Two interesting pieces of news have come out of Iraq over the past 24 hours.

The Bad News: This NY Times article details more casualties both of U.S. Troops and of Iraqi police officers.

As always, any word of death is tragic - friendly fire incidents even more so. Yet, combat losses will happen while the United States remains at war. The war over Iraq may be over but the war against terror is not. Both solders who died were involved in a raid on Saddam loyalists, who obviously still have weapons and are still fighting. These remaining thugs are not an army; they are terrorists. They wait for a convoy to pass by and then launch a RPG at it. Then they turn tail and run for a crowd in an attempt to disappear. They fear the troops, and for good reason. Sweet is freedom and so bitter the blood that was, is and will be shed to preserve it.

Friendly fire incidents are so sad, yet very common in combat. A close friend was in Panama during the Noriega situation and told about a group of U.S. Soldiers getting off of a helicopter on a remote airfield at night. They were exiting both sides of the aircraft, placing troops on each side of the runway. One weapon fired accidentally and both groups immediately took cover and returned fire. After a few minutes of fighting, someone figured out that they were fighting each other. Fortunately, there were no casualties.

More than 23% of all Gulf War I deaths were caused by friendly fire. The second Gulf War has seen a serious reduction in friendly fire incidents over the first. This does not lessen the tragedy of each death - combat, non-combat or friendly fire.

The Good News: This NY Post article explains that U.S. forces in Iraq captured 80 foreign fighters from 5 different middle eastern countries yesterday. It seems the "Bring 'Em On" strategy is working. It is far superior to deal with these terrorists in Iraq then on U.S. Soil:

Now for the comparison between the two stories: Using Google News as a guide, there are 534 articles relating to the two soldiers lost in combat plus the friendly fire incident. Searching for articles related to the capture of 80 foreign terrorists in Iraq yielded a mere 2 articles.

News bias? Absolutely...biased towards bad news it would seem.