If we are losing and the Taliban are winning, why would the Taliban lie about their success?
The Taliban claims its forces last year killed 5,220 foreign troops, downed 31 aircraft, destroyed 2,818 NATO and Afghan vehicles and killed 7,552 Afghan soldiers and police.
Though third-party observers can rarely confirm casualty claims on the Afghan battlefield from the Taliban, the Afghan government, the U.S. or NATO, the Taliban's 2008 numbers would appear to be far from the truth.
NATO's member countries announce all troop deaths, providing names, ages and hometowns and how the soldiers were killed. According to an Associated Press tally of those announcements, 286 foreign forces died last year in Afghanistan, including 151 American and 51 British troops.
The Taliban's toll is almost 20 times higher.
Why yes, the enemy claim would indeed appear to be far from the truth. Nice balanced reporting there, eh?
Which leads to the obvious question. If 286 Coalition troops dead last year mean we are losing as our conventional wisdom holds, why would the Taliban bother to inflate their claims by a factor of more than 18?
Why? Because they are losing and they know it. And they know that boasting of fewer than 300 Coalition forces killed out of 60,000 stationed in Afghanistan during an entire year of fighting and given their own jihadi casualties, that the real count would not be seen by the jihadi cheering squads sitting by their TVs as the score card for a victorious jihad.
To be fair, the Taliban spokesmen putting out this crap probably believe it, as their guy clearly states in the article. But the Taliban are likely suffering from a body count syndrome. Under pressure to beat the Infidels after all these years, would you as the surviving trio of a proud war band sent out to kill Americans admit that you never even saw the enemy and were nearly all killed by Predators and smart bombs? Or would you boast of killing 32 Americans, blowing up 15 American Humvees, and shooting down 2 aircraft, making your own loss of 97 righteous jihadis regrettable but ultimately worth it?
These guys are loud and confident in the way of idiots who proclaim their deep knowledge of any subject. It's all "death to them" and "we will crush these," ad nauseum, with eye-popping rage and bared teeth looking all alien and scary. But they can only kill the unarmed and when faced with real soldiers, the jihadis die in large numbers.
Let's not panic and make bad decisions because our enemies issue mean press releases.
