With War ‘Over,’ US Soldier Killed in Iraq ‘Operations’

Military Declines Further Details

by Jason Ditz, August 22, 2010

With the Obama Administration still reveling in its “victory” in Iraq and media outlets still cheerfully reporting last week’s formal “end” to the Iraq War, another US soldier has been killed in Iraq.

The killing is a difficult one to reconcile with the narrative, as the soldier was killed when a rocket was fired at him. He was “on operations” in the Basra Province, but military officials declined to provide further details on exactly what he was doing.

But officials had been saying all along that, despite renaming the 52,000-plus US troops “non-combat” troops they would continue to go on missions that involved combat. They just wouldn’t call it combat.

Of course all we can do is speculate at this point, given the lack of information. But it seems that if he was killed in some non-combat circumstance the details would have been released immediately, if only to make the enemy look bad.

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