OBSERVATION

I have noticed over the last couple of weeks there are fewer stories available through the sources I use telling the story of what is going on in Iraq.

For sometime I've tried to post those hard-to-find stories that give a more informative picture than the simple AP and Reuters wire service headlines that reduce this effort to a bodycount.

What I'm seeing these days is a shift of focus (to the extent the media were ever focused on getting the deep story in Iraq) to the politics of the war back in the USA, among other things.

My opinion is that the media are now sharpening their pencils to cover the bodycount in Washington...and the fourth estate seems to playing their usual role - reducing complexities into headlines that turn grey to either white or black. Whether this is intended to increase the bodycount in DC - or to target specific bodies - I don't have access to know. But I sense an excitement in the press...an excitement to bring the intelligence shortcomings story to a gradual crescendo to accompany the race for the white house.

Me...call me naive...but it stings me to think there are those who will make the strength of our intelligence a political football - instead of treating it as the national Achilles heal that it probably is.

But...I wanted to alert you...if you've found, as I have, this forum to be missing the insightful and informative links into the true nature of what our soldiers are accomplishing as have been present here...I'm still commited to finding them until my darling wife returns - but they are more rare and harder to locate these days.