The Yearly Body Count: Our Crime Against Iraq

3,000 American civilians killed on 9/11/2001

107,417 Iraqi civilians killed in retribution for those deaths

We’ve stacked up 34.13900 Iraqui corpses for every American killed in the 9/11 attacks.  Those are just the noncombatant civilians.

That does not account for the civilians killed in Afghanistan.

Although I’m not Christian, my country identifies itself as a Christian one.

Those are not the numbers of a Christian country.

Those are not numbers that speak of Christian values.

Those numbers represent the actions of barbarians.

I am an atheist.

My values say that it isn’t okay to seek revenge out of anger.

It isn’t okay to treat violence with exponential violence.

I believe that crimes should not go unpunished.

But I also believe in punishing the people who actually committed the crimes.

Not their families.

Their children.

Their neighbors.

Their entire fucking country.

107,417 Iraqi people have paid for a crime they did not commit.

So what we’ve done is commit a crime against the Iraqi people.

All of us are responsible for that crime.

So maybe today, while you mourn your personal losses, you will also mourn the Iraqi people who have been terrorized, torn apart, exploded, and annihilated because our country got mad.

What a breathtaking act of love, forgiveness, and healing it would be if everyone in the US today who is “not forgetting” would stand up and demand that we bring our troops home NOW and bring peace in the name of our dead instead of more dead. That would make me proud to be an American.

2 comments

  1. angelina says:

    I know it’s kind of harsh but I’m so sad at all the people killed over this issue. I really don’t care about their nationality or their religion- I just want them all to be honored and remembered together. Everyone is the loser in this war, and I feel for the Americans who lost people on 9/11 but that is never the whole story but it’s the only one most people tell. Heartsick.

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