How many people died in the terrorist attacks of September 11th 2001? Few news reports give a specific number. Since so few bodies were found, we had to figure out who was missing and work backward. Most stories say “over 3,000.” The website september11victims.com counts 2,948 confirmed dead, 24 reported dead and 24 missing, for a total of 2,996.
How many Iraqis do we have to kill before we’ll feel like we’re even? Of course, we’re not in Iraq to “get even” for September 11th – are we? It often feels that way. Three and half years after the attacks top officials of the Bush administration constantly invoke September 11th to justify their spearpointed foreign policy. The message the rest of the world hears is: “America was attacked. That gives us the right to bully, bomb and occupy as we please until our national wound heals.” Problem is, grief is a wound that never heals, and pre-emptive invasions of random nations will not make it heal – although that grief provides wonderful political cover.
Perhaps the question is: How many Iraqis do we have to kill before we realize we cannot force a government of our choosing on that country? Last October, the British medical journal Lancet published a study estimating that 100,000 Iraqis had died since the March 2003 invasion. More have died since, but 100,000 is 33 times as many people as died on September 11th. It’s almost twice as many as the number of Americans killed in Vietnam. It’s almost half as many as the number of people killed by the December 26th tsunami. The outpouring of sympathy toward the tsunami victims has been wonderful to behold, but doesn’t America owe a proportional debt of anguish for those who have died in our misadventure?
Well, the dead Iraqis were insurgents and jihadis, right? Some were; most weren’t. A study by the United Nations Development Fund for Women found that civilians accounted for 15 percent of casualties in World War I, 65 percent of casualties in World War II and by the mid-90s, civilians accounted for more than 75 percent of war casualties. Our weapons are more precise, our consciences less.
On September 11th, almost 3,000 people died, from a nation of 280 million. In Iraq, more than 75,000 civilians have died from a nation of 22 million. Americans need no one to remind us of how our grief still lingers. We turn on the television and see how our leaders exploit our tragedy for their purposes. Look again at the numbers for Iraq. Imagine their grief; think how the cry of “U.S. out!” will sound in their ears (without adding the outrages of Abu Ghraib and Fallujah). It’s clear U.S. occupation forces will never “turn the corner” in Iraq.
Regardless of who is named victor in the recent election, violence against American troops will not subside until U.S. forces are withdrawn from Iraq. It’s not a question of “staying the course.” No matter how long the bull is left in the china shop, he will never repair the broken china. Turn Iraq over to the U.N. or the Shi’ite mullahs or whomever. The result may not be one we’re happy with, but at least there’s a small chance for success. As long as the ham-handed hacks at the Pentagon are running the show, things will only get worse.
In 1946, Ho Chi Minh warned the French government, “You can kill ten of my men for every one I kill of yours, yet even at those odds, you will lose and I will win.” The French didn’t listen and eight years later, they were gone from Vietnam. They didn’t apply that lesson to Algeria and in another eight years, they were out of there, too. Today America scorns France, but France finally learned Ho’s lesson. Uncle Ho never gave the Americans formal odds, but by the time the ratio hit sixty to one, the U.S. pulled out.
As we mark 1,400 American deaths in Iraq, we’re close to a hundred-to-one ratio, but we’re not accomplishing anything. The best thing the U.S. can do is leave now, before we’re responsible for another 10,000 Iraqi deaths and before the numbers of our war dead start politicians into saying we have to stay so that those who have died already “shall not have died in vain.”
Ratios
How many people died in the terrorist attacks of September 11th 2001? Few news reports give a specific number. Since so few bodies were found, we had to figure out who was missing and work backward. Most stories say “over 3,000.” The website september11victims.com counts 2,948 confirmed dead, 24 reported dead and 24 missing, for a total of 2,996.
How many Iraqis do we have to kill before we’ll feel like we’re even? Of course, we’re not in Iraq to “get even” for September 11th – are we? It often feels that way. Three and half years after the attacks top officials of the Bush administration constantly invoke September 11th to justify their spearpointed foreign policy. The message the rest of the world hears is: “America was attacked. That gives us the right to bully, bomb and occupy as we please until our national wound heals.” Problem is, grief is a wound that never heals, and pre-emptive invasions of random nations will not make it heal – although that grief provides wonderful political cover.
Perhaps the question is: How many Iraqis do we have to kill before we realize we cannot force a government of our choosing on that country? Last October, the British medical journal Lancet published a study estimating that 100,000 Iraqis had died since the March 2003 invasion. More have died since, but 100,000 is 33 times as many people as died on September 11th. It’s almost twice as many as the number of Americans killed in Vietnam. It’s almost half as many as the number of people killed by the December 26th tsunami. The outpouring of sympathy toward the tsunami victims has been wonderful to behold, but doesn’t America owe a proportional debt of anguish for those who have died in our misadventure?
Well, the dead Iraqis were insurgents and jihadis, right? Some were; most weren’t. A study by the United Nations Development Fund for Women found that civilians accounted for 15 percent of casualties in World War I, 65 percent of casualties in World War II and by the mid-90s, civilians accounted for more than 75 percent of war casualties. Our weapons are more precise, our consciences less.
On September 11th, almost 3,000 people died, from a nation of 280 million. In Iraq, more than 75,000 civilians have died from a nation of 22 million. Americans need no one to remind us of how our grief still lingers. We turn on the television and see how our leaders exploit our tragedy for their purposes. Look again at the numbers for Iraq. Imagine their grief; think how the cry of “U.S. out!” will sound in their ears (without adding the outrages of Abu Ghraib and Fallujah). It’s clear U.S. occupation forces will never “turn the corner” in Iraq.
Regardless of who is named victor in the recent election, violence against American troops will not subside until U.S. forces are withdrawn from Iraq. It’s not a question of “staying the course.” No matter how long the bull is left in the china shop, he will never repair the broken china. Turn Iraq over to the U.N. or the Shi’ite mullahs or whomever. The result may not be one we’re happy with, but at least there’s a small chance for success. As long as the ham-handed hacks at the Pentagon are running the show, things will only get worse.
In 1946, Ho Chi Minh warned the French government, “You can kill ten of my men for every one I kill of yours, yet even at those odds, you will lose and I will win.” The French didn’t listen and eight years later, they were gone from Vietnam. They didn’t apply that lesson to Algeria and in another eight years, they were out of there, too. Today America scorns France, but France finally learned Ho’s lesson. Uncle Ho never gave the Americans formal odds, but by the time the ratio hit sixty to one, the U.S. pulled out.
As we mark 1,400 American deaths in Iraq, we’re close to a hundred-to-one ratio, but we’re not accomplishing anything. The best thing the U.S. can do is leave now, before we’re responsible for another 10,000 Iraqi deaths and before the numbers of our war dead start politicians into saying we have to stay so that those who have died already “shall not have died in vain.”
© Mark Floegel, 2005