100,000 Iraqi Dead. So Where's the Media?

by Peter Ryan

There is no doubt that the United States has dealt with its share of tragedies and losses over the past five years. On September 11th, 2001 about 3,000 men, women and children lost their lives during an onslaught of terrorist attacks. In the war in Iraq, we have lost over 1,000 of our men and women in uniform to the conflict. Every town and every county in America has, one way or another, been touched by these losses and the repercussions of these events--on our culture, our politics and our way of viewing the world--has been imminently clear. The violent acts committed against us have left a mark on our national psyche. In response to the 3,000 who died on September 11th, many Americans vowed to "never forget" that day--or its implications.

How then can we even begin to contemplate how the loss of 100,000 Iraqi civilians has transfigured Iraq? A recent study by the Lancet medical journal concluded that, since the US invasion of Iraq, there have been at least 100,000 more civilian deaths than there would have been otherwise, many of these due to US actions. Richard Horten from the Lancet, in an article about the new study, explained that "Much of this increased mortality is a consequence of the prevailing climate of violence in the country, and many of the civilian casualties that are described were attributed to the actions of coalition forces. These findings--and the tentative countrywide mortality projections they support--have immediately translatable policy implications for those charged with managing the aftermath of invasion."

According to the study, violence became the number one cause of death after the invasion and most violent deaths of civilians were attributed to Coalition Forces. Representatives from the Lancet refer to the number as a "conservative estimate" and excluded some of the hardest hit areas like Fallujah from their study to ensure that their results would not be skewed or exaggerated. The number, no doubt, will be disputed by some and, of course, no scientific study is flawless. There seems to be no doubt, however, whatever the actual number might be, that an enormous number of Iraqi civilians have died since the launching of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. And the fact that any and every scientific study can and will be disputed does not mean that every scientific study can and should be ignored. This number was not developed by a partisan organization, the goal was simply to assess the number of civilian casualties in Iraq, whatever the results might be.

Americans supposedly care deeply about the lives of Iraqis. The Bush administration, in fact, has more or less claimed that the war was fought for the sake of the Iraqis, so that freedom and democracy could be brought to that country. Bush's opposition on the Left largely based their arguments against the war on the potential impact on Iraqi civilians, believing that such an act could lead the country down the road to chaos or even civil war. So if both sides are so concerned with the welfare of Iraqi citizens, why isn't "100,000 Iraqi Dead" the biggest story of the year? The U.S. media, which thoroughly covered the death of 1,000 U.S. soldiers, has remained largely silent on this issue.

To be fair, the story was picked up by a number of publications, particularly "left leaning" newspapers and magazines. For a good analysis of the study as a whole, I would recommend the Guardian's reporting and a story published in the New York Times.

But, by and large, the story has been, at best, a side note to other news items, overshadowed, for example, by the U.S. presidential race. And, viewed in its larger context, a pattern can be seen and the bias in the U.S. media is clear: if 30 U.S. citizens were to die in Iraq tomorrow, it would be front page news. Yet 100,000 Iraqi dead is buried somewhere on page 2. To grieve for America's fallen is just and proper but to ignore the tragedies of other nations--particularly the tragedies that we helped to shape--is both arrogant and obscene.

What I'm about to say should be a no-brainer: the life of an Iraqi is just as valuable as the life of an American. Iraqi life is valuable and this fact should be reflected in both the polices of our government and the programming of our media. Currently, it is not.

The same types of bias have been pointed out by critics of the U.S. media's coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. If 18 Israelis died in a suicide attack, it would be front page news in most American newspapers. If 18 Palestinian civilians died in an Israeli air strike or assassination attempt, it would probably be shuffled to the back pages that few ever read. Furthermore, every attempt is made to humanize the Israeli deaths, including quotes from family and community members, while this contextualization is rare in stories about Palestinian deaths, who are mostly left anonymous. Again, humanizing Israeli victims of terror is proper and just but doing so while ignoring the Palestinian victims of terror is evidence of bias and ill intent toward the Palestinian people. But don't take my word for it--start collecting articles published by your local paper, compare the coverage given to the two different groups and judge for yourself.

The media has also done a poor job in communicating the reality of life under Occupation. Issues like house demolitions, closures, land confiscation and the wall receive scant attention in comparison to the cycle of violence that plagues the region. Many Americans, as a result, do not even understand the basic fact that Israel is illegally occupying the Palestinian Territories. The consequences of such a "knowledge gap" for the future of American foreign policy could be quite severe.

On September 11th, the United States suffered a great tragedy that we will always remember. But the Iraqis, too, have suffered a September 11th of sorts. So have the Palestinians. And for that matter, so have the Israelis, the Iranians, the Afghans, the Sudanese, the Rwandans, the Kurds, the Russians, the Chechnyians--and every other nation in the world. Some of these tragedies, of course, have been far more severe than our own. What if, on September 11th, 100,000 Americans had died, not 3,000? How would our nation respond to a tragedy of such a magnitude?

Just as an outside observer would have difficulty understanding the current U.S. political climate if they ignored the impact of September 11th, we too risk ignorance if we don't pay attention to the tremendous personal sufferings that groups like Iraqis and Palestinians have endured.

A popular question these days in America about the peoples of the Middle East is: "Why do they hate us?" Another good question would be: "why are they grieving?" Searching for the roots of their suffering, in addition to the roots of their anger, would bring us all closer to finding real and legitimate solutions to the difficulties that plague the region.

See the study on Iraqi civilian deaths at the Lancet website

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This article is a Middle East Window exclusive. It cannot be republished without the prior written consent of the editor. For information about republication rights, please contact: peter@middleeastfellowship.org