With U.S. Casualties Come Body Counts

Re “7 U.S. Troops Are Killed in Assault on Enemy Fighters,” March 5: When the war in Afghanistan began we learned there were 30,000 to 50,000 enemy fighters. We captured perhaps 500 and then won the war there, but several thousand enemies seem to have been lost. Now there’s a battle against large numbers of a well-armed, dug-in enemy. Not unexpectedly, we have lost some American fighters, which is never good.

When the war began, reporters would frequently ask: How many of the enemy did we kill? The answer: We do not provide body counts. Now, the news is that in the fierce battle near Gardez, some 100 or more of the enemy were killed. It was wise of the U.S. government to avoid the body count paradigm, which became a big lie in a previous war. So one wonders why we have resorted to that phenomenon again.

This is not an easy war, and the American people know less about what is going on than in any previous combat situation that put Americans at risk. And now we have the return of the body count, perhaps because we have let tens of thousands of the enemy get away and probably return to fight again, while the inevitable loss of American lives commences. Body counts are just another demonstration that this is a secret war being conducted by a very secretive administration.

Charles S. Hoff

Rancho Palos Verdes

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I read with anger and sadness of the loss of more men in Afghanistan. I read with greater anger that the head of the U.S. Central Command, Army Gen. Tommy Franks, gives orders to these same men to go out and risk their lives for our country as Franks sits in the safety of his cushy quarters in Tampa, Fla. I wish I knew what Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf thinks of this; he went with his troops to the Persian Gulf.

Steve Lee

Pomona