Reuters: U.S. Numb To Iraq Deaths - Experts

[Hissyspit]

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N20250328.htm

United States numb to Iraq troop deaths - experts
20 Oct 2006 15:36:06 GMT

NEW YORK, Oct 20 (Reuters) - In a small box titled "Names of the Dead" on page 10, The New York Times recorded the passing of Cpt. Mark Paine this week, who died after a roadside bomb exploded near his vehicle in Iraq.

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This local coverage of U.S. military deaths "actually has a bigger affect on public opinion than the overall trends," said Matt Baum, an associate professor of politics at University of California, Los Angeles.

But with the U.S. military death toll hitting 2,787 on Friday, and with 73 deaths so far in October, it is shaping up to be the deadliest month for U.S. forces since the Falluja offensive two years ago. Analysts said even local media coverage struggles to overcome the numbing affect of the steady flow of deaths.

"In Iraq, certainly while we were losing relatively small numbers of soldiers early on, I think that was a huge shock," said Max Boot, a senior fellow of national security studies at the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations. "But now that it's kind of accumulated it doesn't have as much of a shock value. This is reminiscent of (Soviet dictator Joseph) Stalin's phrase about how 'one death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic.' There's some truth to that."

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"Whether we are talking about the U.S. casualties, Iraqi casualties, or Afghanis. We are not thinking of them, whoever they are, as people -- they are faceless, they are just simply numbers and that is troublesome," he said.

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[Rex]

1. Oh BS! The Council on Foreign Relations is a fools paradise.

A think tank? Maybe if we let failure be our requirement for such organizations. These folks are some of the biggest fools on the planet. Hey, here is a news flash - Bush is numb to the deaths in Iraq. Most Americans are sickened by the waste of lives and that is why Bush and Congress are polling at all-time low numbers.

Think tank - hahahahaha! How funny. :rofl:

[Tactical Progressive]

6. I call them 'stink tanks'

The conservative definition of 'thinking' is a synonym for what has always been called 'lying'.

Stinking lies, to be exact.

[MrModerate]

2. The 650,000 is more than people can take in . . .

And besides, those deaths were 'attributed' to the war, and the emotional impact is somewhat muted.

100 a day, though, most tortured to death -- that has an impact. At least among the people I work with. They grimly face our soldiers' deaths, but the civilian murders really bother them. Pictures of teenagers crying on their dead fathers' feet, and fathers carrying ragged, bloody lumps away from the latest car bombing, that's getting to the people. Why do you think Bush's approval is in the 30s?

[Serial Mom]

3. Argggggggggg!

This is SO infuriating!

The toll this war takes should be on front page of every newspaper every day, 'cause as dubya says, "after all, we are at war" and what happens in war is real, especially to the 2,787 troops and their family and friends, plus the TENS OF THOUSANDS injured and their families, plus the HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS Iraqis killed and their families!

[fooj]

4. What have we become?

What kind of society isn't affected by news that a war based on lies has killed over 1/2 million people? :cry:

[Rageneau]

5. We are the proverbial boiled frog.

When Bush first set our frog-ass into the pan of water that is Iraq, our nation felt no discomfort. On the contrary, our people felt good, waving flags and cheering and slapping plastic yellow ribbons on their cars. Hoo-Ah! The water is fine!

Then easily predictable but completely unanticipated events, mammoth incompetence and breathtaking corruption began to turn the heat up under us. Our soldiers began to die -- first in ones and twos, and now in dozens per day. And we try as hard as we can not to even THINK about the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi casualties.

When we first got in that pan, we were comfortable in that cool water, knowing that the war would swiftly be over and that our casualties would be so light that we could probably name a high school after each one. We were smug, callous, cruel and indifferent -- as a nation -- to what our bellicose, belligerant, greed-fueled leaders were up to.

I'm getting pretty old, and I have sure seen my share of times when my beloved country has had too much reason to be ashamed of itself. But never like this.

Bush's unwarranted, unnecessary, untruthful invasion of Iraq is, in my not-so-humble opinion, the greatest disgrace, greatest waste, greatest shame that the United States of America has ever been guilty of ... save, perhaps, for the genocide of Native Americans.

Hoo-Ah!

[Serial Mom]

7. You got it right in your analogy and summation

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

8. "One man's death is a tragedy; a million is a statistic." - Stalin

That's why the politicians and generals love to use words like "collateral damage", "regrettable losses", and all the other euphemisms for the murder of people.