Typical One-Sided Reporting

This week I came across a couple of examples of the deceitfulness of the reporting being done in the War on Terror.

No doubt you've heard about the nine soldiers who were killed in Afghanistan. It's a terrible loss. But I wonder if any of the accounts you've read put the battle into any kind of context. For example, did you read anywhere that the force of 25 Americans and 20 Afghans were attacked by a force of some 200 Taliban fighters? And did you also read that the Taliban KIA were estimated at 35 - 100? In other words the good guys killed anywhere from 4 to 10 times as many bad guys.

The second example was in an AP report on one Omar Khadr, 22. Mr. Khadr is a Canadian and Pakistani citizen. His father is described as being an al Qaeda "financier". Young Omar is being detained at Gauntamo Bay. In fact he holds the dubious honor of being the youngest detainee.

The article was written on the heels of video tape footage released by his lawyers trying to gain sympathy for poor young Omar. They hope that by bringing his detention to the attention of the Canadian public, the Canadian government will request his release. There is a description of how Omar asks for medical attention for wounds suffered to his arms.

What's curiously absent in the piece is the reason for Omar's detention. Then 16 year-old Omar killed a Special Forces medic in Afghanistan with a grenade. I think that is slightly relevant, don't you?