Word: talibanize
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...While many military experts remain opposed to a tally, there does seem to be a growing acceptance of the judicious citing of body counts to combat Taliban propaganda that shows only U.S. deaths and civilian casualties. "Publication of this information is part of the information campaign, and I think it's justified," says Peter Mansoor, a retired Army colonel who served as a top aide to General David Petraeus in Iraq from February 2007 to May 2008. "But I don't know that I'd go so far as to do every single death," says Mansoor, who now teaches military...
...count. Unlike in Vietnam, where the tally was used to "keep score" among U.S. units and for Americans back home, Scales says the key audience for the Afghan tallies is the Afghan people themselves. For too long, he says, the U.S. has remained mute on its successes while the Taliban has shaped perceptions of how the war is going by exaggerating civilian deaths and posting videos of U.S. vehicles being blown up by roadside bombs...
...them machay, or red bees. Their lethal sting has been felt in villages and hamlets across the Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA). The main objectives of the campaign: to take out al-Qaeda's top tier of leadership, including Osama bin Laden, and deny sanctuary in FATA for the Taliban and those fighters who routinely slip across the border to attack U.S. forces in Afghanistan. Combining high-tech video surveillance with the ability to deliver deadly fire, drones allow joystick-wielding operators on the far side of the world--Creech Air Force Base, near Las Vegas--to track moving targets...
...retired brigadier who was once the top Pakistani official in FATA. Shah, a Pashtun himself, says the families of the drones' victims are required under the tribal code to seek revenge, which makes them ideal recruits for militant leaders like Baitullah Mehsud, the Pashtun commander of the Pakistani Taliban. Mehsud, says Shah, "likes to boast that each drone attack brings him three or four suicide bombers...
...caveats, the hum of the machay will grow louder in Pakistani skies this summer. The arrival of more U.S. troops in Afghanistan will make it all the more important to deprive al-Qaeda and the Taliban of their safe haven in Pakistan. Obama is widely expected to authorize a broadening of the drone attack to include the southwestern Pakistani province of Baluchistan and its capital, Quetta, where the Taliban high command is thought to be hiding...