Afghan casualties

[Egbert]

I'm not a military man, nor am I one who advocates bringing the troops home. But I am beginning to wonder if we have a situation of lions being led by donkeys.

So often, our troops are being killed by roadside bombs (IEDs to use the jargon) while, according to reports "on patrol."

Just what are these patrols for? Are they necessary?

We all know what it was like over here when the police started going "on patrol" in cars. The detection rate fell.

If it doesn't do any good here, what good will it do there?

There must be some way of tackling the Taliban without driving round the streets like sitting ducks? I know all about the shortage of helicopters, but there must surely be some other way we can reduce our casualty rate given our military superiority.

[observer]

Sorry Eg, but the same thing happened in N/Ireland; in order to "control" an area, you have to have a presence, which means patroling it, to ensure it remains clear of the bad guys. Believe there are new technologies that could help, such as heat sensitive and other surviellance equipment - but I guess that might prove too expensive for us. One method employed in N/Ireland and elsewhere, was long stay surviellance by SAS operatives; basically living in a camouflaged hide for days on end to ID enemy movement and call in a strike - however, believe the IRA countered this by sending out kids with dogs to sniff out the hides! As for other equipment, the Russian had top of the range heavy lift and attack helicopters, tanks, APCs etc - and a lot more men - and they didn't win either.