What War is the Media Watching?

Columnist Thomas Sowell has an absolutely brilliant piece on the failure of the media to take off its blinders and see the good that is happening in Iraq. He also places our combat losses, although tragic, in some historical perspective compared to other battles our troops have fought in for our nation.

Has anyone ever believed that any war could be fought without deaths on both sides? Every death is a tragedy to the individual killed and to his loved ones. But is there anything about American casualty rates in Iraq that makes them more severe than casualty rates in any other war we have fought?

On the contrary, the American deaths in Iraqi (sic) are a fraction of what they have been in other wars in our history. The media have made a big production about the cumulative fatalities in Iraq, hyping the thousandth death with multiple full-page features in the New York Times and comparable coverage on TV.

The two-thousandth death was similarly anticipated almost impatiently in the media and then made another big splash. But does media hype make 2,000 wartime fatalities in more than two years unusual?

The Marines lost more than 5,000 men taking one island in the Pacific during a three-month period in World War II.

Sowell reminds us that "freedom isn't free" and that good work is being done in Iraq despite the media's moans and groans. Thank You, Thomas.