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Casualties

02 Jun 2008

While out running this morning, I realized that I should check the troop casualty numbers for last month. I figured it must be pretty low for two reasons:

  1. It seemed that new reports of killed US troops hadn’t been very common
  2. I couldn’t recall seeing one single story about how many troops had been killed in May, even during coverage of Memorial Day.

What do you know?

A quick look at icasualties.org shows that May was the LOWEST MONTHLY TOTAL SINCE THE CAMPAIGN IN IRAQ BEGAN with 19 reported deaths.

Interestingly, the Iraqi Security Forces and Civilian count is also the lowest that icasualties.org has ever reported.

No doubt you know all of this already because it’s been plastered all over every newspaper and television news program for the past three days. Murdoc must have just missed it somehow.

Remember: Harry Reid declared that the “surge” failed. Thirteen months ago. He said he wouldn’t believe any good news reported by General Petraeus “because it’s not happening.” He stood by that claim in January.

#Posted by Murdoc at 12:48
Media, Military & Defense, Politics, World War 4

No Responses to “Casualties”

  1. AW1 Tim Says:
    June 2nd, 2008 at 6:52 pm

    Murdoc, man, you’d almost think those media types had some sort of bias, or maybe even an agenda now wouldn’t you’ I’d believe it if they weren’t constantly assuring us of their objectivity…. snark…..

  2. 11 Bravo Says:
    June 2nd, 2008 at 7:19 pm

    Casualties in Iraq are definitely down, but there seems to be an uptick in Afghanistan. Usually I see quite a few more for Iraq than Afghanistan. But lately, it seems to be the reverse. http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/

  3. Nicholas Says:
    June 2nd, 2008 at 11:11 pm

    Quagmire.

  4. Nadnerbus Says:
    June 3rd, 2008 at 12:51 am

    Giggity?

  5. Toejam Says:
    June 3rd, 2008 at 3:02 am

    ‘No doubt you know all of this already because it’s been plastered all over every newspaper and television news program for the past three days. Murdoc must have just missed it somehow.’ You can’t miss something that ain’t there Murdoc. A friend sent me this little item, which relates to this thread: ‘General Giap was a brilliant, highly respected leader of the North Vietnam military. The following quote is from his memoirs currently found in the Vietnam war memorial in Hanoi: ‘What we still don’t understand is why you Americans stopped the bombing of Hanoi . You had us on the ropes. If you had pressed us a little harder, just for another day or two, we were ready to surrender! It was the same at the battles of TET. You defeated us! We knew it, and we thought you knew it. But we were elated to notice your media was definitely helping us. They were causing more disruption in America than we could in the battlefields. We were ready to surrender. You had WON!’ General Giap has published his memoirs and confirmed what most Americans knew. The Vietnam war was not lost in Vietnam — it was lost at home. The exact same slippery slope, sponsored by the US media, is currently well underway. It exposes the enormous power of a biased media to cut out the heart and will of the American public. A truism worthy of note: Do not fear the enemy, for they can take only your life. Fear the media far more, for they will destroy your honor.

  6. Nicholas Says:
    June 3rd, 2008 at 9:13 am

    Sorry for the drive-by, but for some reason I found posting that single word incredibly funny and laughed for about a minute afterwards. It’s probably so funny because some people still believe it…

  7. 11 Bravo Says:
    June 3rd, 2008 at 10:48 am

    Nicholas, your one word comment was not terribly off. Quagmire doesn’t just mean there are a ton of dead. It can also refer to a seemingly endless money trap. Yes, casualties are going down, but the meter is still running for the cost, and from where I stand that is nothing to get terribly excited about. My country is slowly degrading while new powers are on the rise.

  8. KTLA Says:
    June 3rd, 2008 at 1:25 pm

    I can’t find the Yahoo! story you link to about Reid standing by the claim in January…

  9. Murdoc Says:
    June 3rd, 2008 at 2:50 pm

    KTLA: I can’t be 100% positive, but I believe that this is the same story: http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2008-01-10-3418976217_x.htm

  10. Dfens Says:
    June 5th, 2008 at 8:49 am

    Some more good news:

    A Marine intelligence officer accused of trying to cover up the killings of 24 Iraqis appeared stunned at first when a jury acquitted him of the charges. For more than two years, 1st Lt. Andrew Grayson had been under suspicion, accused of ordering the destruction of evidence in the biggest U.S. criminal case involving Iraqi deaths to come out of the war. ‘I didn’t really believe it was going to end until they said not guilty,’ Grayson said in his first public comments following the verdict. ‘The case was so volatile, you didn’t know which way it was going to go.’ Grayson had always maintained his innocence. On Wednesday, a military jury agreed with him. -

  11. Dfens Says:
    June 5th, 2008 at 8:52 am

    I’ll get the hang of doing those links one of these days. I thought we’d been told that all those guys involved in that Haditha incident were guilty? Wasn’t that Murtha’s position? We should have learned not to play politics with war during Vietnam. The stakes are too high. Obviously we didn’t.

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