four thousand. 4000. the associated press is reporting a roadside bomb killed four u.s. soldiers in baghdad today, bringing the total of u.s. military casualties in iraq to four thousand.here's my question: who cares?
why should we care if four more soldiers died? lots of us haven't seemed to care much about those other 3,996, what's another four? i'm sure those four families knew this was a possibility, right? we'll never have to see their flag draped coffins, so we can continue talking about how bill clinton is joe mccarthy, or how barack obama's pastor hates america (p.s. hating america is so 2006.)
as i write this, surpassing the big 4000 is still the third story on the new york times website (behind more eliot spitzer news, and 13 dead iraqis.) cable news media has shifted it's coverage of the iraq war too: a year ago it accounted for 24% of their programming. this year, only 1%. (in the last fifteen weeks, only four minutes per week!)
so let's keep those troops over there for another hundred years! as long as we don't have to think about it, there's no draft, and our kids or brothers or nieces or nephews don't have to go -- hey, let's party!
you know, maybe this is the true turning point in the war. remember the others? the death of saddam's sons, the capture of saddam, the taking of fallujah, the death of zarqawi, blah-blah-blah, zarquawi-schmarqawi, they were all turning points, right?
well, maybe reaching 4000 dead soldiers is the turning point we've all been waiting for. maybe now -- finally -- we can let go of our war guilt and let those darn soldiers fight and die without it interrupting our day! i mean, i can't watch american idol while i'm thinking about IEDs!
the best response of all to 4000 dead soldiers, i think, would be to quote the vice president: so?
lots of the numbers and figures here (as well as entire sentences!) were taken directly from wnyc's on the media: 5 years of covering iraq. give it a listen. and if you haven't forgotten we're a nation at war:
- post a message of support to soldiers.
- send a uso care package via the uso site.
- ideas from the usps on how you can support a soldier.
There is also a group called Books For Soldiers (booksforsoldiers.org), who post requests from service members in all branches, all over the world -- their motto is "care packages for the mind." I have sent several through them and think they're a great organization.
ReplyDelete