The Crackdown Continues, Still

I haven't been this optimistic about the War in Iraq for a while, but all the stories lately about us finally killing these Muslim death-cults is turning my spirits:

U.S. and Iraqi forces killed some 250 gunmen from an apocalyptic Muslim cult on Sunday in a battle involving U.S. tanks and aircraft near the Shi'ite holy city of Najaf, Iraqi police, army and political sources said.

Two Americans were killed, the U.S. military said, when an attack helicopter went down during the day-long battle in what was one of the strangest incidents of the four-year conflict. Iraqi officials said the helicopter seemed to be shot down.

According to one Iraqi political source, hundreds of fighters drawn from both Sunni and Shi'ite communities were still fighting. A Reuters reporter at the scene, 160 km (100 miles) south of Baghdad, saw U.S. tanks and heard blasts after dark and an Iraqi officer said F-16 jets were bombing the area.

Details of the day's fighting were sketchy and the origins of the fighters unclear. An Iraqi army source said some of the dead wore headbands declaring themselves a "Soldier of Heaven."

The two soldiers lost in the operation should and will be mourned, but I'm still amazed at the superiority of our army that we kill 250 of them and they manage to kill 2 of us - assuming the helicopter was shot down.