemed like it had a serious chance of actually working. And after reading the Rolling Stone piece on McChrystal and his bunch of frat boy lunatics I can see why it never had a chance in hell to begin with. That and when people start shooting at you it is very hard to restrain from shooting back and inadvertently killing civilians. Company level commanders will continue to see one of the main points of their mission as bring everyone home, not that they shouldn't, but this makes it very hard for the troops in combat to show the restraint required to successfully mitigate those civilian casualties. Hopefully this makes some sense, I feel like I am rambling.
posted by IvoShandor at 12:18 AM on October 7, 2010

Humanfront you didn't read what I wrote. I am aware of the current situation in Lebanon. None of which has anything to do with our pulling out. After we pulled out they managed to create a stable pluralistic state. Unfortunately, as you noted, outside forces intervened and destroyed what they had created. Vietnam was fine, as you also noted, because the majority of the people didn't want us there much like the current situations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Somalia is a mess you are correct, but that has much to do with our military actions in the horn of Africa. My point is that we need to stop meddling in other nations affairs.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 12:20 AM on October 7, 2010

Yeah I understand you completely. Unfortunately, it is neither you nor I who need to be the ones understanding the situation. It is the commander in chief and the rest of the civilian leadership in the Pentagon.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 12:23 AM on October 7, 2010

On 10th Anniversary of Afghan War, US Stymied in Pakistan, Forced to Negotiate with Taliban
posted by homunculus at 10:26 AM on October 7, 2010