As John Nolte writes at Big Journalism, “John Hudson at ‘The Atlantic’ has the story but his angle is entirely wrong. He blames the lack of coverage of this disaster — or at least coverage with the proper perspective — on the fact that after ten years of war, Americans have become desensitized to these kinds of reports. But we all know that’s utter hokum.”
Hudson wrote:
The Taliban attack on an air base in southern Afghanistan on Friday drew coverage for the way the insurgents cloaked themselves in U.S. army uniforms to gain a tactical advantage, but few have taken note of the historical proportions of the damage inflicted. John Gresham, at the Defense Media Network, has published a detailed account of the attack on Camp Bastion, in which two Marines were killed, six U.S. Marine Corps jet fighters were destroyed, and two more “significantly” damaged. Those facts were all carried in most reports, but if that just sounds like a typical damage report from a decade-long war, you’re wrong. Gresham explains the devastating damage done to VMA-211, the name of the Marine Corps attack squadron that was most affected last week, noting that it is “arguably the worst day in [U.S. Marine Corps] aviation history since the Tet Offensive of 1968.”
Fortunately, our hundreds of thousands of troops on the ground will make up the slack, right Vice President Biden?
“By the way, those dependent people he refers to, those 47 percent, they include the 650,000 troops still left in Afghanistan who, because they are in combat, being shot at, injured, they do not have to pay any federal income tax on their salary. I don’t call that dependency. I call that ingratitude to not recognize they are a part of that 47 percent,” Biden said on the steps of the state house in Concord, N.H.
Following the event, a Biden aide clarified Biden intended to say there are approximately 68,000 troops left in Afghanistan.
On Thursday, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta announced the last of 33,000 surge troops had left Afghanistan.
President Obama announced the temporary surge of troops in Afghanistan, which would include the deployment of 33,000 troops, two years ago.
Speaking of the Afghanistan surge, Walter Russell Mead explores its ignominious end:
Via Meadia salutes the brave U.S. military personnel who served ably and professionally in the surge. We remember the fallen and the wounded. The 68,000 still serving and their families are in our thoughts and prayers. And we are deeply grateful that with a Democratic president running for re-election, the press has decided to pay as little attention as possible to bad news overseas. Otherwise, our morning news read would be depressing, and nobody likes a downer.
Just imagine the bad news the MSM will be releasing after November of this year, whoever is the president in January. It will the ultimate Friday night document leak.
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