[Peace-discuss] Numbers

[C. G. Estabrook]

[A comment by a well-known reporter and novelist.  I think 
it understates how much of the resistance is made up of 
ordinary Iraqis who want the US out of their country; polls 
say that's the view of most people in the country.  --CGE]

   Iraq's numbers, bodies keep piling up
   by Carl Hiassen

The number is there. Hunt hard enough through the newspaper 
stories and you'll find it.

Last week it surpassed 1,600. This week it will go higher.

You could write it on the blackboard in a hundred 
classrooms, and probably in 99 of them nobody could tell you 
what it stood for.

Here's the answer: As of Thursday, 1,609 was the number of 
American soldiers who died in Iraq since we invaded 26 
months ago.

That works out to more than two soldiers killed every day, 
which in actuarial terms isn't a huge toll when compared to 
other long wars.

Unless it's your son or daughter or wife or husband coming 
home in the coffins, in which case the number is devastating.

Americans haven't completely lost interest in what's 
happening to our troops in Iraq, but an inevitable numbness 
has set in as the casualty figures rise steadily. The tragic 
has become the routine.

Lots more people could tell you the score of the Heat-
Wizards playoff game or where the Dow Jones closed on Friday 
than could tell you how many soldiers died last week in 
roadside bombings.

They could tell you who got the most votes on American Idol. 
They could tell you how many times that ''runaway bride'' 
from Atlanta has been busted for shoplifting. They could 
tell you who won the NASCAR race at Darlington, and even the 
new Nextel Cup standings.

That kind of stuff isn't hard to find. Just park yourself in 
front of the TV or laptop, and relax. It's one big happy 
avalanche of entertainment.

Obviously we in the media have gone numb, too. And let's be 
honest -- it's much more fun to write about Paula Abdul than 
Ibrahim al-Jaafari.

He is Iraq's new prime minister, struggling to put together 
a cabinet to appease the various religious factions that 
have detested each other as long as anyone can remember.

The last few weeks have been a bloodbath, with upwards of 
400 Iraqi civilians and security forces murdered in car 
bombings and armed attacks. Fourteen American troops were 
killed between May 7 and May 12, some of them in a bold 
Marine offensive along the Syrian border.

Currently the insurgency is being led by members of the 
Sunni minority who are extremely unhappy about having to 
surrender their long-held political power to the Shiites and 
the Kurds.

Also at work is an active al Qaeda cell which, according to 
our own intelligence analysts, did not exist in Iraq before 
we invaded. Because of the U.S. military presence, the 
country is now attracting assassins and suicidal zealots 
from all over the Muslim world.

As detached about Iraq as Americans seem to be, polls show 
that many still doubt our reasons for being there.

Originally the stated mission was to ''disarm'' Saddam 
Hussein, but even a presidential panel of experts now says 
there was nothing to disarm. Saddam hoarded no weapons of 
mass destruction and had no connection whatsoever to the 
9/11 hijackings.

Thus, it became necessary to devise a new face-saving reason 
for invading Iraq. Today the White House says that U.S. 
troops are there to establish a beachhead for democracy in 
the Mideast -- this, as Bush strolls hand-in-hand with the 
Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, one of the most 
repressive and undemocratic regimes in the world.

Still, it's significant that nine million Iraqis risked 
their lives to vote in January. There's bedlam and carnage 
in the streets, but the country at least has the framework 
of an elected government.

It's also got a foreign army of occupation, historically not 
a beneficial ingredient in the making of a new democracy.

So how long do we stay, and at what final cost?

Nobody has a clue. U.S. troops are busily training the Iraqi 
military and security forces, but the Pentagon has provided 
no timetable for returning control of the country to the 
people who live there.

Meanwhile, the heavy numbers keep piling up, although some 
are even more difficult to find than the death toll.

In addition to the 1,609 U.S. soldiers lost, the Department 
of Defense lists 12,350 as wounded in action. Many have 
crippling injuries, and others are returning home with 
emotional damage that will take years to heal, if ever.

As for the Iraqi casualties, we don't even count them. 
Nobody is sure how many civilian noncombatants -- men, women 
and children -- have died since the night we started bombing 
Baghdad.

Here in the United States we're a long way from the car 
bombs and the mangled corpses, horrific images briefly 
glimpsed on CNN.

Most of us remain comfortably buffered from the war by the 
reams of fluff and celebrity scandal that now pass for front-
page news.

Yet the coffins quietly keep coming home from Iraq, on the 
average of two a day. That's two more funerals, two more 
families left to mourn and wonder and hope that someday it 
all adds up to something noble and enduring.

Something more than another stark number in a history book.


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