Speaking at the Aspen Security Forum over the weekend, SOCOM chief Gen. Raymond Thomas claimed that the US had, since 2014, killed an estimated 60,000 to 70,000 ISIS fighters. This was similar to previous claims about death tolls.
Gen. Thomas said the toll was necessary to resolve questions about whether the US needs to be more aggressive in the war, saying the huge number of people killed shows they are “being pretty darn prolific” with the operation.
It’s worth noting, however, that these very rough estimates reflect both the huge number of people the US has already killed in the war, and the huge number of ISIS fighters that have been recruited since that war began.
The US never estimated ISIS having anywhere near 70,000 fighters. The biggest estimates were in the 20,000 to 30,000 range, at the peak, and despite huge numbers slain, the estimate of what remains never really goes down in any serious way.
That’s a big problem for the US war strategy, as it’s mostly boiled down to just killing everyone they can and bragging about how prolific the body-count is. So long as the group can keep recruiting new people to fight, however, which ISIS clearly can, the killings are to little effect.
“the killings are to little effect”
If there’s any effect to be had is that the new recruits and new leaders tend to be more bloodthirsty, revengeful, desperate, scarred and violent than their predecessors. On the plus side they’ll be tactically worse and less organized over time. On the down side, they’ll convert even more to tested and tried methods: targeting citizens in Europe, trying to inflame societies and add more recruits. Seems nothing recruits more than imagery of carnage and fear.
UGH, not again with the fake body counts…
And only 15 civilians have been killed as of 2015, oh wait, now it’s up to 347.
How does he confirm these numbers?
The civilian tallies have to be confirmed by three military eye witnesses. The ISIS tallies by extrapolation. He’s pulling the numbers out of the air.
Body counts always worked out so well before. Accurate and meaningful, right?
Anything coming out of the mouths of our establishment should be very suspicious at all times. James Clapper lied twice under oath to Congress that the NSA is NOT (knowingly) collecting communications data on Americans. Never trust the word of these paid liars.
I guess that whole ‘we don’t do body counts’ thing was a joke?