The big, black headline in the Aug. 15 Record-Bee, page A15, opposite the comics, read: “War death toll”, but even had the headline read: “Iraq war death toll” the text below was inaccurate. With respect and appreciation for the editors helming the Bee, the real war death toll includes ALL human beings killed in war, not just military deaths.
For, as always, civilian deaths far outnumber military deaths: in Iraq www.alertnet.org reports a total of 8,457 coalition and Iraq military deaths while www.iraqbodycount.net reports between 40,069 and 44,596 civilian deaths (low, by other estimates).
The 8/16 NY Times reports a total of 3,438 civilian deaths for July, the deadliest month of the war so far. As always, the physically, mentally, emotionally wounded far, far outnumber the dead, many of the wounded as shattered as the infrastructures destroyed by the unfriendly fire of war.
You may remember the back-to-back Saturdays when the comic strip “Doonesbury” consisted, in very small print, solely of the names of Americans killed in the Iraq war. Reading those strips was deeply moving, reminding me that it is not numbers being killed but sons, daughters, fathers, mothers, sisters and brothers; men, women and children; human beings, just like you and I except we are alive and they are dead, their hearts stilled, our hearts aching.
Meanwhile, from Discover magazine: “… Scientists at Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos National Laboratories are vying to design the first new nuclear bomb in the United States since … the mid-1980”s.” Isn”t it yet clear that hate ignites hate, violence multiplies violence, that whoever throws up the rockets with their red glare and rains down the bombs bursting in air, the “them” being slaughtered is us?
Eric Leber
Kelseyville
ericleber@mchsi.com
