"We're pinned down": 4 Marines die in Afghan ambush

[Greyhawk]

(I'm thinking here of the question "what sort of impact will this story have on domestic support for the war?")

Detailed ROE are not in the public domain. We know a bit from the unclass (and publicly released) portion of General McChrystal's tactical directive, and we know a bit about this battle. From that, those who want to draw broad conclusions from scant knowledge will proceed without much caution.

So much for the obvious, here are my thoughts.

What percentage of the US public will do that? It will certainly be incorporated into the current level of noise, and some will consider it signal. I'd bet the number is close enough to zero not to matter - not because few are quick to judgment sans knowledge but because few are concerned with that degree of detail.

Now if some high-visibility public figure were to begin banging this particular drum, and if enough media attention was paid to that banging, then all bets are off. But in this case I don't know who that drummer would be.