...I'm okay with being REALITY-based.




Friday, May 13, 2005
      ( 8:31 AM )
 
Meanwhile, back at the war...

Mainstream media is quite adamant that nobody cares about what is happening in Iraq and that it's simply not worth reporting that the US casualty rate is now consistently 2.5-3 per day, and the Iraqi casualty rate is literally in the hundreds every week. Daily Kos points out things are horrible there, and it's disgusting that no one cares. This ongoing action near the Syrian border is taking a huge toll. An entire Marine squad has been wiped out and the platoon it belonged to is suffering 60% losses.

The explosion enveloped the armored vehicle in flames, sending orange balls of fire bubbling above the trees along the Euphrates River near the Syrian border.

[...]

Among the four Marines killed and 10 wounded when an explosive device erupted under their Amtrac on Wednesday were the last battle-ready members of a squad that four days earlier had battled foreign fighters holed up in a house in the town of Ubaydi. In that fight, two squad members were killed and five were wounded.

In 96 hours of fighting and ambushes in far western Iraq, the squad had ceased to be.

Every member of the squad -- one of three that make up the 1st Platoon of Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 25th Regiment -- had been killed or wounded, Marines here said. All told, the 1st Platoon -- which Hurley commands -- had sustained 60 percent casualties, demolishing it as a fighting force.


Is anyone paying attention?

| -- permanent link