100,000 to 1: A Tragic Ratio

So, whether or not Zarqawi (or the actor who plays him on TV) is dead in exactly the way the media is portraying, today – rather than feeling as celebratory as the corporate media would have me be - I just can’t help but be overwhelmed by the futility of it all.

I mean – how many US soldiers and Iraqis had to die for us to finally kill this operative-of-arguable-importance? At least 100,000 (not to mention the woman and child who apparently died near him)?

Well, not to rain (bullets) on anyone’s parade, but I just can’t be happy about such a tragic killing ratio. 100,000 innocents slain to finally get to claim the life of this inarguably bad apple. And yeah – I get that we’ve “gotten” Saddam’s sons and various other terra cards in the Al Qaida deck, but at what number does this ghastly ratio become tolerable?

Full disclosure here: as a card-carrying advocate of nonviolence (and some claim that particular card is the joker of the terra deck), I think even one innocent killed is too much. But 100,000?

And this one death is gonna change WHAT exactly?

You know, I forget the exact quote and context (and I’d find it if I wasn’t rushing to get out of work), but I remember at the time we went into Fallujah to supposedly kill the insurgents, some wise soul compared that particular offensive to shooting a horse to kill the fly that landed on its head.

That analogy seems as apt today as ever.

And speaking of horses, remember how abuzz the nation was about Barbaro’s near-death injury a few weeks ago and how hard to watch it was? Well, not to say that it wasn’t (I still can’t look at the screen when they show it), and not to say that Zarqawi was anything approaching a good man, but what I’m having problems with today is the fact that SO MANY people have died to get to this point – with even more suffering injuries way more dire than a broken leg – and a lot of folks can’t seem to grasp the great cost we've paid for this one supposed “achievement” of killing Zarqawi.

I dunno – maybe it’s too enormous to grasp.

And once again, to be clear: I’m not grieving at all the fact that Zarqawi is dead – I’m grieving what it took to get there. Is anybody else out there having a hard time with this today?

was the very first thought I had when I first heard the news late last night.

I really thought the 2,500 US casualty "milestone" was going to be what hammered home the futility of this war with renewed strength. Strange that it should be the death of one of our avowed enemies that triggered this sorrow first.

Ah well, no one ever said emotions were rational...

Zarqawi out during any of the three opportunities he had BEFORE invading Iraq!!!


more.....
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4431601/

Just print and electronic. This matters because if anyone is crowing about this, I'm just reading their words and the swagger and false moxie they're projecting just falls flat in a transcript.

So to me, it's easy to say, "Good, the bastard's dead." and "Maybe a few innocents won't get blown to bits over the next week or so."

It might even change things a little: if the foreign fighters that Zarqawi was running become disorganized, then the militias and the central government might garner a little credibility with the people ("look guys, we really CAN govern our areas") -- and then move on to the serious business of ripping the place apart in a catastrophic civil war a few weeks earlier.

But make a real difference? Hell no. 100,000 to 1 a reasonable trade? Hardly. Especially remembering that we MADE Zarqawi. Without our invasion, he's still be a utility player in a second-rate murder gang. It took the madness of King George to turn him into the uber-terrorist of the warmongers' imagination.

We haven't, IMO, gotten to ANY "point" with this. Where we are is in a war zone, with US/UK soldiers making up the best-armed of many militias, and the only militia with no real stake in the place. We'll leave, the Iraqis will "work" things out, and hundreds of thousands more will be dead uselessly.

Makes me want to believe in hell, so I could take comfort that Bush and his abettors would burn there forever.

Right next to Zarqawi.

It's SO hard for me not to feel vindictive once the despair starts to wear off, and root for a Leviticus-style punishment for those responsible for such suffering. But I try and channel my "vengeance" into spreading the truth (as I understand it) and through activism. And from there I can only hope and trust that such action will help hurry along the karmic payback that is due these criminals.

But it's very difficult sometimes.

a whole bunch more of them too.

I'm not sure that that particular point was part of the original metaphor, but if not then you've definitely improved on it.

I mean, I'm certainly not rooting for "more flies" to descend on this already festering situation, but all we seem to be doing there at this point is recruiting more terrorists.

In 15 Years (1991-2006), the US has caused/contributed to 1,000,000 Iraqi deaths

Persian Gulf War: 150,000
Gulf War Aftermath: Many thousands
UN Sanctions: Primary cause of 600,000 deaths
Iraq War: 250,000

The Persian Gulf War did not have to happen: Hussein did not invade Kuwait until after he had received an assurance from April Gillespie that the "US had no opinion on Arab-Arab conflicts." Even if he had invaded, alternatives to war were available.

The Gulf War Aftermath Encouraged by American radio broadcasts to rise up against their ‘dictator’, the Kurds of northern Iraq rebelled against a nominally defeated and certainly weakened Saddam Hussein in March of 1991. Fear of being drawn into an Iraqi civil war and possible diplomatic repercussions precluded President Bush from committing US forces to support the Kurds. Within days Iraqi forces recovered and launched a ruthless counteroffensive including napalm and chemical attacks from helicopters. They quickly reclaimed lost territory and crushed the rebellion. By the first week of April, 800 to 1,000 people, mostly the very young and the very old, were dying each day. link Al Franken has said that many 100,000's of Kurds and Shia were slaughtered, but I do not have a printed source.

UN (US/UK Sanctions) The United Nations Security Council has maintained comprehensive economic sanctions on Iraq from August 1990 until March 2003. Sanctions in Iraq hurt large numbers of innocent civilians not only by limiting the availability of food and medicines, but also by disrupting the whole economy, and reducing the national capacity of water treatment, electrical systems and other infrastructure critical for health and life. The oil-for-food program provided an average of $200 per year for each of 23,000,000 Iraqis - well below the international poverty level. In the UN Security Council, countries urged the US and UK to allow the sanctions to be lifted, but the US/UK would not allow this.

Iraq War A Johns Hopkins University study published in the British medical journal The Lancet in October, 2004. // The figure of 100,000 had been based on somewhat "conservative assumptions", notes Les Roberts at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, U.S., who led the study. That estimate excludes Falluja, a hotspot for violence. If the data from this town is included, the compiled studies point to about 250,000 excess deaths since the outbreak of the U.S.-led war. // Eman Ahmad Khamas.... said: "This occupation has destroyed Iraq. Americans don't know that tens of thousands of Iraqis are in prisons. Americans don't know how many have been killed. Lancet reported 100,000 in 2004, not counting Falluja. Now it is something like double this number."

It's so easy to be overtaken by the more violent atrocities of war that we can forget the impact of the more subtle (if you can call it that) and seemingly less-violent damage we have already inflicted.

Sadly, the ratio seems even more tragically disproportionate than I originally stated. When will this insanity end?

They nexer won a game after my freshman year there. Actually won first game to break that streak two years after I graduated and just short of state record for continuous losses.

But it got to the point where the band would break out and play the "fight song" if our team even got a first down, it was that sad.

So with all the fanfair on the news outlets about this mission and Zarqawi biting the dust, I'm thinking back to the band playing the fight song just because we managed to get a first down.

I'm somewhat glad he's not around anymore, but at what cost to Iraqis and American lives to get to this point, for one guy.