Grim Milestone? More Like Slow-News-Spin From The Dead-Tree Industry
Professor Glenn Reynolds @ InstaPundit takes notice of a news report from the AP that talks about more troop deaths over in Iraq. And while the story seems fairly innocuous, BarcePundit picked up on the key paragraph in the story that sets the stage for the rant I am about to embark on:
The latest U.S. deaths brought the number of members of the U.S. military killed since the start of the Iraq war in March 2003 to at least 2,978 — five more than the number killed in the Sept. 11 attacks in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.
Now, let us compare applaes to apples here. BarcePundit did the same thing (only his numbers are off by 100); 2,403 men losat their lives at Pearl Harbor when the Japanese launched their surprise attack. So, using the AP's logic, we should have ended our involvement in World War II when we reached that number, correct?
May of 1942 saw the Battle of the Coral Sea, where we lost 543 men. June 4-7, 1942 saw the Battle of Midway--the turning point of the Pacific campaign--where we lost 307 men. In November of 1942, we opened up our Euro/Africa offensive with Operation: Torch, which claimed over 480 men. By February of 1943, our casualty count was well above 2500 men lost. So, is that when we should have called it quits? Over a full year prior to the D-Day invasion, and the final push against Hitler?
This is why I do dislike the media so very much in covering this war. What gives them the right to to make such broad, sweeping judgments? Granted they do not make the judgment themselves, but the inclusion of that paragraph in that story gives the reader the impression that the cost has been too high; that we have exceeded the blood shed in the worst terrorists attack on the US--indeed, the worst on our home soil--ever.
The media will never understand what the term "sacrifice" means. We shed more blood in World War II than any war previous, or since. In World War I we lost 126,000 men. In World War II, we lost 407,300 men. That was the price to turn back the forces of evil from 1941-1945. The price, in my opinion, was a high one to pay, but one that needed to be paid. To stop the forces of evil in this world, we pay with our dearest blood. It is a fact of life, and it is not something our young men and women do lightly. They KNOW when they sign their names on the dotted line that they may be called on to do a duty that no one wishes would happen. That would be going to war. That is their job, and they accept it with grim determination and with an unwavering love of their nation and freedom.
The AP wqould be better seved isf they simply reported the news, and left the analysis to others. The act of putting that fact into their piece serves no purpose other than to fuel those who are ardently antiwar, and oppose our mission. Their comparison makes no sense because by the time 1943 rolled around, we had already lost more soldiers than what we did at Pearl Harbor. They are not marking a "grim milestone." They are pimping their agenda, which is obviously opposition to this war. No one likes war, but there are times where it is a necessary evil. That includes this moment in time, and hisotry is showing us that. Maybe if the AP monkeys understood our enbemy, and what is at stake they may have thought twice about including that little factoid in this article.
Marcie
Professor Glenn Reynolds @ InstaPundit takes notice of a news report from the AP that talks about more troop deaths over in Iraq. And while the story seems fairly innocuous, BarcePundit picked up on the key paragraph in the story that sets the stage for the rant I am about to embark on:
The latest U.S. deaths brought the number of members of the U.S. military killed since the start of the Iraq war in March 2003 to at least 2,978 — five more than the number killed in the Sept. 11 attacks in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.
Now, let us compare applaes to apples here. BarcePundit did the same thing (only his numbers are off by 100); 2,403 men losat their lives at Pearl Harbor when the Japanese launched their surprise attack. So, using the AP's logic, we should have ended our involvement in World War II when we reached that number, correct?
May of 1942 saw the Battle of the Coral Sea, where we lost 543 men. June 4-7, 1942 saw the Battle of Midway--the turning point of the Pacific campaign--where we lost 307 men. In November of 1942, we opened up our Euro/Africa offensive with Operation: Torch, which claimed over 480 men. By February of 1943, our casualty count was well above 2500 men lost. So, is that when we should have called it quits? Over a full year prior to the D-Day invasion, and the final push against Hitler?
This is why I do dislike the media so very much in covering this war. What gives them the right to to make such broad, sweeping judgments? Granted they do not make the judgment themselves, but the inclusion of that paragraph in that story gives the reader the impression that the cost has been too high; that we have exceeded the blood shed in the worst terrorists attack on the US--indeed, the worst on our home soil--ever.
The media will never understand what the term "sacrifice" means. We shed more blood in World War II than any war previous, or since. In World War I we lost 126,000 men. In World War II, we lost 407,300 men. That was the price to turn back the forces of evil from 1941-1945. The price, in my opinion, was a high one to pay, but one that needed to be paid. To stop the forces of evil in this world, we pay with our dearest blood. It is a fact of life, and it is not something our young men and women do lightly. They KNOW when they sign their names on the dotted line that they may be called on to do a duty that no one wishes would happen. That would be going to war. That is their job, and they accept it with grim determination and with an unwavering love of their nation and freedom.
The AP wqould be better seved isf they simply reported the news, and left the analysis to others. The act of putting that fact into their piece serves no purpose other than to fuel those who are ardently antiwar, and oppose our mission. Their comparison makes no sense because by the time 1943 rolled around, we had already lost more soldiers than what we did at Pearl Harbor. They are not marking a "grim milestone." They are pimping their agenda, which is obviously opposition to this war. No one likes war, but there are times where it is a necessary evil. That includes this moment in time, and hisotry is showing us that. Maybe if the AP monkeys understood our enbemy, and what is at stake they may have thought twice about including that little factoid in this article.
Marcie
posted by Syd And Vaughn | 2:03 PM
1 Comments:
What a ridiculous analysis. Our expectations for casualties are much different than they were half a century ago. We've had the fact that "Muslims" killed 3000 people on 9/11 shoved down our throats for 5 years. Americans have not been asked to sacrifice for this war the president described as a "struggle for civilization" and people like you crow about letting the armed forces die because they signed up for it. We're a nation at war and our president asked us to go shopping.
We were shocked by the 9/11 deaths, and we should be shocked by the loss to America in a war of which Rumsfeld said, "It could last, you know, six days, six weeks. I doubt six months."
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