Thursday, March 30, 2006

AP bias watch

The headline reads "US, Canadian Soldiers Die in Afghanistan". Mentally preparing myself to read of 10 or 20 dead Americans and Canadians, I'm relieved to find that "only" one American and one Canadian soldier were killed in action against Taliban insurgents.

The real big story isn't the two coalition deaths, though, but rather the 32 insurgents killed in the battle. Twelve were killed in the initial insurgent attack on the coalition base, and another 20 in the pursuit of the insurgents that followed.

The pursuit also lead coalition forces to an insurgent compound where, according to the article, "Large caches of weapons, bombs and ammunition were discovered", and the compound subsequently destroyed.

So why does the AP headline focus only on the deaths of US and Canadian troops?

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