3,000 deaths ... so what?

[jor_mama]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061231/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The U.S. military announced Sunday the deaths of two soldiers, pushing the number of Americans who have died in the Iraq war to the grim milestone of at least 3,000. On the final day of an exceedingly bloody year, Saddam Hussein was also buried in the town where he was born.
<snip>

So two more dead in Iraq means that we have now lost 3,000 soldiers in Iraq. 3,000 or so families who have photo albums and memories, but no physical body to cherish. 3,000 heroes.

But why is this so significant?

I suppose part of it is that we lost roughly the same amount of our own citizens on 9/11. Perhaps there were those who felt that if we could get in and out of this conflict with fewer casualties than what were lost on that one day then we would have a certain bragging right for victory.

But I hearken back even to World War II. We lost over 418,000 (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties). That represented 1/3 of 1% of our population. (Side note: 5 countries lost 10% or more of their population in the same conflict).

So 3,000 deaths among a population today that totals just over 300,000,000 means that we have lost 1 of every 100,000 Americans, or 1/1000th of 1% of our population.

Mathematically speaking, it's "only" 1/33 the impact of World War II on our current population.

But is this how we view this? Mathematically?

I think this can go back to a bumper sticker I'm sure many of us have seen ... perhaps some of us own, that says "If You Aren't Completely Appalled, You Aren't Paying Attention."

It's that when a war is unjust, one death is too many. It's not that we rack up more injustice by having a higher death toll, or that we are able to more firmly say "see I told you so" with every milestone being passed. It's not about the milestones. But perhaps the milestone stories are good. Maybe others will wake up and say "hey, this is too much."

In my mind, ONE was too many. But that's because I was paying attention.

[CJCRANE]

1. The sad thing is

that the people killed on 9/11 were killed by people from Bushco's "allies".

So in a sense it was a kind of false-flag attack because Bushco blamed Iraq, a country which had nothing to do with 9/11.