The 4,000

At last, in talking about the number of American military killed so far in Iraq -- the only figure that really matters for most people -- we have finally reached a nice, round, easily remembered number that we can work with.

4,000.

That has a certain ring, doesn't it? Right up there with "300," the name of the recent movie about the small group of Spartan warriors who held off gigantic numbers of Persian fighters at Thermopylae, Greece for several days, before logic and sensibility finally prevailed and they were overwhelmed. (The fact that they had the help of 700 other Greeks is usually left out of recountings of the deed, maybe because the "300" figure makes the odds sound so much greater and therefore adds to the heroism of Leonidas and his few.)

To get an idea of how that number of war dead compares to the total American population, I tried dividing 4,000 into 300,000,000. I came up with the answer of 75,000. But I have gotten on the shakier side these days, mentally and physically, and i don't fully trust myself in these things. That can't be right, can it? In this context 75,000 is an astounding number. Neither of the two cities nearest me, Charlottesville and Lynchburg, Virginia, has that many people!

If 75,000 is indeed the right figure, it means that for every soldier lost in Iraq, 74,999 Americans have been left to enjoy their lives in peace, comfort, and a preference for not hearing what is really going on in Iraq. They are left in a state of blissful indifference, free to enjoy the option of stirring themselves to note the number of American dead only twice a year, once in March and again in May, while completely avoiding the discomfort of noting the Iraqi figure -- so far -- of about 1 million dead.

During World War 2 it wasn't unusual to see little fringed cloth rectangles -- blue if I remember correctly -- hanging in front windows and each emblazoned with a gold star, signifying a death in the fighting of a loved one. By contrast that 75,000 to 1 ratio indicates very clearly that very few presentday Americans will know anybody who has lost a young family member in Iraq, let alone a member of their own families.

Meanwhile it is a strange and perverse oddity that the burial ceremonies of those ultimate casualties are attended around the country by the picketing family of the incredibly hateful Kansas minister, Fred Phelps, more often than they are by GW Bush and friends, because of the inexplicable connection that Phelps makes between the military and homosexuality (just as a member of the Israeli Knesset has determined that homosexuals are the cause of earthquakes).

To people opposed to the war -- and I have been one even from long before it started -- 4,000 is nevertheless an appalling number, and they see it as one of their strongest arguing points. It is more than the number of people that lost their lives in 9/11, and it is far more than the populations of the two county seats nearest me. It means that in the U.S. that number of young people, overwhelmingly men, will not raise children and have grandchildtren, will not get to mow their lawns, will not get to hunt, fish, play cards, or skydive, and will never see what the near-term future holds.

Sadly, however, as wars go, that figure of 4,000 pales, and that awareness, while rarely brought into the open, can't be far from the appreciation of the average American mind.. In Vietnam U.S. losses were about 55,000, and, though that took 10 years as opposed to the five -- so far -- of the GWBush War, the disparity between Vietnam and Iraq is still easily tolerable to those who actively support keeping a gun hand in Iraq for however long anyone wants to. Besides -- and this is also usually cloaked in callous silence -- there is the oil.

This failure of the great majority of Americans to feel the real pain of Iraq, while, however, they make sure to answer the pollsters' questions in the decent way and so appear to oppose the war by a large margin, is why J. McCain, a current Republican candidate to succeed GWBush, can comfortably promise, if he is elected, to continue participation of U.S. forces in the Iraq abomination indefinitely, promising a victory where the American defeat has, however, long ago been a fact, if not recognized.

So what can be done?

For starters, voting Democrat. I know that the deadly disease of conservatism, which sees nothing wrong with indulging in this Iraq horror, infects some Democrats as well. But not nearly as much as the Republicans, the ones who pushed the U.S. over the edge of this cesspool in the first place . The chances of emerging from that nauseous pit while still able to breathe are much better with the Democrats.