MTV Reporting the Obvious

MTV in a stellar report on the milestone of 2000 deaths in Iraq has provided a couple of very important, but VERY OBVIOUS points on the deaths.

But who are the men and women behind the number? Of those 2,000 troops lost, nearly a third were between the ages of 20 to 22, with the highest fatality rate (11.7 percent) being among 21-year-olds, according to figures from the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, which gathers the bulk of its data from the U.S. government. Soldiers in their mid- to late-20s made up 37 percent of deaths, making almost 70 percent of U.S. casualties under age 30.

Would you have made the wild guess that the majority of the military deaths were from people under the age of 30? Did we really need statistics to prove this?

Oh, now the statistic that the majority of the dead are men.

Most casualties were suffered by men, with only 46 female fatalities. Seventy-three percent were white, compared to 11 percent Hispanic and 10.7 percent black; other ethnicities constituted the remaining 5 percent.

I guess the MTV website isn't manned by those capable of reporting any real news.

As quickly as news of the latest figure broke, so did damage control by the Department of Defense. In a statement issued shortly after the 2000th loss was confirmed, military spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Steve Boylan called the number an "artificial mark on the wall" and not a landmark that should be exploited by the press.

and

Yet each fallen soldier intensifies a growing weariness from the U.S. public, whose support for the war has been dwindling in the recent months. According to the latest poll published in the The Wall Street Journal Tuesday, more than half of Americans (53 percent) now say it was wrong to invade Iraq, up from 43 percent one year ago.

In light of these numbers, antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan, whose son was killed in Iraq last year, is planning a four-day protest outside the White House, where she hopes 2,000 supporters will gather to die symbolically by laying on the grounds to represent each fallen soldier.

"Two thousand families have been destroyed for nothing," Sheehan told The Associated Press. "Enough is enough. The killing has got to stop."

Meanwhile, Senator Richard Durbin (D-Illinois) spoke out to his fellow politicians and urged them to take a stand in the name of the fallen troops, including the 357, he says, that "never saw their 21st birthday," according to a Washington Post report.

"We cannot allow our nation to drift into a war without end in Iraq," Durbin added. "We do not honor fallen soldiers simply by adding to their numbers."

So, the Dept. of Defense is in "Damage Control" but the rest of the quotes aren't commented on for context to their statements.

I don't generally look at MTV. The TV while unplugged has more intelligent output than when MTV is on.