There's lots of blog commentary, however, on today's New York Times story, "Reporters Say Networks Put Wars on Back Burner."Roadside bomb attacks and fatalities in Iraq are down by almost 90% over the last year, according to Pentagon records and interviews with military leaders.
In May, 11 U.S. troops were killed by blasts from improvised explosive devices (IEDs) compared with 92 in May 2007, records show. That's an 88% decrease.
Military leaders cite several factors for the drop in attacks and deaths...
This is the same reporter who thought there weren't enough "dead American soldiers" shown on television - so it seems for many in the press it's not that war entails casualties (and should be reported), but that we need to see more battlefield deaths to influence public opinion.
Note that the decline of bombings is a result of the increased numbers of MRAP personnel carriers (vehicles that better protect the troops and stymie enemy attackers) and improved surveillance (to foil attacks in advance).
One is reminded of all the earlier left-wing denunciations of the Bush administration for "not protecting the troops" with adequate body armor. But now that battlefield equipment has been updated to meet the requirements of combat, we see little acknowledgment of the changes on the left.
Or how about that surveillance? It's certainly making a difference in Iraq, helping to thrwart terrorists. But, again no big mention of this. Nope, we see massive left-wing praise for the Supreme Court's granting of habeas corpus rights for enemy combatants, but when we actually see huge defeats for those same enemies on the battlefield, hardly a word.
There's a lot of significance in these observations. Most on the left aren't so worried about the well-being of American troops as they are the "human rights" of those who might return to the battlefield to slaugther and maim another day.
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