Did you read about it in your newspaper?
Nope.
Did you hear about it on the radio?
Nope.
Did you see it on your TV?
Nope.
And the Defense Dept. issued no death announcements?
C.I. covered this Thursday. Unlike the news media, we think this is an important topic and, strange, we're having a hard time thinking of an outlet that didn't think "no deaths in August" was news. But 2 deaths in September?
From C.I.'s "I Hate The War:"
Last Thursday, ICCC's number of US troops killed in Iraq since the start of the illegal war was 4477. Tonight it is [PDF format warning] 4479.
That's the screen snap of the current count. You can drop back to Sunday's "And the war drags on . . ." to see that it has indeed increased by one because I did screen snap of the DoD figures in that entry after going through all the death announcements from DoD back to the start of August and finding nothing but Afghanistan death announcements.
Oh, hell, I'll spoonfeed and make it real easy for everyone. Here's the Sunday screen snap.
So what's going on? Why has the death toll increased when there are no DoD announcements?
Is the Pentagon screwing up the count? Possibly. Possibly someone's not paying attention and the count increased (by two) due to a human error and there really weren't two more deaths.
Another possibility is that there have been two deaths and the Pentagon forgot or was ordered not to announce the deaths.
Seems to me if I was Pentagon reporter -- and that's what the networks and the newpapers have, a lot of: Pentagon reporters -- and if I'd come down from my high of hugging Bobby Gates for that off the record photo op after Gates' last press conference, I'd be asking what the hell was going on?
And were I an editor or news exec, I'd be asking why the increase by two wasn't noted by our own outlet? I'd be asking who is supposed to be doing the basics.
According to the official count by the Defense Department, since September 1st there have been two deaths.
Seems like after making so many headlines with "NO U.S. DEATHS IN IRAQ IN AUGUST!" that the first death, let alone the first two deaths since that, would be news.
If the Pentagon's not doing their job, then it is possible someone could make SUCH A SERIOUS MISTAKE and allow the count to increase by two all by accident. That error would be news. It doesn't strike me as very likely that it's a simple error but then I'm puzzled by how an official DoD count issued by the Pentagon could increase by two in less than seven days and no press outlet would get all over that story?