What is it about the number 2000 that gets people going? Is 2000 deaths in Iraq really more significant than 1999? 1995? I don't think so. I think I have to go along with Dogbert's reasoning for why the world would end in the year 2000, "Its biiiiig, and rooooound" (meaning the number 2000, not the earth). People are generally simple, and therefore like big round numbers to make things easy for us. Of course, 2000 is not that big. We lost more people in one day on D-Day,
2500 to be exact. Now I will grant that D-Day was probably more significant than the Iraq war -- Hitler was definitely a bigger threat than Saddam. But this was on
one day. Our casualties in the Iraq war span years. Every time any service man or woman dies we lose a hero and its a tragedy. But losing 2000 people to liberate a country -- and I optimistically think an entire region -- is a small price to pay, historically speaking. I don't want to marginalize our loss or our troops sacrifice, but I do want to impose some sense of proportion. It is my distinct belief that those making the 2000 death mark a big deal would be saying almost identical things if it were the 10000 mark. I believe that they want this to be a big deal, they want a big number, so they are acting like its a huge number even though it is amazingly good considering how long we've been fighting and the resourcefulness of the enemy we're fighting. I agree with
Lt. Col. Steven Boylan, this is an artificial "milestone."
In the article linked above Lt. Col. Boylan says this to the media: "I ask that when you report on the events, take a moment to think about the effects
on the families and those serving in Iraq... The 2,000 service members killed in Iraq supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom is not a milestone. It is an artificial mark on the wall set by individuals or groups with specific agendas and ulterior motives."
So what does CNN print as the headline on their front page? Yeah, "Deadly Milestone in Iraq War." Thanks CNN. Thanks a lot guys.
on the families and those serving in Iraq... The 2,000 service members killed in Iraq supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom is not a milestone. It is an artificial mark on the wall set by individuals or groups with specific agendas and ulterior motives."
3 comments:
I totally agree whole heartedly in all respects, for sure.
This is a bit like children on the playground comparing scars with each other to see who is really tougher. Don’t you think it is a bit irrelevant to the current circumstance whether or not there are more horrific examples to which one could point?
The problem with a historical-comparative – and for that reason, a necessarily reductionistic, numeric - valuation is that it has a way of obscuring the lived experiences of individuals in space and time. There is this great tendency on the Right – and on the Left when it is to their advantage - to reduce everything to numbers. For comparative of analytical purposes, I suppose that is fine and necessary. For understanding the real impact of choices on human biographies, however, it is worthless. Now, certainly, nearly every war past has been more horrific in terms of experienced suffering than this one, but that has nothing to do with the fact that individuals, families, and communities are actually experiencing suffering as the result of this war.
Proportion is a great comparative device, but that has nothing whatsoever to do with the reality that 2,000 Americans have died because of our national choice. I agree that, in the historical-comparative sense, 2,000 deaths are fairly insignificant. I disagree, however, that in terms of raw human death and suffering it is a meaningless and insignificant number. 2,000 deaths are 2,000 deaths; no matter the end, no matter what has been experienced in other times and places.
Maybe we should just mourn – whether it is 20, 2,000, or 20,000 – and not try to bring perspective.
Charles, I agree with your ending point and that is more the vein I meant to follow than one of purported insignificance. My point is that there is nothing significant about the number 2000 any more than there is about the number 1999, or 1000, or 34000, except that it is the current number. It is not some milestone at which we can start drawing conclusions that we could not at 1999. That is my point, that 2000 is not some special number. Each death is important, none should become a statistic. And at the same time we should not act like some numbers are significant statistics just because they are big and round.
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