Three years into the war on terror, the press' treatment of any unsatisfactory operation shouldn't surprise us: mainstream news agencies are relishing the fact that American forces "Drop[ped] Bomb on Wrong House." Forces were closing in on a terrorist ringleader and, from the sound of the official report, ended up sending the thug to his deranged paradise ahead of schedule. Five are believed dead. Of course, the terrorist's friends tell of women, children and orphans killed in the strike, who were then whisked away to be buried in a place nobody can find. Reuters editorialized a caption for one of its photographs, hoping that the incident would make an awful lot of people angry.
But it's an Associated Press agent who wins a prize for the most strained negative assessment:
U.S. officials acknowledge the [Mosul] area is still too unsafe for the elections to take place there safely.
Yes, and while sand continues to be sandy, the sky blue and water wet, terrorists acknowledge that they haven't come close to stopping the vote.
LEFT OUT: I missed this release, which won't come near an elite publication:
Multi-National Forces detained a key leader [named Abu Ahmed] of the al Qaida-linked Abu Musab al-Zarqawi terrorist network in Mosul on Dec. 22....Security forces in Iraq have previously announced the capture of Abu Marwan, also a senior-level terrorist in the Talha organization. Security forces also recently captured another senior Talha member whose name cannot be released due to operational security reasons.
"Currently, security forces in Iraq have three of Abu Talha's four most senior leaders in custody," [Brig. Gen. Erwin F.] Lessel said.
The capture of these key members has led to additional captures throughout the Mosul-based AQ-AMZ network. More than 20 percent of Talha's key members have been captured in the past few weeks.
Having occurred in mid-December, we can see this victory reflected in others.