a placeless world

"The most violent week since the start of the war in Iraq."

That's what she called it — the Botoxed blonde bombshell on the 6 o'clock news.

I long ago pledged to stop screaming at the office television. It doesn't seem to make the news anchors any less repugnant. And it doesn't seem to make the correspondents any more accurate, ethical or compassionate.

But I made a special exception this evening. Leaping from my chair, I paced the cubicle-lined aisles, grunting like an angry silverback.

"The most violent week since the start of the war in Iraq." The ignorance. The arrogance.

I mourn the loss of the soldiers and civilians killed in Iraq this week. I'm anguished by the scenes of hostages taken in this dreadful war.

As an American, I pray for the safety of my fellow countrymen. But I've never tried to fool myself into thinking that they alone should occupy my prayers.

I stare up at the small TV screen. "The most violent week? The most violent week?

"How…" I demand of the cake-faced anchor, "…could you forget the first weeks of this war? The weeks when U.S. bombs fell from they sky? The weeks when U.S. soldiers emptied their weapons into the bodies of Iraqi soldiers… and sometimes civilians?

"And how could you forget the intervening months? The months when wayward bombs and wayward bullets buried countless innocents?"

And with that, I'd answered my own question. I returned to my seat without further a word.
Countless innocents.

I've yet to hear a suitable explanation as to why the United States government does not account for those it kills in military action. As a former GI, I'm well aware of how accurately the boys in supply account for every spent bullet, for every used swab, for every last pair of shiny-toed boots.

And yet the U.S. military will not account for the bodies it creates.

Not for those of Iraqi innocents — killed because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, or because they were in the right place at the wrong time, or because they were in the wrong place at the right time.

Not for those of enemy soldiers — conscripted, by the way, to fight for a dictator whom they probably did not support.

And not even for those the U.S. calls "insurgents" who have taken up arms against what the U.S. calls a "liberation."

But U.S. soldiers are counted. Counted and honored and given due respect in death, if not in life.

Of course the dimwit anchor believes this to be the most violent day since the start of the war. She has no account to the contrary.

And most of her viewers don't want one. Most will not dispute that they value one American life over 1,000 others. Perhaps 10,000 others. That's their understanding of patriotism.

The American media does little to discourage such beliefs. A soldier returns as a hero when he lives. He returns as a legend and a martyr when he dies.

Even those professing anti-war politics enforce this paradigm. To them, a dead soldier represents the "failure" of the American war effort.

What of the others? What of the countless innocents? Are they not failures of the American war effort?

It doesn't matter. Thirty seconds have passed and the anchor is onto another story, taking her audience of hundreds of thousands along for the ride.

It's Good Friday, and some crazies in some foreign country have nailed themselves to a cross.
Look at those crazies. Look at them go.