4000: Less impact than 3000. Well, that's good.

According to the official count, Dick & Georgie's little oilscapade has now claimed its 4000th American soldier. It's taken just over five years. That comes out to roughly 800 per year; 66 per month; 2 per day.

Two soldiers per day for the last five years.

But hey, it's no big deal, according to this article from the BBC:

Stephen Biddle, a senior fellow for defence policy at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, said he doubted the 4,000 milestone would "have the impact that the 3,000 did" in December 2006.

"The conventional wisdom then was that things were going badly," he was quoted by Reuters as saying.

"Today, by contrast, the public's general perception of Iraq is less negative, and coverage for the last six months has tended to focus on the reduction in violence and US casualties.

"The war has also been much less visible."

Thank God for the "librul media." Can't go having a visible war now, can we?