Have Americans grown numb to numbers?

Yes, we all wept on September 11, 2001, when we heard that 2,973 people died in New York and Washington and Pennsylvania terrorist attacks. But now, we just sip our coffee while reading that 2,896 American soldiers have died, to date, in Afghanistan and Iraq. Now we just reach for the toast while reading that, officially, 20,000 American soldiers have been wounded.

Truly, counting the wounded and the dead is little more than a monotonous drumbeat, thrumming in monthly, weekly, and daily notations on the evening news, just before we hear about the weekend weather. Really, how often do we hear the newscaster say, "Another solider died in Iraq today" and then weep?

I don't fault us. Not entirely, anyway. Making us numb to numbers is presumably part of a calculated public relations campaign sponsored by the White House or the Department of Defense. You just know that some young lawyer with a gift for political spin, sitting in some small basement office in downtown Washington D.C., has polled the numbers about numbers and knows damn well that, over time, a steady sound of counting the dead becomes nothing but wistful white noise, numbers that - even when they refer to murder - no longer have any relationship to people.

Just the other day, I listened as CNN reported on the Johns Hopkins' findings that clinically suggested 654,000 Iraqi's have died, to date, as a consequence of the US invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Were we collectively moved to tears by this news? No. We patiently waited for more dirty revelations about Congressman Foley's sex life.

Meantime, in that same CNN television report, some multi-medaled US Lt.Col. was asked about the Johns Hopkins' findings. He expressed moderate surprise at the findings' estimate of Iraqi dead - but he was hardly nonplussed. He just shrugged and suggested without emotion that he believed the actual number of Iraqi dead to be perhaps "only 50,000."

Perhaps only 50,000?

I wasn't sure which was more horrifying: the multi-medaled US Lt. Col. being so far off in his estimate, or the multi-medaled US Lt. Col. saying that perhaps "only 50,000" Iraqis were dead as a consequence of US actions, without throwing up behind the podium.

Worse still, in the days that followed the Johns Hopkins announcement, as the story made the media circuit and then began its descent in to dark trivia, hardly a ripple of revulsion appeared across America.

Have we become that numb to numbers?

Consider: because of our direct actions as a nation, 654,000 pairs of eyes will no longer look with wonder at a sunrise. 654,000 pairs of ears will no longer hear the song of birds in spring. Because of our direct actions as a nation, 654,000 hearts will no longer beat faster with the excitement of falling in love.

Please spare me the letters and lectures about these dead Iraqis being nothing more than muted terrorists and extremists who would have brought their Jihad to America. And please spare me the letters and lectures about the living Iraqis now being better off. GOP geopolitics and Neo-con polemics be damned. If 654,000 people were killed in any other country as a consequence of the actions of any other nation, we would certainly call it genocide. 800,000 people were killed in Rwanda and we called it genocide. 400,000 people have been killed so far in Darfur and we call it genocide.

Because of our direct actions as a nation, 654,000 Iraqis are dead - so far. How can we accept this American made meat grinder, this Iraqi genocide? How can we remain numb to these numbers?

In truth, as an American, I have to believe that we cannot. I have to believe that, as Americans, we feel the human consequences of our actions, that, as Americans, we feel the loss we have rained down upon the Iraqis - and that, as Americans, we feel we must make amends.

In just weeks, yet again, another election will be held. And as with the elections before it, this one is yet another opportunity to stop enabling this genocide. This election is yet another opportunity to regain our sanity and our humanity.

At its best, despite its dark times and its dark acts, America has never been a nation that remained numb to numbers. Rather, at its best, America was, and should be again, a nation that looks upon the tired, the poor, and the huddled masses of the world community, with compassion and empathy.

As such, as a nation, let us feel these numbers - the Iraqi dead and the American dead. And then, as a nation, let us make amends.

Steven Laffoley (stevenlaffoley@yahoo.ca) is an American writer living in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He is the author of Mr. Bush, Angus and Me: Notes of an American-Canadian in the Age of Unreason.

###