Any of us with an ear for the news media knows roughly the number of U.S. military deaths in Iraq. As it stands, the number is 3,395 U.S. deaths confirmed by the Department of Defense, according to The Associated Press.
It made big news when the number surpassed the death toll of the September 11 attacks, at 2,973, prompting politicians and news pundits to ask the inappropriate question, “What is it all for?”
But how many of us know the figures for Iraqi civilian deaths?
Katie Couric, the “CBS Evening News” anchor, published on her blog a short expose asserting, “Small towns have always made big sacrifices in war.” She leaves us with a harrowing reminder: “We should remember as the casualties mount that small town USA is, in the words of Thornton Wilder, “˜Our Town.'”
But this is precisely where objectivity falls apart. Once we start deluding ourselves into believing that small town USA is making the big sacrifices of war, we stop understanding the real casualties of the battlegrounds in Iraq.
A robust United Nations survey from three years ago, based on information from 22,000 households throughout Iraq, suggests that “daily living conditions in Iraq are dismal, with families suffering from intermittent water and electricity supply” and “chronic malnutrition among children.”
We’re all well aware that things have not improved since then.
And then the bell tolls.
In October, the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health published results of a study of Iraq mortality, which concluded that “as many as 654,965 more Iraqis may have died since hostilities began in Iraq in March 2003 than would have been expected under pre-war conditions.”
The numbers are astonishing. The ratios are maddening. Unless you believe that one U.S. soldier’s life is equal to the lives of approximately 200 Iraqis, then surely you must recognize the problem with your nationalistic media.
We’re all aware, thanks to the efforts of our fellow classmates, of the Darfur genocide. To put the Iraqi death toll into perspective, high estimates of the death toll in Darfur range around 300,000, according to the BBC.
Why don’t we hear about these realities? It’s a failure of the media.
Even our liberal comedian vanguards such as Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert and Bill Maher, with their wry criticisms of current affairs, often point to the number of U.S. deaths as the primary explanation for the madness of our continued involvement in the country.
Mention is not made of the Iraqis.
Most Americans consider news networks such as CNN, CBS, NBC, Fox News and others to be legitimate sources of information. But if they fail in reporting objectively, as they frequently do, it becomes our responsibility to be skeptical of their broadcasts.
I do not mean to discount the deaths of our own servicemen and women, nor do I mean to belittle the suffering it surely causes their families.
I only mean to suggest that we ought to mourn objectively ““ that we should count every human life as equal to any other. And I ask that we, as responsible citizens, do not forget the daily despair of the war-torn civilians who, as is always the case in war, are making the big sacrifices.
Deel is a fifth-year English student.