Crush Liberalism

If a suicide bombing goes down and no one sees it, does it make a sound?

According to the MSM, “yes, it does”!  From Confederate Yankee:

Via a reader in the comments of my most recent TNR post, a story about a solider wounded and a squad virtually wiped out in an apparent youth suicide bombing in Iraq in the Cleveland Daily Banner in Cleveland, TN:

Christopher H. Bagwell, grandson of Nancy and Richard Hughes of Cleveland, was severely wounded Tuesday, Sept. 18, in Iraq.

Bagwell and his squad leader were the only two survivors of a 12-member squad decimated when an Iraqi youth detonated explosives wrapped around his body.

A graduate of York Institute and Tennessee Technological University in Cookeville, Bagwell spoke with his grandmother last week.

She said the young soldier told her he had just passed the youthful bomber with his squad leader, with his squad following behind handing out candy to children. The Iraqi village was believed to be a friendly zone for the U.S. military.

The youngster, believed to be 10 to 12 years old, detonated the explosives as the soldiers were walking by. Ten members of the squad were killed, along with the youngster.Bagwell was severely injured.

The thing is, I can’t find any such record of a young suicide bomber causing so many fatalities among U.S. troops in Iraq, or for that matter, even ten U.S. fatalities on Sept. 18 in total.

Anti-war casualty clearinghouse icasualties.org has no record of such an attack, or even anything similar. According to U.S. Central Command Casualty Reports, there was one attack on Sept. 18, where 3 soldiers were killed and 3 wounded near Tikrit. There was nothing like a suicide bombing attack that killed ten soldiers and wounded two. A search of Google News also fails to uncover a similar account.

Update: The military weighs in:

Sir,
After reviewing available information, we are unable to confirm the
story’s legitimacy. Thank you.

V/R,

BRYON J. MCGARRY, 1Lt, USAF
OIC, JOC Public Affairs
Multi-National Corps – Iraq

Well, thank goodness the MSM has all of these “multiple layers of fact-checkers” at their disposal! Otherwise, one might get the silly notion they don’t thoroughly vet their stories. I know, I know, that’s just crazy talk!

Nope…no liberal media bias!

October 15, 2007 - Posted by crushliberalism | Iraq, media bias