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But is that 'official death count' any more reliable than the total count of 350,000? Let's say I'm a grossly corrupt Afghan general, and I'm diverting pay and

But is that 'official death count' any more reliable than the total count of 350,000? Let's say I'm a grossly corrupt Afghan general, and I'm diverting pay and equipment money, say 50% of the total, to my private bank accounts. Now someone asks me to account for the smallish number of soldiers in my barracks. "Oh sir, we have suffered great casualties in our fight against the terrorists, here are the records."

dragontamer 5y ago
> But is that 'official death count' any more reliable than the total count of 350,000? No. Because the Afghan security forces would be lying to try to improve their morale. If anything, the official death count is almost certainly an underestimate. No army likes to admit that their death rates are in the 25%+ level, when you admit such a thing, you won't be able to find recruits. ------ Besides, we paid the Afghans on number of soldiers on payroll. Not on number of deaths. So the number they were corrupt on was #-of-soldiers.