Afstan: Seaching for negative spin

Hard-boiled Don Martin, without bothering to point it out, gives a good reason to think the CF have comprehensively whacked the Taliban (something I have suggested recently):

This was the only time a Canadian soldier in the huge convoy had fired off a round in the almost two weeks we were on the road -- and even then the soldier got a tongue-lashing from the commanding officer for shooting without sufficient cause.

But soldiers told me they could empathize with the itchy trigger finger. Most have spent almost six months in Afghanistan without taking a single shot in anger. They can't believe how little combat they've seen...

The justification for the secrecy-shrouded death toll is that Canada doesn't want to get into a body count competition with the Taliban, the theory being they'd seek to avenge our tally by going after more Canadian soldiers.

That only works if the Taliban can kill at will -- stamp their feet in anger after reading the claim in a Canadian newspaper, wave their rocket-propelled grenade launchers in the air and unleash an overnight massacre to even the score.

Sorry, no way. If they could wipe out a platoon tomorrow, they'd do it, whether we'd killed 10 or 10,000 of their extremist brethren.

My theory, after two weeks of monitoring the Canadian deployment's activities via radio, is there simply isn't a whack of Taliban-hunting going on anywhere in Kandahar right now -- subject to change without notice...

Now one might think a reasonable journalist might report this as a good indication of our mission's military success. Instead he complains that we are not giving a Taliban body count. You just can't satisfy some folk--notably our media. Pathetic.

Mr Martin, whilst embedded, also seems not to have learned that there still is some shooting by Canadians going on. Another action here, and note this:

...One Canadian soldier has been killed in combat during the past six months [emphasis added] in Afghanistan, but roadside bombs have killed 19...