More Bad News From Iraq

More sad news from Iraq: Fourteen U.S. Marines (mostly from a reserve unit in Ohio -- the same one that lost six other troops Monday) were killed near the Syrian border, and American journalist Steven Vincent was killed in the (ostensibly) British-controlled city of Basra. He probably was murdered by people associated with the Iraqi Police hit squad that he wrote about last Sunday in the NYT. Here is a link to Mr. Vincent's blog, In the Red Zone. I see that as of 9pm tonight he is a TTLB Marauding Marsupial; I wonder how many links his site will get this week. (Not intending to be trivial of course, but it might be instructive about how the blogosphere works.)

Regarding the Ohio Marines, I am somewhat reminded of the Normandy incident on the morning of D-Day where 19 troops from Belford, Virginia were killed at once.

Speaking of the Marines and Ohio, Iraq vet Paul Hackett lost the race to succeed Ohio congressman Rob Portman. One more already-anonymous GOP talking head will join the House, and her only claim to fame will probably be that she delayed Congress from having an Iraq vet as a member until January, 2007. I don't know if it will be Hackett or not, but my guess is that the November 06 elections will see at least one if not several Iraq vets elected to Congress, and I wouldn't be surprised if some share Mr. Hackett's opinion of the Commander-in-Chief.