How many of us, and of the MSM reporters and pundits, made note of the fact that Iraqi deaths and Iraqi refugees where not highlighted in the recent congressional hearings?
What does it say about the USA that we were grilling Petraeus about the heroic 4000 Americans who perished in this needless war and the trillions of US dollars being spent or about to be spent in Iraq, when there are Iraqi body counts that range from 90,300 at the most conservative end, to such horrific estimates as 1,197,000?
What does it say about us when we neglect to emphasize that our so called "pursuit to free Iraq" has in fact led to nearly 5 million Iraqi refugees inside and outside Iraq?
When we learn that the refugee count is averaging about one million per year since the war started, does this change us in anyway?
According to the UN Refugee Agency and the International Organization for Migration in 2007, almost 5 million Iraqis had been displaced by violence in their country, the vast majority of which had fled since 2003. Over 2.4 million vacated their homes for safer areas within Iraq, up to 1.5 million were living in Syria, and over 1 million refugees were inhabiting Jordan, Iran, Egypt, Lebanon, Turkey and Gulf States. Most Iraqis are determined to be resettled to Europe or North America, and few consider return to Iraq an option. Iraqis have no legal work options in most host countries and are increasingly desperate and in need of humanitarian assistance. They face challenges in finding housing, obtaining food, and have trouble accessing host countries’ health and education systems. Their resources depleted, small numbers of Iraqis have returned to Iraq in the past few months, but Iraq’s struggling government recently warned that it can’t accommodate large numbers of returns. Most of those who returned were subsequently displaced again.
Here is a youtube report on the refugee crisis:
Here is what pains me:
I used to think that Western civilization prided itself in the way human life is valued.
I feel that our incredible isolationism has not only resulted in a kind of nationalistic narcissism that blinds us and reduces the chances that we would notice others, I fear it has eliminated our capacity for empathy towards others and any likelihood that we would be concerned about what we do onto others.
We decry the viciousness and savageness of insurgents when they attack us, as if they had no capacity to value our lives, but seem to fail to decry our incapacity to value their lives.
This cannot go on. It will definitely come back to hurt us. Clearly, this is a result of decades of living in our own bubble. What the next generation will face is an America where nobody is valued if the terms "them, they, aliens, foreigners, ... etc." (inject your favorite xenophobic term) can be used to describe them.
UPDATE
I have looked long and hard for updated counts of Iraqi wounded civilians to no avail. If anyone knows of a good source, please post it in a comment below. Thanks,