Ninety Percent of Petraeus's Captured "Taliban" Were Civilians

[pluckedflowers]

 WASHINGTON, Jun 12 (IPS) - During his intensive initial round of media interviews as commander in Afghanistan in August 2010, Gen. David Petraeus released figures to the news media that claimed spectacular success for raids by Special Operations Forces: in a 90-day period from May through July, SOF units had captured 1,355 rank and file Taliban,

Comments

[hinoema]

I wish that was the least bit surprising. *sigh*

[romp]

I've wondered about these announcements. Do members of the Taliban carry Taliban membership cards? Seems like a war zone would be a hard place to establish who a person supported. There might be more than one answer per person.

Gah, I remember when the Taliban was something I read about in Ms magazine and nowhere else...

[thecityofdis]

They have to carry their Taliban membership cards, or else they won't get group discounts at Denny's, the Russian military surplus store, or Fandango.

[belleweather]

I was gonna say this, but you said it better, so I'll just shut up now. :)

[romp]

that doesn't happen very often. but it's your turn next time!

[jugglingeggs]

Not surprised but still extremely sad.

[apostle_of_eris]

I don't have a citation any more, but in the early '70's a small New England newspaper reported that the Viet Nam war was over. They had saved all the weekly Pentagon press releases, added them up, and the number of people reported killed totaled to the population of the country. So since no one was left, the war must be over . . .

[romp]

OMG that's good. If you ever find it, maybe post it?