Are U.S. Deaths More Valuable Than Other People's Deaths?

If you ask someone on the street to identify the number of civilians that have died as a result of the Iraq war, 9 out of 10 wouldn't be able to tell you. If you ask that same person to identify the number of people that are dying from AIDS each year in Africa alone, again, 9 out of 10 are going to have no idea. Ask another 10 people how many civilians die each year in the Israel/Palestine conflict and there will probably be 9 who have no idea. However, ask them how many people died in the 9/11 attacks or how many U.S. soldiers have died and I would bet all of them would be close to the right answer.

This is life in America, we don't value life. We value our own lives and the lives of fellow American's, but we truly don't value life. If we did, we might think twice about some of our actions and our policies. The U.S. is an isolated country. We look to our own interests first and foremost without thinking about the consequences of those actions.

Let us first look to Iraq and how our presence there has cost the lives of thousands of Iraqi civilians. Now, I do want to say right away that I do not support Saddam or his regime. I just find that our own acceptance of Iraqi deaths as "a necessary part of war" is appaling. If we take the smallest estimate that our government has admitted to, we get 50,000 deaths. But really, now many is that? When we use numbers like that, it doesn't put it into context at all. How do we determine if that is substantial? Well, if 3,000 died in the 9/11 attacks, 50,000 is almost 17 times that amount....another words, we would have to have terrorist attacks against use on the scale of 9/11 SEVENTEEN more times to equal the deaths of the number of Iraqi's killed since the U.S. invasion. Remember, this is the smallest number that the government admits too. One study put the number at around 650,000. While this number has been received with less than stellar reviews, let's look at it. If that number is true, then it would take terrorist attacks on the scale of 9/11 216 more times. Either way you look at it, it is a large number.

But the real problem isn't that this is happening, it's the fact that most American's don't care. You will always hear people say things like "well Saddam was killing his own people" or "They have freedom now instead of living in fear." This is just plain stupidity. Did Saddam kill his own people, absolutely. Does that mean it's acceptable that we've caused many times more deaths than Saddam, NO! And to say that they don't live in fear anymore is a joke. Because of sectarian violence and terrorists coming into Iraq, Iraqis are just as scared as ever.

American's need to wake up and realize the failures of the Iraq war. Does that mean we leave Iraq? No. What it does mean is that we need to wake up and realize what is going on. We need to start valuing life and realizing that while looking out for our own interests, we are actually hurting our interests. A life lost, regardless if it is American, Iraqi or otherwise is still a life lost. Once we realize this and begin to see the damage we've cost, maybe we'll be more willing to do everything we can to fix the situation instead of talking about how quickly we can leave.