Let’s Recognize and Honor the Memory of EVERYONE
Who has died In the Iraq War
…Civilian as well as Military
By Terence Cozad Taylor
In the last month or so we have witnessed three major milestones in the War in Iraq. In mid December the total number of U.S. military casualties surpassed 25,000. On the last day of 2006, the number of U.S. military deaths reached 3,000. And just this week our President announced that he would be sending an additional 20,000 troops to Iraq. The first two of those numbers are very sad. The third is troubling.
But perhaps even more troubling is a number that rarely gets reported in the Courier-Journal when U.S. casualties are listed: the total of Iraqis who have died as a result of the war since it began nearly four years ago. The most conservative estimate I can find lists just over 53,000 Iraqi dead. The highest estimate I have found suggests as many as 650,000. The real number probably lies somewhere in between.
But whatever that number is, I believe that it should be listed in the Courier-Journal alongside the number of U.S. deaths in order to give a more complete and accurate picture of the real impact of this war.
I am the head of an interfaith organization in Louisville. Not many people know that I also possess a master’s degree in journalism from Ball State University.
My education in journalism taught me that in reporting a story I should strive to give as complete and accurate a picture as I could, preferably in the fewest words possible.
I don’t think that the readers of the Courier-Journal can get a complete and accurate picture of the war in Iraq without reading the number of Iraqi casualties on a day-to-day basis.
I suggest using the most conservative estimate of Iraqi dead: 53,000. But let’s look at this number as it relates to the population of Iraq. The CIA website estimates the population of Iraq at 26,783,383 as of July 2006. The population of the United States is now 300 million. Thus, the population of the United States is more than 10 times that of Iraq. That means that if an equivalent number of Americans had died in this war, we would be looking at a U.S. body count of over 500,000. That’s nearly 10 times the number of men and women we lost in the entire Viet Nam War.
I don’t think anyone has an accurate estimate of the number of Iraqis who have been wounded, but it must be well into the hundreds of thousands.
Still, one other number may help us understand what a tragedy this war has become for a nation that two decades ago was at least marginally a First World Country: the number of Iraqis who have been made refugees. As of November 4, 2006, the U.N. High Commissioner on Refugees estimated that 1.8 million Iraqis had been displaced to neighboring countries, and 1.6 million were displaced internally, with nearly 100,000 Iraqis fleeing to Syria and Jordan each month.
But as we all know, numbers don’t tell the full story. We need to remember that every American or Iraqi killed, wounded or made homeless represents a real human being with hopes and dreams that have now been shattered. It isn’t possible the whole story in one newspaper article or a thousand. But this weekend some of us will make a modest attempt to honor that horrific story.
Representatives of every major religion will gather at 2 p.m. on Sunday, January 14 at Strathmoor Presbyterian Church for an interfaith service honoring the memory of all who have died or suffered in Iraq, whether they are members of the military or civilians.
Sponsoring groups for this event include:
Interfaith Paths to Peace
Strathmoor Presbyterian Church
Kentucky Council of Churches
Independent Muslims of Louisville
The Community Relations Council of the Jewish Community Federation of Louisville
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Louisville
St. William Catholic Church
The Episcopal Diocese of Kentucky
Friends (Quaker) Meeting of Louisville
The Hindu Temple of Louisville
The Mid-Kentucky Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church USA
The Center for Faith and Action
Drepung Gomang (Tibetan Buddhist) Institute of Louisville
James Lees Presbyterian Church
Unity of Middletown
Baha’is of Louisville
The Louisville Chapter of the Fellowship of Reconciliation
Kentuckiana American Indian Advocates
We will be acknowledging all who have become victims. Whether you support the war or oppose it, I hope that you will join us as we honor the dead and pray for a just peace to come soon to the people of Iraq.
And I hope that from this day forward the Courier-Journal will report the most accurate estimate of Iraqi dead when it reports the tragic number of Americans who have died. The readers of this great newspaper deserve no less than that.
Terence Cozad Taylor is Executive Director of Interfaith Paths to Peace
Who has died In the Iraq War
…Civilian as well as Military
By Terence Cozad Taylor
In the last month or so we have witnessed three major milestones in the War in Iraq. In mid December the total number of U.S. military casualties surpassed 25,000. On the last day of 2006, the number of U.S. military deaths reached 3,000. And just this week our President announced that he would be sending an additional 20,000 troops to Iraq. The first two of those numbers are very sad. The third is troubling.
But perhaps even more troubling is a number that rarely gets reported in the Courier-Journal when U.S. casualties are listed: the total of Iraqis who have died as a result of the war since it began nearly four years ago. The most conservative estimate I can find lists just over 53,000 Iraqi dead. The highest estimate I have found suggests as many as 650,000. The real number probably lies somewhere in between.
But whatever that number is, I believe that it should be listed in the Courier-Journal alongside the number of U.S. deaths in order to give a more complete and accurate picture of the real impact of this war.
I am the head of an interfaith organization in Louisville. Not many people know that I also possess a master’s degree in journalism from Ball State University.
My education in journalism taught me that in reporting a story I should strive to give as complete and accurate a picture as I could, preferably in the fewest words possible.
I don’t think that the readers of the Courier-Journal can get a complete and accurate picture of the war in Iraq without reading the number of Iraqi casualties on a day-to-day basis.
I suggest using the most conservative estimate of Iraqi dead: 53,000. But let’s look at this number as it relates to the population of Iraq. The CIA website estimates the population of Iraq at 26,783,383 as of July 2006. The population of the United States is now 300 million. Thus, the population of the United States is more than 10 times that of Iraq. That means that if an equivalent number of Americans had died in this war, we would be looking at a U.S. body count of over 500,000. That’s nearly 10 times the number of men and women we lost in the entire Viet Nam War.
I don’t think anyone has an accurate estimate of the number of Iraqis who have been wounded, but it must be well into the hundreds of thousands.
Still, one other number may help us understand what a tragedy this war has become for a nation that two decades ago was at least marginally a First World Country: the number of Iraqis who have been made refugees. As of November 4, 2006, the U.N. High Commissioner on Refugees estimated that 1.8 million Iraqis had been displaced to neighboring countries, and 1.6 million were displaced internally, with nearly 100,000 Iraqis fleeing to Syria and Jordan each month.
But as we all know, numbers don’t tell the full story. We need to remember that every American or Iraqi killed, wounded or made homeless represents a real human being with hopes and dreams that have now been shattered. It isn’t possible the whole story in one newspaper article or a thousand. But this weekend some of us will make a modest attempt to honor that horrific story.
Representatives of every major religion will gather at 2 p.m. on Sunday, January 14 at Strathmoor Presbyterian Church for an interfaith service honoring the memory of all who have died or suffered in Iraq, whether they are members of the military or civilians.
Sponsoring groups for this event include:
Interfaith Paths to Peace
Strathmoor Presbyterian Church
Kentucky Council of Churches
Independent Muslims of Louisville
The Community Relations Council of the Jewish Community Federation of Louisville
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Louisville
St. William Catholic Church
The Episcopal Diocese of Kentucky
Friends (Quaker) Meeting of Louisville
The Hindu Temple of Louisville
The Mid-Kentucky Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church USA
The Center for Faith and Action
Drepung Gomang (Tibetan Buddhist) Institute of Louisville
James Lees Presbyterian Church
Unity of Middletown
Baha’is of Louisville
The Louisville Chapter of the Fellowship of Reconciliation
Kentuckiana American Indian Advocates
We will be acknowledging all who have become victims. Whether you support the war or oppose it, I hope that you will join us as we honor the dead and pray for a just peace to come soon to the people of Iraq.
And I hope that from this day forward the Courier-Journal will report the most accurate estimate of Iraqi dead when it reports the tragic number of Americans who have died. The readers of this great newspaper deserve no less than that.
Terence Cozad Taylor is Executive Director of Interfaith Paths to Peace
posted by Interfaith Paths to Peace at 10:34 AM
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