That Didn't Take Long

An unidentified U.S. soldier was killed in a rocket attack mere hours after the “last American combat brigade” left Iraq … a sign of how the highly-publicized American troop withdrawal doesn’t mean an end to the Iraq war (or its casualties).

That’s because America still has 50,000 troops stationed in Iraq, including 4,000 at the Basra airport base – which is experiencing a steady increase in rocket attacks since the U.S. “draw down” began.

And while America is indeed shifting its focus to the Afghan theater – where a massive troop surge is underway – we’re still in a combat zone in Iraq. That makes the “word games” currently being played by the administration of Barack Obama with respect to our Iraq forces not only disingenuous, but disrespectful to tens of thousands of troops who are still facing enemy fire.

Honestly, was this first soldier to die after Obama’s PR offensive any more or less brave than the last soldier to die before it? Or any of the 4,417 Americans who have been killed over the last seven years?

We described Obama’s “end of combat operations” terminology last week as “really nothing more than semantics, an effort by Obama to mollify his left flank as he ramps up the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan.”