War. The rescue of Jessica was a very slick operation. Now we learn that she fought as a true soldier before her capture. This highly technical operation is what we do so well. We applaud the rescuers and Jessica.

War. It is not so cheap for our side. Do you know we lost 5 tanks on Tuesday? And at least seven APCs (Armored Personel Carriers) Do you know that we are taking about 30 seriously wounded soldiers a day? Seriously enough to require air med evacuation. You can estimate twice that number for lesser wounds not needing evacuation. That puts our casualties at maybe 100 per day. When will we learn this from our American media - our "free" press? Try a year or two from now. "Fog of war" is the excuse. Bull. Propaganda for the war effort is what we get. The foreign press is reporting the numbers now. Try the International Herald Tribune.

The Bellingham Herald finally ran a distorted story today on the anti-Canadian flyers being put on their parked cars in our shopping malls. But the Herald wrote as if only one note was found on one car. The facts are many Canadian cars have been getting the messages.

A good article on how to spot distorted stories is posted by the Asia Times.

Another good site that focuses on facts and the truth is Orcinus.

News. To read the Bham Herald, to watch TV news, you get a story of an overwhelming victory by US forces, few US casualties, and a motivation to rescue a country just begging for us to free them. To read foreign reports you learn that our forces are being stopped outside every city, that we are having high casualties, and that the war is far from over. We also learn that our goal is not the freedom of Iraq but the conquest of Iraq and the domination of the Middle East. Like the Germans of WWII, we will get stories of victory until suddenly we learn of catastrophies. Are our missiles hitting civilian markets? Yes. But our American news media misled us. Only free foreign press are reporting the truth.

Will we win the war? Oh yes, probably. Are there good examples in the past similar to our situation that went bad? Yes. Try our American revolution. The British were the super power and had a vast majority of Americans on their side. They were outraged at our hiding behind trees and using unusual tactics to beat them. To the amazement of the world, we sent them packing. The war in Iraq is getting expensive in dead and wounded Americans. We are over extended. The Iraqis have not collapsed like Rumsfeld predicted. We are the subjects of a disinformation campaign for war purposes. We need to learn the truth and let our opinions be guided by facts, not blatant propaganda posing as news.