First published Wednesday, July 19, 2006
When is a body count worth counting?
Is it the worth of the body? Or is it the worth of the cause? Or is it the worth of the count?
If counting bodies was the worth of the body, then that worth would be set by whom? By the press? By the government? By the U.N.?
Well, in this country the worth of the body is a Constitutional right. ‘The Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
But to the press, do the bodies of others not have worth? Does the worth of a body that is light colored have more worth than the body that is dark colored?
Everyday there are scores of dead bodies in Darfur. Where is the body count?
Everyday there are scores of dead bodies in American cities. Where is the body count?
Everyday (when there is a graphical war on TV screens) there are a few dead bodies. There is the count.
If counting bodies was the worth of the cause, then that worth is set by whom? By the press? By the government? By the U.N.?
The press really likes to count bodies in a war. It doesn’t seem to matter how just that war may be. They count bodies. Then they relate how many bodies they have counted to how horrible the war is and that in some way is supposed to mean the war should stop and therefore not have a cause.
If counting bodies was the worth of the count, that would make all of the body counts make sense.
Causes do not matter. Freedom does not matter. Life does not matter. The count matters as the count alone can be used to impose a personal loss on those the press does not want to fight.
It is exactly what the enemy would want.