Hundreds of flags .... 3,982 Americans dead

[babylonsister]

Hundreds of flags .... 3,982 Americans dead
By E.J. Graff - March 19, 2008, 4:40PM



My office is at Brandeis University. Today as, I walked down the curving path that carries everyone through campus, I noticed that, lining the path, at very short intervals, were small American flags. A sign explained that there was one for every 10 American soldiers who had died in Iraq.

It's a long path. There were hundreds of flags.

By the time I made it across campus, tears were running down my face. It's not the Vietnam Memorial, but I found it profoundly moving nevertheless. I send my admiration to the students who organized it.

Yes, I know that it's just as grievous to think of the tens of thousands of Iraqis who have died. My friend Huda Ahmed, an Iraqi journalist, has personally lost more people than I can bear to consider, and reminds Americans periodically that Iraqi dead are just as important as American dead. And the truth is, Iraqis are the ones I think about most often when I am wrenched by the thought of the war.

And yet we all know that the human animal has a larger imagination for the suffering of those like us, for those closer to us in our various tribal memberships; it just seems to be how we are built. And so I do not apologize for weeping, today, for the American dead.

Why aren't they more on our minds? I can't disagree with Greg Mitchell's condemnation of the punditocracy's shallowness on the war. But there's another problem as well. My colleague and boss at the Schuster Institute, the investigative journalist Florence Graves, has been talking about the news blackout on pictures of American coffins, body bags, and of the wounded and dead. We've all seen the formal pictures of the young men and women in their uniforms. While my father, a Korean war vet, was dying of cancer last year and unable to move, he made a point of turning on the TV news so he could pause and listen to the reading of the names of the dead servicemen and women. It was very moving to watch my dad, a dying (and in most ways, an exceedingly irreverent) man, pause each day to honor those who had died for the country--even though he fiercely opposed the war.

But seeing those formal pictures, or reading those names, is just not as devastating as seeing the steady influx of coffins, or as seeing pictures of wounded or dying Americans. Why is the American media complicit in hiding this face of the war from us all?

Certainly, seeing that long parade of flags touched me in a way I hadn't been touched before. Would more pictures bring more outrage?

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/03/19/hundreds_of_flags_3982_america/

[msongs]

1. how bout pics of the 100,000+ dead iraqis americans don't care about? nt

[tekisui]

2. The Iraqi death toll is most likely measured by 1million+, now.

And it pains me to think that. Not to mention the 4 million displaced and the 5 million orphaned.

[babylonsister]

5. Yes, the 06 Lancet Report had those numbers; how much higher now? nt

[babylonsister]

3. In case you didn't read the article, they were mentioned:

Yes, I know that it's just as grievous to think of the tens of thousands of Iraqis who have died. My friend Huda Ahmed, an Iraqi journalist, has personally lost more people than I can bear to consider, and reminds Americans periodically that Iraqi dead are just as important as American dead. And the truth is, Iraqis are the ones I think about most often when I am wrenched by the thought of the war.

[midnight]

4. Sad to hear about the loss of your father....But it is very

encouraging that those of our family who served our country and took an oath to defend our country against all enemies foreign and domestic are speaking against this war....Let's bring them Home and prevent any more dying. Our medica will need to find ways to reach viewers to sell their product...Let's just stop bying from the news stations that aren't telling us the real story... Because, yes more pictures will bring more outrage...

[gorenobel]

6. With so many fatalities, I don't understand how anyone would for McCain

It's puzzling to me how many people vow to vote for a man who promised to leave our troops 100 years in Iraq.
McCain might be worse when it comes to foreign policy than George W. Bush, who is bad enough.

I just fail to understand why.

[babylonsister]

7. Welcome to DU, gorenobel. I don't think it's time to panic yet;

we have plenty of time to argue with McCain about his vision of the future vs. ours, and people are paying attention.
Here's a current poll: people are realizing how this war has affected our economy, and that won't sit well with many more as this year progresses (sadly). Also, I think there are many people, including soldiers, who think Iraq is a no-win situation. I only wish the Dems would get off the pot and have a candidate we can get behind so we can shine a spotlight on McCain.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=3031510&mesg_id=3031510