WITH THE heated election behind us, discourse and debate on the Iraq war has almost vanished from our minds and television screens. But since the election, almost 150 American soldiers have been killed in Iraq. The situation is expected to worsen as the Iraqi election approaches in January. And the Pentagon is pushing for more equipment and soldiers to depart for Iraq. Yet staged protests, opposing political stances and public outcries are nearly nonexistent. In case you forgot, thousands of American soldiers are abroad fighting a deadly war while we contentedly eat turkey and start our holiday shopping. The American media presents a "cleaned up," painless version of the war, which diminishes our ability to participate in the political process intelligently.
The value of an individual has not changed since Nov. 2. To this day, there have been 1,270 American casualties in Iraq, more than six times the number of people who died in the al Qaeda attacks in Madrid, which convinced Spain to pull out of Iraq. Why do we, without political or public opposition, continue to send our troops to Iraq when the threat to American citizens is still suspect and the number of casualties continues to rise?
Supporters and non-supporters of the war respond that America has already started this takeover and therefore, leaving Iraqi citizens in this dire situation would be unjust. However, the Project on Defense Alternatives surveyed Baghdad-area hospital records in 2003 and reported 1,101 Iraqi civilian deaths and another 1,255 possible deaths related to war casualties. Not only are American soldiers dying in this violent mess, non-armed Iraqis must also fear death.
The lack of discourse in the media and daily conversations, therefore, is of the highest concern, because it characterizes an American people uninterested in war casualties and atrocities. Americans are becoming accustomed to reports of casualties in Iraq. When watching the evening news, these casualty numbers, for some viewers, do not even provoke emotional responses normally associated with innocent, premature deaths. Yet 10 soldiers are 10 individuals. How emotionally quiet and ignorant would individuals remain if their family members or friends were sent to Iraq and simply became numbers on the television screen?
The problem lies in the American media's refusal to stamp an emotional "face" on the war. Images are processed, censored and produced to conform to industry standards before reaching American households. The Pentagon prevents the media from showing images of American soldier caskets. Beheadings are never aired on any domestic media sources. Foreign countries, however, show the graphic images of these horrific events, and approval for the war is significantly lower. Although there is not enough evidence to suggest a causal link, my personal experience in Europe this summer, where I witnessed telecasts of these deadly images and beheadings, drastically changed my perception of the Iraq war.
Although these horrifying images depict reality, they are incredibly disturbing and upsetting. But some individual, some organization or some image needs to provoke Americans and make them question the actuality of the current situation -- people like you and me, whether American or Iraqi, are being brutally murdered every day.
It is unfair to soldiers and Iraqi citizens to sit here and pretend that nothing is happening. Every individual should pursue the facts and look at different international media sources. We should not just "go on with our lives" and give the president full reign to send more troops abroad and incite more violence in Iraq. Do not just glance at the casualty numbers in the morning newspaper; think about the emotional implications of these deaths.
In traditional wars, supporters and leaders actually risked their lives and fought the enemy -- maybe this is the solution to prevent America from entering wars with overstated threats, no clear objectives and mediocre plans for reconstruction. In the meantime, our only means to resist war and unfair policy in a democracy is to make our voice heard. In order to respect the value of every individual, think about the Iraq war, think about the number of casualties and think about Iraqi citizens. To ignore the realities and brutality of this war is an atrocious character flaw of the American media and many of its subscribers.
Michael Behr's column appears Wednesdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at mbehr@cavalierdaily.com.
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