Some of these cordon/searches are for targets known by name. When they are this kind there seems to be either special forces and military contractors around. They use all sorts of domestic police styled techniques, like separate a couple of suspects and try to trick one to rat the other, or catch them out on some detail about where they were or what they were doing. Of the several of this sort I read, none were successful. They tended to take a lot of detainees.
Most of the cordon/search missions were done in the middle of nowhere, with nothing else on the field map. Google maps is linked so you can pan out and look around. Empty hill country.
The other category I looked under was severity, These had an interesting pattern. An incident had occurred, or some operation arrived, got fired on or drew fire. They traded fire and called in close air support which were attack choppers of various sorts and wiped out the `enemy' with rockets, occasional bombs. There were almost never any enemy wounded. They were either dead or gone. Sometimes they would find blood trails, but usually not. Afghan police and military seem to take the most causalties. Some of the worse of these attacks were in towns or very near towns. You can tell how heavy the fighting is by how much air power was used and how much panic in the report.
Any of these mission reports that are big and that are successful are sent to Bagram where there is a news center, evidently.
None of the material so far seems particularly gruesome, until you think back that it covers thousands of missions, over five years. And you remember that the vast bulk of the population lives in small villages and clusters of compounds, is dirt poor, completely vulnerable, mostly guilty of wanting the US out.
What's also interesting to think about is the effect of turning the US military into a system of police---and Afghanistan into a crime wasteland with every male between about 14 and 60 a target. The concept of a soldier is basically a cop with heavier weapons, with back-up as even heavier weapons from the air. Most of the material I've been through reads like the sort of thing you expect from cops with laptops.
The parallels go further. For example, cops don't prevent crimes, they define various activities as crimes which means they creat crimes and then creat suspects. So too the soldiers. They don't prevent attacks, but seek them out and then creat casualties. We are so used to these inversions of concept that we no longer notice. For example the wars are the crimes and each mission is a smaller crime that violated somebody we will never know.
Anybody who has had their house or apartment `tossed' by the cops and then interogated on site, never forgets the experience. This is why I picked cordon/search---it means tossed. The weight of the Law and State leaves a profound impression, very dark with revolt and unredeemable hatred. You've been violated much like a rape, stripped, humilated, and oppressed by state violence. And that is the tame and domesticated version. Let say you are Palestinian or Afghan or Iraqi, well, after the toss and penetration, just for good charm, they call in an air strike and the smoking hunks of your family's bodies lay about the ruins... for you to pick up and bury.
When the establishment brings up 9/11, just remember that virtually one hundred percent of the dead, wounded, crippled, detained and destroyed had nothing to do with 9/11 and didn't know anybody who did. So the wars function basically to creat the crimes they punish. The nature of these wars are the atrocity.
Now, for the really bad news. We can elect a government, solely on the basis of their pretended opposition, and they carry on just as before. Remember that Obama and the Democrats constitute the vast majority in power and that has made absolutely no difference. Nothing on the economy, nothing on health or education, nothing on foreign policy, nothing on war, nothing, nothing, nothing. It doesn't matter who you elect or what they say.
CG