What news from Iraq?

With all the news out of Israel and Lebanon lately, I'd started wondering what was happening in Iraq. Wasn't there a war going on there or something? My sporadic viewings of the TV news and daily checkings of the CNN and Google News websites were starting to leave me with a funny feeling: withdrawal. I expect now to hear of at least one U.S. death whenever I see anything labeled the news, and clearly something's been different lately.

A quick Google search for "deaths Iraq" delivered what I'd been expecting to see, news of the death of U.S. soldier, this time a Marine in Anbar province. The death was attributed to the rather generic "enemy action". I realized that what I'd been fearing since the war's beginning was now coming true: Iraq was disappearing from the news. This news item had taken too much time to find -- it wasn't linked off the main CNN home page, though it was dated today, and no mention of the soldier's death was made until the second paragraph -- and I was a little peeved that I even had to try.

While I don't disparage the severity of the events in Israel and Lebanon, the cynical part of me can't help but wonder if the current administration breathes a sigh of relief when no mention is made of U.S. military deaths in the news. I don't mean to say the administration isn't happy when all of our service men and women survive the day -- I'm sure it is, as we all are -- but in lieu of a death-free day, I wonder if it's glad when other news crowds out the mention of death. It's not inconceivable -- let's not forget, after all, that this is the administration that closed the lid on coverage of military coffins returning to U.S. soil (news).

Tao 31: "War is conducted like a funeral. When many people are being killed, they should be mourned in heartfelt sorrow." In our not hearing about the deaths in Iraq, and in the news' not reporting on them, and in the administration's acquiescence of both, we dishonor those who would make the ultimate sacrifice. I'll close by saying this:

If a soldier dies and we know not his name,
Will the war he fought be a little in vain?