Almost every media report from, or about, Iraq prominently features the number of U.S. military casualties – and often the number of British military casualties – but almost never do we read about the number of others who are dying.
Here is a box score, based on some recent estimates:
Number of U.S. military casualties: 2,788 (source: icasualties.org)
Number of British military casualties: 119 (source: icasualties.org)
Number of other military casualties: 119 (source: icasualties.org)
Number of Iraq military casualties: ???? (no one seems to be counting)
Number of Iraq civilian casualties: 655,000 (source: October 2006 study published by The Lancet)
An October 2004 study by The Lancet, a prestigious British medical journal, reported that the risk of death by violence in Iraq is 58 times higher than before the illegal U.S. invasion.
U.S. soldiers are dying at an extremely high rate in Iraq – and that’s a tragedy.
But the civilian casualty rate is unconscionably high – and that’s a catastrophe.
Why doesn’t the media include the civilian death rate in the second paragraph of every story about Iraq – just like they do with the U.S. military death rate?
The facts are pretty compelling.
- Michael Shapcott
