America is at WAR

But you wouldn't know it to read the news these days. That is an outrage. So why isn't anyone outraged? I know if I had a friend or loved one over in Iraq I'd be screaming bloody murder over this. For all the "support the troops" rhetoric thrown around by everyone, exactly WHERE is the support. A few flags, a few ribbons, a bumper sticker doesn't cut it.

Ever since it became too risky for reporters to be in Iraq the news from there basically shut down. There are a few official snippets leaking out now and then by a military concerned more about managing the facts than the truth, and some stories that make it out by virtue of the size of the atrocity, ie car bomb or masacre. Some stories are leaked by the soldiers themselves in emails and via the internet but for the most part any real reporting in Iraq has ceased on all the major networks.

On CNN's website the lead is about Base closings. It goes downhill after that with no mention of the war. MSNBC faes no better, CBS? Not much better but does have a small sory link down the page about keeping the pressure on the insurgents. ABC would cover the war if it weren't so darn HARD but since it is, nada ... no mention. You get the picture. No fancy bunker buster bombs to watch no flashy expolsions or tracer fire into the night sky .... no body cares.

War news comes after runaway brides, friday the 13 stories, pope sainthood, sports and entertainment. Hell if you weren't paying attention, and believe me most people aren't, you could actually fool yourself into thinking there was no war at all! Which is precisely what the administration wants. Keep the people sedated and ignorant and it's easier to manipulate them. Do Americans LIKE being puppets? I guess most do. That means the few who ARE awake and I know you are there railing against the machine, have to scream louder .... much much louder. Loud like I remember during the Vietnam war. THAT loud or no one can hear you.

The soldiers dying over there deserve better. They deserve MUCH MUCH more. Don't forget them. Don't let your governemnt and lazy news organizations do this to them.

Kos has a story today that you won't see on any major news broadcast about an ENTIRE SQUAD being wiped out and like him it makes me want to vomit.

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.
Marines in surrounding vehicles threw open their hatches and took off running across the plowed fields, toward the already blackening metal of the destroyed vehicle. Shouting, they pulled to safety those they could, as the flames ignited the bullets, mortar rounds, flares and grenades inside, rocketing them into the sky and across pastures.

Gunnery Sgt. Chuck Hurley emerged from the smoke and turmoil around the vehicle, circling toward the spot where helicopters would later land to pick up casualties. As he passed one group of Marines, he uttered one sentence: "That was the same squad."

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.

Somebody PLEASE explain to me why this story ISN'T the lead story on the news today.

IA