connecting*the*dots

(originally uploaded by LeggNet)

On Dying In Virginia
The Black Iris of Jordan

I was kind of shocked and saddened to hear about the shooting in Virginia Tech that has dominated western media in the past 48 hours, especially the Internet. I tend to pay close attention to how such incidents unravel in the media and the public eye. The number 30 was splashed across home pages of the BBC and CNN for quite some time and it’s just one of those things where one cannot help but take a step back and realize how important those 30 lives were. I mean for instance 30 is the new 20 in Iraq; daily bombings and slaughters inspire at least that much.

One could easily cast this aside as another orientalist view of the world: that their lives are worth more than our lives. I mean I’m sure it plays a role, after all, a day after the shooting the “30 dead� headline was replaced with “South Korean gunman�, as if origin mattered; as if this was the opportunity the US was waiting for all along to invade North Korea (because their names sound suspiciously similar). But maybe there’s more to it.

In between hoping the gunman isn’t Arab, there is a common denominator to consider.

There’s something to be said about the storm that breaks the quiet; when tranquility is disturbed and replaced with chaos, which of course inspires fear, confusion and anger.

When you’re used to chaos, more if it is simply nothing new. One becomes accustomed to death. If I turned on the TV to hear that there were no new deaths in Occupied Palestine or Iraq or Darfur, then I would rush to the window to make sure the apocalypse wasn’t being ushered in with falling meteors from the sky.

You get used to certain things.

But then Virginia isn’t Palestine.

Virginia isn’t Iraq.

And yes, an American isn’t a Palestinian, isn’t an Iraqi. If anything, the media makes sure to remind us of that time and time again.

The irony of this I suppose is that if anyone on the face of the Earth right now knows what it means to have innocent life taken from them; to know what it feels to have that tranquility disturbed, if anyone right now knows that feeling, those people are in Iraq and Palestine.

The only difference is hope.

The US seems to have plenty of it. There is always that light at the end of the tunnel; the recovery, the moving on, the getting over the initial shock, the coming to terms with it, coming to grips with it.

Here in the Middle East, hope is as scarce as water these days (i.e. roughly half a century to be more accurate). There is no getting over the shock; there’s just not enough time to recover from loss before another comes along to replace it. There are no recovery stories here. No learning-how-to-move-on tales to be told. Yesterday is today; today is tomorrow.

Hope doesn’t live here anymore.

Maybe there should be a cultural exchange: we could teach Americans a thing or two about how to deal with the shock of loss and maybe they could teach us a thing or two about hope.

Being that they control the world supply of hope: maybe they would be kind enough to just lend us some.

Just for the weekend.

30 is 30, just as 30,000 is 30,000, just as insanity is insanity.

While I fully realize I live in a much more stable world than a majority of human beings on this earth — that the chances of me or my loved ones falling victim to random acts of violence are slim at best — I still feel the need to cling to my sense of hope.

Because for me, that sense of hope isn’t relegated solely to my circle of friends, family and neighbor’s well being — it’s continuously extending outwards to people who deal with depravity and destruction on a daily basis.

This week, it’s extended to my neighbors in Virginia.

Every other week, it seems to bounce between folks caught up in the system at home and folks caught up in the violence around the world, particularly in the Middle-East and Africa.

And I know I’m not alone.

Hopefully, Nas and his neighbors will one day receive a pause from the cycle of violence to breathe in and digest this reality.

Hopefully.

From an email sent to me by a friend:

As an active duty Marine I can not really voice my opinions about some of the events of the world. As you know we recently lost our 3000th service member and a song popped in my head. “Counting Bodies Like Sheep to the Rhythm of the War Drums” by A Perfect Circle.

If you post anything all I ask is that you not mention my name.

You got it, man.

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Editor & Publisher Staff
Iraqi Death Toll Over 50,000, ‘L.A. Times’ Reveals

At least 50,000 Iraqis, mostly civilians, have died violently since the 2003 U.S. invasion, according to statistics from the Baghdad morgue, the Iraqi Health Ministry and other agencies, the Los Angeles Times reports today. This is “a toll 20,000 higher than previously acknowledged by the Bush administration,” the newspaper declares.

“The toll, which is dominated by civilians but probably also includes some security forces and insurgents, is daunting: Proportionately, it’s as if 600,000 Americans had been killed nationwide during the last three years,” the Times observes.

In the same period, at least 2,520 U.S. troops have been killed in Iraq, including four today and 18 or more this week.

“Many more Iraqis are believed to have been killed but have not been counted because of serious lapses in recording the number of deaths in the chaotic first year after the invasion, when there was no functioning Iraqi government, and continued spotty reporting nationwide,” the Times relates.

Health Ministry figures for May shows the rate of war-related deaths nearly tripling nationwide, from 334 in May 2004 to 1,154 last month.

“The documented cases show a country descending further into violence,” the Times concludes.

“At the Baghdad morgue, the vast majority of bodies processed had been shot execution-style. Many showed signs of torture — drill holes, burns, missing eyes and limbs, officials said. Others had been strangled, beheaded, stabbed or beaten to death.”

Am I the only one blown away by that proportionality statement? To the rest of the world, and any American with a soul not obfuscated by their political or sovereignty lens, the number serves as the exact degree to which the US has responded to the 3,000+ death count of 9/11/2001. 200 times over…

And we’re in for The Long War?

It’s sick.