Counterterrorism analyst Daveed Gartenstein-Ross is embedded in Iraq. Read his latest dispatch from outside the wire: Patrolling Yarmouk.

Outside the Wire’s J.D. Johannes, embedded with the Black Lions of Task Force 1-28 in Baghdad, reports on the “cellular battlespace.”

Miblogs reporting…

Desert Flier, a flight/trauma nurse in Anbar province, blogs about Ramadi all-nighters.

Stimp at My Desert Adventure blogs about soldiers pimping their rides.

More at the Dawn Patrol.

Day by Day cartoonist Chris Muir, who was embedded in Mosul earlier this spring, publishes his Memorial Day cartoon–which you won’t see in the NYTimes or WaPo:

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Jules Crittenden takes note of the Associated Press’s holiday grim death toll notice and spots a telling omission:

I thought body counts went out with the Vietnam War. The AP is kicking off Memorial Day weekend with a fresh body count in Iraq.

How come no mention of Americans killed in Afghanistan since last Memorial Day?

The AP story leads with the number of new graves opened for dead American soldiers since Memorial Day last, but only those in Iraq. Why this slight? Are the dead in Afghanistan not worthy of respect in the eyes of the Associated Press? It is possible that this article is not about honoring the dead at all, or even about reporting the news, but just another thinly veiled editorial attack on the Bush administration? Would the Associated Press be so callous as to use American dead in this manner, as a political tool?

I’m beginning to get the impression there is nothing more important to the Associated Press in its Iraq reportage than the number of “American soldiers killed in this unpopular war.” That phrase, with a number, is typically trotted no later than graph three in AP stories. It’s as though the body count is the sole measure upon which all decisions and action must turn. There certainly has been no effort by the Associated Press, or other major news organizations on the ground in Iraq, to examine progress in anything but the most dismissive manner, with a quick revert to body count.

Michael Fumento’s embed dispatches from his recent trip to Afghanistan are here.

Here are the names of the fallen who have died serving in Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan.

Ed Morrissey adds:

Body counts tell us nothing. The mission is what we should debate. The deaths over the last year amount to about two-thirds of the losses in the Kasserine Pass, our first engagement against the Wehrmacht in WWII. Fifteen hundred dead American soldiers in North Africa did not make the mission worthless there, and 980 deaths do not discredit this mission, either. If we want to defeat terrorists in the Middle East and see a strong, secure, and independent Iraq as a vital part of that mission, then we need to commit ourselves to that mission while trying to minimize American deaths to the best extent possible.

Every American death is a tragedy for their families, and of course we mourn them. Memorial Day exists for that purpose. However, it also honors their commitment to freedom, liberty, and our nation’s security.

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Michael Yon posts his Memorial Day message from Anbar Province with Task Force 2-7 Infantry.

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