…Up to 26,000 people die in violence in the past month
If it’s the AP, it’ll be the third paragraph before you find out the people were “mostly” Japanese soldiers, and even then you won’t know that means 20,000.
Today’s Lansing State Journal carried an AP story entitled “Dozens more killed in new Afghan fighting – Up to 363 people die in violence in the past week” The story noted that:
…the US Military acknowledged that the Taliban have grown in “strength and influence” in recent weeks.
That two word quote is taken out of context. What Colonel Tom Collins actually said was:
“There are several hundred hard-core Taleban fighters,” he said. “And we know for a fact that in recent weeks they have grown in strength and influence in some parts of Kandahar, Helmand, and Uruzgan.”
It is left to the student to determine whether a Taliban uprising in those remote provinces would constitute the AP’s implied general growth in Taliban “strength and influence”, especially considering the huge casualties suffered by the, as AP styles them, “militants.”
As many as 300 of the 363 dead are were Taliban. Strength and influence would be a fleeting advantage for these terrorists if it weren’t for the AP and the LSJ.