Flag-Waving Fun War news from

Flag-Waving Fun
War news from Reuters (Motto: “One Man’s Web News Source Is Another Man’s Mysterious Crotch Fungus”).

Let’s take two quick grafs from the story:

Operation Anaconda, the biggest U.S.-led battle of the five-month Afghan war, involves about 1,500 U.S. and Afghan ground troops against more than 1,000 rebel forces holed up in caves and bunkers in 10,000-feet snow-covered mountains.

At least eight U.S. troops and seven Afghan soldiers have been killed in the operation and about 40 U.S. and 30 Afghan troops have been wounded.

If this were a live-fire training excercise, involving that many soldiers of vastly different training and cultures, operating in an extreme climate and with very close air support, I’d expect about that many casualties.

And yet that’s how well we can do when a fantatical, suicidal enemy is shooting back. I hope once they’re done mourning their losses, our armed forces give themselves a big pat on the back.