How things change overnight
As late as yesterday, the media was predicting a big upset for the Afghan Army
in Kandahar.
Hundreds of Taliban fighters yesterday swarmed into a strategically important district just outside Kandahar, Afghanistan’s second-largest city, in an apparent push for control days after 400 Taliban members escaped in a spectacular breakout from the Kandahar prison.
But, my buddy, Jammie Wearing Fool illustrates how far the media is behind on events;
Just two days ago the media told us the Taliban were stronger than ever and were flexing their muscles around Kandahar. Funny, but they have a strange way of flexing when they’re getting their heads kicked in.
After a day of airstrikes and ground operations against a surge by Taliban fighters, provincial authorities here said Thursday that hundreds of militants had been killed or wounded in the valleys and villages of the strategic Arghandab region on the approaches to Kandahar.
[…]
Asadullah Khaled, the governor of Kandahar Province, told a news conference in the Arghandab district compound on Thursday: “Hundreds of militants have been killed and wounded, their dead bodies have been left on the ground, with numbers of light and heavy weapons.”
I guess that’s what happens when they depend on second hand reports in the comfort of their Islamabad hotels.
From Drew M. at Ace of Spades;
Also seriously wounded in the fighting was the conventional wisdom that we are losing in Afghanistan and that operations in Iraq are making it easier for the Taliban to regain power.
Category: Media, Terror War
I’d feel a lot more confident if someone other than the provincial governor was quoted as seeing those hundreds of bodies. Moslem culture has a long history of Baghdad Bobism, which means any atatements by anyone with any interest in the outcome should be greeted very sketically–as in, not ruling out the possibility that all those weapons left lying around belong to the Afghan army. (My general rule of thumb concerning Arabs telling the truth is, don’t trust them any further than you can throw them with one arm, and even then ask for evidence. Afghans and Persians are only somewhat higher on the ladder.)
[And if the link quotes more sources, I’d better let you know that I refuse to register with the NYT or any of these other news websites.]