Source: The New York Times

Today’s Times offers this ‘Op-Chart’ showing a comparison of American and allied deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan during 2009 by means of a map and legend to illustrate details. Accompanying text speaks about the tragedy of the “loss of any American life” and explains that “the colors on the chart show the extent to which the Western allies are sharing the deadly burden,”—invisible and unmentioned are the fatalities among either the “non-Western” Iraqi Army or Afghan Army and security personnel, deaths among what the U.S. considers to be ‘enemy combatants,’ deaths among civilian populations of either arena, or statistics on the massive numbers of serious injuries (physical and psychological) or refugee displacements that these wars have brought with them.

An aspect of this that I find extremely troublesome is the portrayal of an American or Western life (or death) as somehow being more valuable than that of another human being from a different hemisphere. This is consistent with a disturbing trend appearing in mainstream media over the past few years (the de-humanization of “the other”), creating further rifts between “them” and “us.” I choose to continue to believe that each life is worth as much as every other life.

Conservative estimates of total human death-tolls to date resulting from U.S.-led wars on/in Iraq (2003-2010…) and Afghanistan (2001-2010…) are in the hundreds of thousands. Canadian combatants are also engaged in Afghanistan (recent deaths shown in red) much to my chagrin and shame…