Stardate 20011108.1009 (On Screen): It's a mistake to dwell on bodycounts in war. It's a natural reaction, of course; it's sort of like the score in the game. But it's not a game, and victory or defeat isn't measured by how high a pile of dead bodies you manage to create. The USSR beat Germany in WWII while losing something like five times as many dead as the Germans did. There was never a battle between the two where the Germans actually lost more men than the USSR. But the USSR still won.
The Vietnamese lost at least twenty men for every American they killed -- but won. On the other hand, the Japanese losses were always higher than the Americans but the Japanese still lost. And in Korea the losses tended to be about 5:1 against the Chinese and the result was stalemate. Bodycount is not a predicter of victory.
Still, it's inevitable that it will be covered if for no other reason than because it's something which changes from day to day and gives reporters something to do. It's also grist for propaganda mills. I've already seen doves looking for an excuse to declare the current bombing campaign a failure citing the low body count among Taliban soldiers from the bombing as an indication that it isn't working and should be abandoned -- which is fallacious not only because that's not a valid measure, but also because we don't really have any accurate way of determining what it is. (We're sure not going to believe what the Taliban itself reports about that if we're smart.) And once ground action begins one thing we're sure to see is a daily litany of how many Americans have been killed and wounded. Don't be too surprised if that information is not reported in a timely fashion; the US Army learned its lesson on that from Viet Nam. (discuss)
