...And the Neocons rejoice

I'm certain that, over the next few days, we can expect the neoconosphere to be giddy about recent reports showing May, 2008, having the lowest death toll (19) of US military personnel since the war began.

It's frustrating to me to hear such "successes" linked with the Bush/Petraeus "surge" policy from January 2007. To define success by "less fatalities" is to miss the point completely - since when is success defined by less failure?

To draw a poor analogy, consider a baseball team in the midst of a season-worst losing streak. The team is repeatedly outplayed, and loses every night by at least five runs. Suddenly, one night, the team plays better, and they only lose by two runs. Using the logic from the above article, losing by two runs is considered success.

Headlines and analysis touting fewer fatalities as a success story serves only to distract the public from the real issue at hand. American military forces had no business invading Iraq in the first place - therefore the premise of the article is flawed. One fatality was too many.