[Media-watch] The 'tsunami' victims that we don't count - The Boston Globe - 7/1/2005

[Julie-ann Davies]

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/01/07/the_tsunami_victims_that_we_dont_count?pg=full

 The 'tsunami' victims that we don't count
By Derrick Z. Jackson  |  January 7, 2005

SECRETARY of State Colin Powell tours tsunami-stricken Banda Aceh and says, 
"I cannot begin to imagine the horror that went through the families and all 
of the people who heard this noise coming and then had their lives snuffed 
out by this wave."

Richard Lugar, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, issued a 
resolution that said: "The tsunami disaster constitutes a humanitarian 
tragedy of incredible proportions. . . . My heart goes out to the victims of 
this tragedy."

Last and hardly least, President Bush said: "The devastation in the region 
defies comprehension. . . . Our flags will fly at half-staff to honor the 
victims of this disaster. We mourn especially the tens of thousands of 
children who are lost. We think of the tens of thousands more who will grow 
up without their parents or their brothers or their sisters. We hold in our 
prayers all the people whose fate is still unknown."

In the abstract, the outpouring was appropriate. In context, the sympathy 
was a stench unto itself. Tens of thousands of people die by an act of 
nature and we say we cannot imagine the horror. We say it defies 
comprehension. We call it a catastrophe.

In Iraq we kill off thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of innocent 
civilians with our own hands, and we reject any attempt to comprehend what 
we have done. Countless Iraqi civilians are homeless. We call it liberation.

Bush quoted all the numbers for the tsunami in speeches this week: 150,000 
lives lost, including 90,000 in Indonesia; perhaps 5 million homeless; 
millions vulnerable to disease. That stands in hypocritical contrast to the 
refusal to count the Iraqi civilians killed in his invasion over false 
claims of weapons of mass destruction and the crime-ridden chaos of an 
occupation that did not plan on an "insurgency."

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and former Iraqi commander Tommy Franks 
both said, "We don't do body counts." Then, right in our faces, Powell said 
civilian casualty figures were "relatively low." Central Command spokesman 
Pete Mitchell hailed the invasion for its "unbelievably low amount of 
collateral damage and needless civilian death." Paul Bremer, Bush's former 
civilian reconstruction envoy, said, "We have freed people with one of the 
great military battles of all time, in a period of three weeks, with almost 
no collateral damage, very few civilian deaths, and they are now free."

The White House left the counting to journalists, doctors, think tanks, and 
human rights groups. The numbers range from conservative guesses of 3,200 in 
the first few weeks of the war and occupation estimates ranging from 15,000 
to 100,000. No matter if the number was 3,200 or 32,000, this atrocity of 
silence makes the torture in Abu Ghraib pale in comparison.

No flags have been flown at half-staff for Iraqi civilians. There have been 
no moments of silence in Congress. There have been no speeches by Bush 
mourning "the tens of thousands of children who are lost." Americans have 
not been asked to think of the "tens of thousands more who will grow up 
without their parents or their brothers or their sisters."

In a nation that supposedly reelected Bush on "moral values," there have 
been no prayers from the White House for "all the people whose fate is still 
unknown" in Iraq. This was a bipartisan hypocrisy. Even Nancy Pelosi, the 
House Democratic leader, fell into the trap of favoritism, fueling the 
appearance that this war was a religious crusade.

At the beginning of the war she said, "We pray for the swift and successful 
disarmament of Iraq with the least possible loss of life among our forces 
and the civilians of Iraq." But then she closed her message with: "May God 
bless our courageous forces and their brave families. May God bless the 
president of the United States. And may God bless America."

Not once did Pelosi or any American politician say in the last two years, 
"God bless Iraqi civilians" or any variant. Only one time has Bush uttered 
"God bless the people of Iraq," and that was in announcing Saddam Hussein's 
capture. Not once has he asked God's blessing for the courageous civilians 
and the families of Iraq who had no choice but to brave our bombs.

Let us do what we can for the victims of the tsunami. But no matter how much 
we weep for them, no matter what donations we spare, the offerings will not 
spare us from history's judgment, if not God's. Lugar said his heart goes 
out to the victims of the tsunami. No hearts have gone out to Iraqi 
civilians in this heartless coverup.

Powell said of the tsunami, "The power of the wave to destroy bridges, to 
destroy factories, to destroy homes, to destroy crops, to destroy everything 
in its path is amazing." He said, "I have never seen anything like it in my 
experience."

Yes, he has. It was in Iraq. The tsunami was us.

Derrick Z. Jackson's e-mail address is jackson at globe.com.



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