Keeping Score in a War: The Human Toll

Hello everyone, this is Evan. I will be publishing a new perspective or current events piece ever Friday from now on, giving my take on issues from a Democratic standpoint. Hopefully, more weekly columns such as this one will be added as time goes on.

Representative Mike Pence, attempting to show the success of the war in Iraq, now declares a victory for the US, 25 to 1. He justifies this by saying that we have lost only 2000 troops while we have killed somewhere around 50,000 – 60,000 insurgents. This accounting uses a primitive criterion for victory and discounts the greatest damage done by the war in Iraq, the deaths of innocent civilians. Instead of holistically looking at the impact of soldiers’ deaths, the cost of the war, and all casualties related to the war, Mr. Pence instead feels that killing more of the enemy then they kill of you constitutes success. Iraq Body Count, on the other hand, keeps track of how many Iraqi civilians have died. The non-profit now says that, after continuously tallying up the deaths reported by the government and news sources in Iraq, a minimum of 27,101 civilians have died. However, the maximum could go as high as 30,545. All deaths that are listed are ones that the Geneva Convention requires the occupying power of a country to prevent, such as “breakdowns in law and order” or our troops fire. The site, http://www.iraqbodycount.org/, reports that our soldiers were responsible for up to 7,299 civilian deaths at the beginning of the war and “major combat operations.” These are grim numbers reflecting the overall failure of the war.

Back to Mr. Pence's 25 to 1 ratio. If you factor in all the deaths the US was obligated to prevent, and those of our own soldiers, we lost one person for every two insurgents killed, grim odds for a war against a seemingly endless stream of insurgents. These insurgents stem from the dislike held for the United States in Iraq. The war in Iraq can not be deemed a positive action if the United States has not succeeded in “winning the hearts and minds” of the Iraqi people. Indeed, in order to win the hearts and minds of the people of Iraq they must still have the bodies that contain the hearts and minds. Our occupation will seem even worse to Iraqis if we are incapable of protecting their families. This ever growing Iraqi displeasure with the United States will hinder any progress in the war on terror and the war in Iraq.

Beyond the human cost of the war, the United States is also forced to pay massive amounts of money for our actions in Iraq. In fact the United State’s total expenditure for the war now tops 222 billion dollars according to the National Priorities Institute. They go on to observe that this money could have given every child in the world basic immunization for seventy-four years or have “fully funded global anti-hunger efforts” for 9 years. Our actions in Iraq are failing and money is being sucked from America in great gulps by the war effort when other humanitarian projects could have been funded. The war in Iraq is not a victory for the citizens of Iraq or for the citizens of the world and the US for that matter. At least Rep. Pence can savor our glorious success.