Dear Alsultani, your point is very well taken. In my article, the issue is precisely to stop arguing about numbers and let them speak for themselves, for what they are voicing at the face of the world. No matter the actual tally, mortality figures tells in the aggregate the same unacceptable story of each tragic death. The argument is indeed to avoid substituting a sterile debate about the veracity of statistics to the political debate about why the conflict is getting out of control (which is precisely what these numbers attest). A review and analysis of the figures, is meant to reconcile the diverging views on numbers, and therefore to give a better chance for the political debate to take place. Thank you for your comment and good evening. Michel Thieren.

I agree with you Alsultani. I posted this nearly two years ago - I'd be interested to know what you think. In our super high-tech media obsessed world, images are beginning to mean everything and the image of dead American soldiers, or dead Iraqis is fast becoming political currency for both sides of this necro-debate. The anti-war turnouts have seized on the 2000th US soldier killed on duty in Iraq as an argument for immediate troop withdrawal from Iraq. (1) Meanwhile, the pro-war brigade play the same game as their opponents, they love to dig-up old mass graves in Iraq - so they can display the dead bodies to a willing news media and speculate on how many more mass graves remain undiscovered in Iraq. The images of mass graves, or the chemical attack on Halabja are then deployed as a reason for war. (2) Images are considered by all sided to be far, far more important than having a clear and coherent argument. Real debates, like questioning the rights of Western states to militarily intervene into the internal affairs of Third world sovereign states are compromised by the relentless search for a picture of a steaming corpse, or the tears of a dead soldiers mother. Images of dead and mutilated bodies, or hyping up the 2000th dead soldier, or up-dating the body-count every 24 hours do not amount to having a real argument for the war, nor is it a real argument for opposing the war either. (3) For the pros and antis, images of the dead are more of a substitute for having a reasoned arguement. No need for a coherent arguement for war, or against the war in Iraq - just wheel out as many images of dead bodies in Iraq that you can find. The more images, the better for their arguement apparently. Indeed, according to one bloodthirsty anti-war activist / journalist, there hasn't been enough images of blood and gore to bolster the anti-war message. More blood, more guts, more gore, that's the message I get from the writer Michela Wrong, in her article for the prestigious New Statesmen. Michela is apparently livid at the outrageous lack of graphic violence on our screens today. (4) Oh? really? so all you need to do is bedazzle people with gruesome imagery of fallen soldiers, mangled civilians and abracadabra, all who see the message will be won over to the anti-war cause? These days, it seems the best way to put the leader of the most powerful country on earth on the defensive, is to just show him an image of something that makes America look bad. Who remembers how the image of a marine draping the Stars and Stripes over a 20ft statue of Saddam Hussein before they bulldozed it down, became the focus for controversy? (5) The panic reaction from the top US military brass to remove the flag was a powerful testimony to the level of importance attached to images from Iraq. US marines needed to communicate liberation, not occupation and domination. On the pro-war side numbers and images have gained the utmost of importance. Numbers and images are used at will, to compensate for the fact that the pro-war voices are bereft of a coherent reason for supporting our boys in Iraq. The Bush administration even ordered the complete ban of media coverage of fallen soldiers returning back to their military bases. (6) Then, there were the images of torture at Abu Ghraib, the US military run prison that caused great embarrassment to the Bush administration. Both sides have politicised images of the dead - the fact that images of dead bodies has become political currency for Western leaders and Western radicals is not lost on insurgents in Iraq. The more Western anti-war journalists bang on about body counts or fallen soldiers, the more that insurgents are only to happy to supply them with some grim and gruesome images. From the suicide bomber that blew themselves up next to a petrol tanker that was parked next to a mosque, to the recent bombing of the Palestine hotel by 3 massive truck bombs, the insurgent are very happy to provide more images of blood and guts. Don't take my word for it; two high-ranking soldiers think so too. Marine Col. John Toolan told the National Review, that propagandists throughout history often have used symbols like a relatively high, round, even number that can easily be remembered and thus accurately and frequently repeated for effect. I'll leave the last words to Marine Major Neil F. Murphy Jr., who in the same article, noted with amazement that insurgents have absolutely nothing to offer the people. They only kill and create misery, yet the media give them a platform. Bad news sells and the terrorists create plenty. Murphy added, What's worse [?] Groups that promote death number-milestones as a means of discrediting America's involvement in Iraq only incite the insurgents to do more of the same'. (7) Read on: (1) Protesters mark 2.000th US fatality in Iraq. By Alan Elsner. Reuters. Oct 2005 (2) Halabja. By the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP). (3) [url=http://www.iraqbodycount.net/database/] Iraq Body Count. [/url] Latest Updates. Oct 2005 (4)[url=http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0FQP/is_4685_133/ai_n6152764] World view. [/url] By Michela Wrong. New Statesman. April 2004 (5) 2003: Saddam statue topples with regime. BBC News ? On This Day 9 April. (6)[url=http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A55816-2003Oct20?language=printer] Curtains ordered for media coverage of returning coffins. [/url] By Dana Milbank. Washington Post. 2003 (7) Purple-Ink & Other Under-covered Successes. By W. Thomas Smith Jr. National Review. Oct 2005