America should face cost of Iraq War

Ethan Jennings Mast Op-ED Columnist

U.S. military casualties in the Iraq War surpassed 4,000 March 23. This was most fortunate for the 24-hour news channels—CNN, Fox News, MSNBC and the like—as they all needed something new to talk about, with Eliot Spitzer and his love of luxury prostitutes being old news. The news was considerably less fortunate for the 4,000 families whose loved ones have died in this war.
Wooden newscasters’ faces noted this fact again and again, satisfied in their orgy of feigned caring, their facetious pity belied by the repetition of their declarations. For several days, I couldn’t go anywhere without hearing the number 4,000, usually accompanied by flowery language like “fallen” and “sacrificed.” One would think the unrelenting butchery throughout the 20th century might have cured the human race of these euphemisms, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.
Consider for a moment that as of April 4, 4,011 women and men have died, horribly and often in excruciating pain, in this, our neo-imperial war. They are not fallen or sacrificed—those euphemisms glorify war, raising it onto a pedestal of societal purification more at home in a fascist autocracy than a democracy of the people. They were human beings who are now dead and are never coming home.
In all the days of false mourning and ratings counting—the toll of which upon the families of the Iraq War casualties I cannot imagine—the plastic frowns and the dry eyes of news anchors and commentators, not once did I hear mention of Iraqi deaths. I feel this would be an appropriate time to bring them up.
As of April 4, Iraqi Body Count (which can be found at www.iraqibodycount.org) estimates Iraqi civilian deaths from war-related violence between 82,591 and 90,115. IBC is a widely respected organization that compiles casualty numbers from reports from the international media, hospitals, non-governmental organizations and official sources. Its estimate represents a bare minimum, as it notes that numerous deaths certainly go unreported.
On the other side of the spectrum, a 2007 poll by Opinion Research Business estimated 733,158 to 1,446,063 Iraqi civilian deaths from war-related violence. The high estimate surpasses the death toll from the Rwandan genocide. It approaches the number of Jews, Roma-Sinti and others killed at Auschwitz.
The ORB estimate is highly controversial. Critics call the ORB poll’s methodology into question, and the tight-lipped refusal of the lead researcher to discuss his methods does not help in this regard. Some critics even allege that ORB surveyors fabricated information in part or whole, as cited by Neil Munro and Carl M. Cannon in their Jan. 4 National Journal article. Regardless, it was hardly discussed in the U.S. media when it was released.
What the ORB poll helps illustrate is that no one has the slightest clue how many Iraqi civilians have died in the war—not to mention casualties of combatants on any side in the fighting.
Despite the U.S. media’s regular disregard for massive and ever-increasing Iraqi civilian casualties, many students at PLU, as well as U.S. citizens at large, are aware. Numerous casualty tallies and estimates were prominently displayed at a recent peace rally on campus.
The U.S. has been committed at least since the end of World War II to the idea that human beings of all nations are granted certain unalienable rights, including firstly the right to life. Regardless of your view on the war, the deaths of Iraqis must be part of the cost you weigh. An Iraqi’s pain is no doubt quite similar to a U.S. citizen’s, a U.S. citizen’s death just as tragic as an Iraqi’s.
The U.S. needs to face the true cost of this war and to stop hiding it behind hollow euphemisms and willful ignorance—to stop pretending war is a noble and beautiful endeavor and face up to the brutal and senseless slaughter that it truly is.