An American general, Brigadier General John Nicholson, explains to the Canadian press:
It has already been "a tough year" because the NATO armies in the south and, in particular, the Canadians "have been aggressively going after the insurgency," he said.
"We have had a higher level of contact and inflicted greater losses on the enemy and disrupted his operations more.
"Nobody should interpret that as a resurgent enemy. They should interpret that as aggressive and courageous behaviour on the part of our soldiers and especially of the Canadians in Kandahar. It has had an extremely disruptive effect on the enemy."
Our troop strength has been going up the last couple years and those troops are being used aggressively in areas previously neglected by our forces. Of course there is more combat. Not to put it too bluntly, but "duh."
If we pulled into our bases and the combat statistics went down sharply (for a while anyway, until the enemy pursued us to our bases), would you really believe the Taliban had evaporated?
Stop panicking about the war. We've got problems there. I'm worried about our supply lines. I'm worried about Pakistan's impact on our war effort. I'm worried our Congress is too eager to run from Afghanistan, too, and that our president doesn't have the stomach for a tough fight. Heck, I'm far from sold on the need to surge as many brigades as we are putting into Afghanistan. Not that they won't be of use, but that the price might be too high and that we can succeed without such a surge. But that's our strategy and I'd rather advocate vigorously carrying it out.
The least of my worries is the prospect of the Taliban actually defeating us.
