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Thanks, Radix. As for the casualties - our troops are kicking bad guy derriere DAILY in Iraq. We've lost 17 to hostile fire in the past 31 days across a nation the size of Germany, with over 24 million newly free Iraqis (the vast majority who are grateful and working with us to take out the Rats) and over 146,000 US troops - with three major aggressive operations taking place.

Our press is failing the troops.

Best of the Web Today - July 3, 2003

By JAMES TARANTO

Homer Nods
In yesterday's item on nonsensical claims of a "quagmire" in Afghanistan, we got the ratio of soldiers killed in Afghanistan to Sept. 11 casualties wrong. It was 1/50th, not 1/20th; we've corrected the error.

Here are some more numbers to put things in perspective. The Des Moines Register dubs Afghanistan a "quagmire" because more than 60 U.S. servicemen have died there. The U.S. Army Web site reports that in that branch of the military alone, 178 people died in accidents in fiscal 2003. The Office of the Secretary of Defense links to a chart (PDF form) of total U.S. mliitary casualties world-wide. In 2000--before the intervention in Afghanistan--they numbered 774, of which more than half were accidental. In 2002, the total casualty figure was up to 1,007, again more than half accidental.

NJLawman.com reports that as of today, 71 American law-enforcement officers have lost their lives in the line of duty. For all of 2002, the figure was 152. Would the Register recommend giving up on law enforcement because it's a "quagmire"?

On June 10 - Saddam's bad guys killed one of our brave soldiers and wounded another.

On June 10 - their fellow Soldiers, Airmen, Marines and Guard - men and women in uniform -did this to Saddam's bad guys: ONE DAY IN IRAQ