Another Casualty Of War: Our Capacity To Feel.

On the day after Christmas 2004, while in the midst of the war on terror in Iraq, Americans and the world awoke to the horrible news that a tsunami had hit Indonesia. Immediately, there were pictures and video of its victims, and the extreme devastation it caused. America, with the rest of the world, felt their loss and shared their pain. And as Americans, we reached deep into our pockets and our hearts, and pledged support to help a part of the world we knew little about, but we felt the anguish of its survivors, and cried at the loss of the 300,000 people who died there. I remember feeling helpless and mournful, and overwhelmed. I could not grasp what 300,000 lost lives looked like. I could not get my arms around that number. I had nothing to compare it to. There was no yardstick.

Six years ago today, September 11, 2001, four jet planes were hijacked, flown, and crashed into the World Trade Center in Manhattan, The Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, and into an open field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. These attacks resulted in the deaths of close to 3000 people. And for a while, the world mourned for us. Germany’s leader of Parliament, Peter Struck, summed up the world’s emotions by saying, “today, we are all Americans.”

In those six years, an unknowable number of Iraq and Afghanistan civilians have been killed as a direct result of America’s response to the 9/11 attacks and to our “war on terror.” As of today, 3770 American troops – more than those who died on 9/11, have died in Iraq. An estimated 100,000 to 500,000 Iraqi troops and civilians have died since our attack on Iraq on March 20, 2003.

As Americans, even though we hear about death and destruction every day. we’re pretty lucky. And while any news outlet can and will offer a story on death, or an act of violence, or a natural disaster every day, we also know that, with the exception of those with loved ones in the armed forces, chances are that none of that will hit us directly. Or indirectly. (If there are only six degrees of separation, most Americans are fortunate to be closer to the six than to the one.) And so we go about our business, knowing that tomorrow will come, there will be more news reports, and then we will go to sleep, only to continue the same cycle the next day.

Less than three years ago, the death of 300,000 people was incomprehensible. Now, after six years of war in Iraq, and throughout the Middle East, terrorism across the world, bombings in London and Madrid, and even increased global natural disasters, our capacity to feel has been marginalized. We’ve put up walls to maintain our sanity. We’ve all seen the pictures on TV, the maimed and blood-soaked bodies, crying children, angry teenagers, civilian men and women on stretchers being rushed to hospitals. And yet, we have learned to separate our ability to grieve for, say, the victims of the tsunami in Indonesia, from our grief about the same number – or more – of Iraqi civilians. 300,000 dead in Indonesia was incomprehensible. 300,000 dead in Iraq, not so much. 3770 of ours, 300,000 of theirs.

If you’re here thanks to seeing this piece on The Issue.com, thank you for visiting. And thanks to The Issue.com for featuring this piece in their October 5, 2007 Best of The Blogosphere section. Have a look around. If there’s anything here you like, please tell your friends, subscribe to my RSS feed, or bookmark this site. And, please come back, soon.

Tags: 11, America, death, hurricane, Indonesia, Iraq, natural disasters, New York City, September 11, terror, tsunami, War