The last official figures on Afghan military deaths came out in 2016. 22 soldiers were killed on an average day, and this was so bad that Afghan and US officials decided that death tolls would subsequently be kept secret
Things have just gotten worse, and 22 deaths would be a comparatively mild day compared to media reports on the death tolls in recent days. In the past week, the average day has seen roughly 57 deaths among Afghan security forces.
The Pentagon’s recent decision to more heavily publicize Taliban body counts, to try to sell the war to the administration, likely comes from the same place as the decision to keep Afghan military deaths secret, as this will just reveal the extent of the conflict’s failure.
The Afghan government wants to avoid publicizing it, in particular, because it’s having a negative effect on recruitment. The Afghan military doesn’t pay well, and the hugely dangerous reality of the job would just further harm their already struggling recruiting numbers.
Afghanistan is a tribal country. The majority of the Afghan National Army (ANA) is made up of ethnic groups such as Tajiks and other groups from the north. Heretofore, most of the ANA offensives have been in the south against the Taliban who are principally Pashtuns who are from the south and extending into Pakistan, over the Europe-imposed Durand line (a border that Afghanistan doesn’t recognize).
The big news now is not only the huge number of ANA deaths but also that many of the Taliban/Pushtun military successes are now in Tajik occupied northern Afghanistan.
Also, if 57 government soldiers keep being killed every day, that’s about 20,000 in a year. One out of every 1,700 Afghans.
For the U.S., that would be a loss of 176,470 soldiers per year. That is not something you keep up for long.
Or maybe the Afghans are so poor that there will always be recruits. As long as more money can be extracted from U.S. taxpayers.
But never mind, we must keep talking about “collusion”. Hillary says so.
The situation is dire in Afghanistan, due to drought and the US “necessary” war, with another stupid new US general prattling about “safe havens,” and it’s not being reported here.
from ToloNews:
ADDED: The phrase “stupid general” may be repetitive to those who have served, but others may not know that the usual way to make general officer especially in the combat arms is to go with the flow and make one’s superior look good. Results don’t count. Good evidence is the sixteen (and counting) unaccountable generals who have led the Afghan debacle, Petraeus and Dunford being the most noteworthy.
Political generals. The most competent never make it past Colonel. There is a triage system. Those that pass must be advocates of US foreign policy, must support the bloated weapons program, etc. The political class is enriched. That is the most important criteria for the system.
If presidents and potential recruits aren’t doing exactly what certain officials want, apparently the obvious solution is to withhold even more information so those parties are more likely to make the prescribed bad choice. They just need to start calling this effort “The Ministry Of Information” like in 1984.