[surefireinvest]

In an insurgency war the hardest thing is to determine who is an insurgent and who is a friendly. Couple that with the Afghan propensity to change sides depending on which is making the better offer at the moment and you get a situation where a lot of the dead are claimed to be innocent civilian causalities. This is without regard for them actually being innocent civilians or militants.

In Afghanistan we have a second complicating issue. There are a lot of unaffiliated gangs out there. These are mostly criminal but some are local warlords attempting to carve out a bigger piece of the pie for themselves. They also get called AGE( Antigovernment elements, the term used here more often than Taliban as it is more all encompassing).

The actual AGE also want innocent civilian causalities, especially women and children. They justify it on the basis that any Moslem who dies in defence of Islam goes straight to Paradise. This includes those killed as collateral damage. Since the AGE believe that they are the true defenders of Islam, anything they do, anyone they kill is either a enemy or will go straight top Paradise and hence be better off.

Conversely ISAAF wants as few civilian deaths as possible. This is both in reality and in perception. There is a tendency for them to call all dead military age males AGE.

The deaths said to be civilian deaths are a major recruiting tool for the AGE. The concept of honour in this society makes revenge killings almost a requirement so if they kill one family member then the remaining family members are ripe for recruiting.

The only part of causality figures I believe is the number. Civilian or AGE is often blurred and imposable to determine.