Little Big Horn, here we come

If it's really true that the Mainstream Media are reporting only bad news as some would say, I'm at a loss to explain today's article in the New York Times entitled Militants Said to Flee Before U.S. Offensive. Apparently there were some gentlemen of Qaeda in Baquba and American troops preparing to drive them out or do them in have heard that they have somehow found out about the plan and have got themselves out of Dodge.

We're told that this is good news. We are told that the "enemy" are cowardly for not aligning their troops like tin soldiers to trade lead with American troops. I'm not making it up.

When will we end the dimwitted attempt to force the occupation of a partially demolished country filled with hostile and well armed bands of guerrillas into some classical model of warfare? I believe that General Custer was likewise impressed with his own might as the Indians fled before him - at least for a short while. When Xerxes burned Athens it was largely empty, but the men who had fled weren't cowards, they were simply refusing to play the Persians' game as the Iraqi insurgents are refusing to play ours. So perhaps it's gratifying to the warped egos of the remaining war supporters to call it so, but it isn't any more a victory than the escape of Osama from Tora Bora was.

What it does indicate is that either we are becoming as predictable to the insurgent leadership as Custer was to Crazy Horse, or that we are telegraphing our next move while we attempt to create "positive news."

So if this is going to portrayed as a victory, the Times has carefully to avoid the word Pyrrhic. The egos of the brass need to remain polished and with the fourth of July so near, we need to have things for the high school drum majorettes to strut over.