Mike
Ferner.
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Passing the
grim marker of 3,000 U.S. troops killed in Iraq briefly focused
Americans' attention on the war. But we live in a big country
with lots of malls.
To be sure,
the death of 3,000 soldiers is tragic and sickening, yet we are
a nation of over 300 million and most families have not lost a
loved one. Even with some 32,000 GIs requiring medical evacuation
for wounds, most Americans still do not personally know a casualty
of this war.
But what
if our fellow citizens were killed and wounded at the same rate
as people in Iraq? Here's the math.
Last fall
the British medical journal, Lancet, published a study done by
researchers from Johns
Hopkins University estimating that the midrange number of
Iraqis dead "as a consequence of the war" was about 2.5 per cent
of that country's population, or roughly 655,000 people. Over
90 per cent of those died from violence.
Comparable
casualties in our
country would mean that every person in Atlanta, Denver, Boston,
Seattle, Milwaukee, Fort Worth, Baltimore, San Francisco, Dallas
and Philadelphia would be dead. Every. Single. Person.
And we are
just now getting serious about cutting off money for this war?
Besides that
unimaginable death toll, every person in Vermont, Delaware, Hawaii,
Idaho, Nebraska, Nevada, Kansas, Mississippi, Iowa, Oregon, South
Carolina, and Colorado would be wounded. Every. Single. Person.
Would that
be the point we stopped politely asking our Congress members to
please end the war, and began taking over their offices in every
state in the union?
And what
if, in nightmare America, when you turned on the tap you got a
thin stream of sick water; there was no reliable electricity to
cool the desert heat or preserve food; no proper hospitals or
rehab services to help the wounded become productive members of
society once again?
Would we
be content to go to our nation's capital for a day, hold our banners
aloft, and return home? Or would we sit down in the streets of
Washington by the thousands and bring government to a standstill?
Could the
rest of our nation deal with everyone in 10 major cities killed
and every person in 12 states wounded, if 216,000
doctors had left the U.S. in the last three years, and just
last year 3,000 doctors were kidnapped and 800 killed; with our
roads, schools, and housing falling apart; with three times as
many people out of work as during the Great Depression; with unknown
horrors to come from depleted uranium?
Fortunately
for our individual and national soul we have the Occupation
Project sponsored by Voices for Creative Nonviolence. During
February and March, as Congress debates another US$90,000,000,000
for the war, the time-honored "sit-down" will be revived at local
congressional offices across America, demanding representatives
and senators vote against more blood money.
By the end
of March, if we and our friends aren't found guilty of occupying
a congressional office somewhere in this great land, we will be
guilty of something far worse.
Note:
Mike Ferner is a freelance
writer and a former member of Toledo City Council. He served as
a Navy Corpsman during Vietnam and is a member of Veterans
For Peace.
His book, Inside the Red Zone: A Veteran For Peace Reports from
Iraq (Praeger), has just been published. You can keep up with
the latest addition to America's burgeoning criminal population
at www.mikeferner.org.
Click here for other articles by Mike Ferner:
To The Choir
Pick A Number
Let Humanity's Mutiny Begin
What It Takes To Defy Authority In A Non-Violent Way
Haditha Is Not An Aberration
Movements: From Antiwar, To Peace, To Democracy
Speaker Of House Not Responsible For War Funding
Seven Arrested At White House Protest Against Iraq War
There Are Lives In The Balance
Getting Jailed For Peace
