Since President Bush declared the end of hostilities

me | me

[robjna]

Just an observation. Whether listening to the radio , watching the news, or reading the paper, whenever a story of a death in Iraq, it is ended by the following statement, "since president Bush declared the end of major combat , ## soldiers have died." This is a constant. No media outlet is allowed to tell a story of another brave soldier losing his life without mentioning G.W. and his declaration. Just watch and observe to see if I'm wrong.

[Ann Archy]

They don't report that W has gotten rid of THREE dictators and Regimes.....taliban....Saddam and the bys....Chrales Taylor!!! W ROCKS!

[dighton]

Yes, these people all read from the same script.

[thmiley]

Well, Pres. Bush did sort of invite the problem with his declaration. What was the point to it?

[Living Free in NH]

"since president Bush declared the end of major combat..."

...57 servicemen have been killed in Iraq & 60 people have been murdered in Washington, D.C.

[epluribus_2]

200 have died so far in Detroit since the end if major hostilities in Iraq. The connection is intriguing. Oh wait - 600+ died there last year BEFORE the war.

[Lexington Green]

The Big Lie technique... repetitition repitition repitition

[al_c]

It's a smear campaign. Bush declared an end to major combat, not to the ongoing skirmishes that are inevitable.

[BonnieJ]

What I don't understand is why we don't hear more about each of these G.I.'s killed. During the actual combat, they would display their photos and a short bio of each when they were killed. That happened on Fox & MSNBC and possibly other places. Now they are just a number. How sad for their families, and for these young lives lost too, to have so little recognition.
Of course, during Vietnam they died by the hundreds and no recognition ever came to them. Perhaps that is just the way it is traditionally done.

[irish guard]

This information has subtly appeared in the local paper and they never seem to mention that half those folks did not die as a result of combat...it is a very tricky effort and does not seem to be right/proper/accurate.

[afraidfortherepublic]

Yes, and I noticed something else after one of those announcedments this weekend that surprised even me. It said something about the 117th death since the end of hostilities and then followed by the little kernal -- 57 American deaths were by hostile fire. 57??? What were the others? Accidents?

It seems to me that accidents happen to the military all the time -- training, daily course of events. It does not seem fair to count accidental deaths in the same category as hostile fire.

[Eva]

Did you read that the NYT had to retract the story of the attacks in Iraq that they printed on Sunday? The story was reprinted in leftist papers all across the country and turned out to have not only been "sexed up" (a lone private was described as several high military officials), but to have been completely bogus. The NYT posted a retraction, but most of the other papers have not.

[afraidfortherepublic]

See #11. Obviously I posted too quick. You said it better.

[Wright is right!]

Not only are there accidental deaths but deaths from ordinary illnesses. One guy perished last week from heart failure.

The media will never give you this perspective, but there are fewer of our guys dying over there than in the general poopulation of a big US city.

Michael

[bushfamfan]

But if you remember there was whining about when victory was going to be declared by the media and President Bush kept saying "when Tommy Franks says it" and they actually kept harping. So the President was given the go-ahead from Franks to essentially declare victory in Iraq 'end to major combat', but even the President said in that speech that dangers still remained and threats. What was the record after VE Day and VJ Day in WW2, etc.? Were no soldiers killed by Nazis and Japanese after it was essentially declared victory? It would be a good comparison. So victory is declared, but it remains dangerous. It figures the media tries to give the impression that Bush said that was an all-out end to combat. But then again they're out for their political blood because they are biased ba***rds who are reckless in attempting to weaken the resolve and allow the remnants of these terrorist regime thugs to feel the media will empower them.

[Mac94]

The whole thing is somewhat interesting from a political point of view. The bottom line is that both the U.S. government and thr media/Dems are watching the American public in regards for it's tolerance to cassualties. We hear the number of killed quite frequently, with the misleading tag line of "x killed since the end of the war." On the other hand, no one is really releasing the numbers of wounded, which is much higher than our KIA. The Pentagon is keeping a lid on that info (numbers range from 827 to thousands - see attached link). Both sides of the political isle seem to be watching this closely, with the media/Dems using the situation to score cheap political points while the Administration/Pentagon tries to keep cassualty numbers classified. Caught in the middle are the kids sweltering in the heat in Iraq, trying to do their job and serve their country. It's a shame that this type of info is now used as a political weapon. We should all be Americans supporting our kids in uniform.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1011692,00.html

[LS]

Quite simple: the American public needs to have some benchmark of where things are headed. There was no government to sign a "treaty." So this was logical.

[goose1]

Its the media bias ever notice also everytime their is a car accident they always mention that a SUV was involved or when their is a motorcycle they also will mention that the driver had no helmet.

[Moby Grape]

They also don't mention that since Jimmy Carter said that all had been fixed with North Korea, and Clinton agreed, that North Korea has built the bomb and has exported missles to the Middle East.

They also don't mention that since the Clinton Administration allowed missile guidance technology to go to China in return for campaign contributions, China can now hit us with nukes.

[Mac94]

Wright -

True, but a soldier lost is a soldier lost. We've had wars in which we've suffered many many more killed by other causes (usually illness) than in combat. Two classic examples are the Mexican-American War and the Spanish-American War.

In the Mexican-American we suffered 1,733 combat deaths, but lost 11,550 to other causes. In the Spanish-American War, we had "only" 385 combat deaths, but has 2,061 men die from other causes (illness mainly). These deaths are part of the offical cassualty records.

http://www.cwc.lsu.edu/cwc/other/stats/warcost.htm