The Iraqi Shoe Thrower

(Authors warning: There is a picture of a deceased child at the bottom of this post- a casualty of the Iraq war. It is a very small picture. I included it because it just might elicit the emotional response that might make someone want to throw their shoes at the person they feel is responsible for the death of a child.)

The shoe incident was a weird one. If you haven't seen it yet, here it is. It might have been laughable if I didn't understand the symbolism of what was happening. I remember as the United States military moved through Iraq "liberating" the country one area at a time the Iraqi people were slapping paintings of Saddam with their shoes. The news outlets explained to us that this was the ultimate act of defiance and disgust. I'm not sure there is an equivalent in our culture. So was calling someone a "dog" as this journalist did to Bush. "This is a gift from the Iraqis. This is the farewell kiss, you dog," he exclaimed. I don't think that guy should have thrown his shoes at Pres. Bush. But I think I understand why he did. The cartoon below pretty much sums it up for me.

The closest I've ever been to living in a country that was under attack was September 11th. I don't want that to happen again. We lost a lot of lives that day.

The whole Iraq mess it terrible. I don't pretend to have the right answer to this war. I do, however, believe that we were mis-led about the WMD's and Iraq's potential to really hurt us as a country. I don't know. However, I'm not sure this journalist was all that upset about why we went into Iraq, he was upset about what happened after we got there.

It's impossible to determine how many lives have been lost as a result of the war. At the writing of this entry, coalition deaths have totalled 4525. The attacks on 9/11, minus the terrorists, claimed 2,973 lives. This totals 7,498. While not all of these lives are American, for the purposes of this entry we'll consider them American losses. The estimated number of Iraqi deaths since the invasion in April of 2003 is staggering. The following is an excerpt from justforeignpolicy.org :

In a country such as Iraq, where sufficient reporting mechanisms do not exist, there is a scientifically accepted way to measure demographics including death rate: a cluster survey. Cluster surveys provide reliable demographic information the wake of natural disasters, wars and famines. Cluster surveys give us the data about deaths in Darfur, accepted for example by the U.S. government as one basis for its charge of genocide. They are used by U.N. agencies charged with disaster and famine relief.
In Iraq, there have been two scientifically rigorous cluster surveys conducted since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003. The first, published in the prestigious British medical journal The Lancet (available in pdf), estimated that 100,000 excess Iraqi deaths had resulted from the invasion as of September 2004. The second survey, also published in The Lancet (available in pdf), updated that estimate through July 2006. Due to an escalating mortality rate, the researchers estimated that over 650,000 Iraqis had died who would not have died had the death rate remained at pre-invasion levels. Roughly 601,000 of those excess deaths were due to violence.
As with all statistical methods, the Lancet surveys come with a margin of error, as do opinion polls, for example. In the second survey, the researchers were 95 percent certain that there were between 426,000 and 794,000 excess violent deaths from March 2003 to July 2006. 601,000 is the most likely number of excess violent deaths. It is this number that our Estimator updates.
As of September 2007, a poll from the British polling firm Opinion Research Business contributed to our understanding of the Iraqi death toll, confirming the likelihood that over a million have died with an estimate of 1.2 million deaths."

I honestly don't know how reliable these numbers are. I really don't. But the cost of war for Americans has been different than it has been for the Iraqis. Here is an article that speaks to how some of the actions of the American gov't are viewed by the locals. I think I believe things are improving in Iraq, and I am hopeful that the Iraqi people in the future will enjoy the same freedoms I enjoy. I'm just really uncomfortable with the price the Iraqi's have paid in civilian lives. I'm uncomfortable, the reporter was pissed, and I'm not sure I blame him.

I know there are people that will read this that have loved ones in the US military. So do I. I'm not calling them cold-blooded killers, I just don't think we in the west ever have any understanding of what the Iraqi people have gone through. I think if my friends, neighbors, and relatives were being killed on a regular basis, I'd probably want to throw something at the leader of the country responsible too. I wanted to on 9/11. And I didn't know any of those people.

I imagine that the journalist that threw his shoes has seen things I'll likely never see. I decided NOT to post some of the more disturbing images I found of civilian casualties from the Iraq war. The girl in the picture below was 6 and is being washed in preparation for her burial. You can find the article with the picture by clicking on it. There are more pictures there too. Be forewarned- it is not a feel-good article.

God help me understand how many Iraqi lives are worth the safety and security of one American life. It seems like fuzzy math to me.