Yet so far this year, our casualties don't seem to be running high enough to match my expecations. We probably won't reach that tally. If we don't, Strategypage explains something we've gotten good at in Afghanistan--combatting IEDs:
The tactics and equipment that neutralized IED (Improvised Explosive Device, a roadside, or suicide car bombs) in Iraq, have arrived in Afghanistan. There are now 12,000 MRAP (Mine Resistant Ambush Protected) vehicles in Afghanistan, and they have played a major part in reducing NATO casualties there. In Iraq, the use of a similar number of MRAPs, reduced casualties from IEDs by over 60 percent. In Afghanistan, the math is similar.
We still have hard fighting to do, as we try to defeat the enemy in their home ground of Kandahar, so it is too soon to tell if my guess is accurate. It may be that our casualty rate should go up as we press the enemy in their lair. And so it may be that the counter-IED effort will be a success even if we suffer the casualties I expected.
Our Left always insisted that the Afghanistan war is the "good" war. I always suspected that they thought it was only good for undermining the Iraq war. We shall see if the anti-Iraq war people can make the gut check to win what they said was the good and necessary war. Don't count on it, however, since their brethren in the press corps will continue to sing the call of retreat as they report on our casualties in Afghanistan.
