The Burning Numbers

By John Cory, Reader Supported News

08 September

Reader Supported News | Perspective

"Because fanaticism and ignorance is forever busy, and needs feeding."
- Inherit the Wind

ne man decided to set the world on fire. It didn't take much.

It took 19 men to kill 3,000 people on September 11, 2001.

It took a small lie to invade Afghanistan and one big lie to invade Iraq.

7 and 9 are the numbers of years of war.

6, 806 is the number of soldiers (US and NATO) killed in this endless war.

40,000 is the number of wounded soldiers.

320,000 plus is the estimated number of US troops suffering from PTSD and TBI.

1.3 million is the estimated number of Iraqi civilians who have died. No one knows the real number, but studies point to an average of 200,000 Iraqi deaths per year of war.

10,000 is the best estimate of Afghan civilians killed, so far.

Civilian wounded or maimed numbers are not really tracked, but carry high numeric guesswork, just like the estimated 4 million Iraqi and Afghan refugees who have sought escape from their homelands.

There are invisible and secret numbers before 9/11 and after 9/11 and the harm and sadness of those numbers will never be known in our lifetime, nor admitted to by those who refuse to believe anything prior to 9/11. It is a zero sum argument.

In 2001, I was in Saudi Arabia. My Arab friends were shocked and stunned into disbelief at the events of September 11th. From my Jordanian, Syrian, Egyptian and Saudi workmates and friends came condolences and heartfelt sympathy and empathy at the horror of that day. This was not Islam. This was not right or holy, they told me. And after a suitable period of mourning, we all sat down over tea and dates to discuss those secret invisible numbers that had piled up and then exploded on that September day.

In 2006, I was in Afghanistan when riots erupted from Kandahar to Kabul to Kunduz over the publication of a Danish cartoon disrespectful of the Prophet Muhammad, Peace Be Upon Him. Hundreds of people protested. Scores were injured, with fires and bullets everywhere in the streets.

But it was not only Afghanistan, it was also Somalia, Yemen, Thailand, Indonesia, Syria, Iran and other places.

One cartoon - a dozen countries - thousands upon thousands of protesting Muslims, and hundreds of injuries and deaths were the result.

50 people at the piously named Dove World Outreach Center intend to burn the sacred scriptures of 1.5 billion people and label them "evil" and despised by God.

What new numbers will be generated on the calculator of death and destruction by burning the Qu'ran?

9/11 is a number - A sacred number for us, and them, and the world of war.

One man and then another set the world on fire and millions continue to burn.

One or fifty - it wouldn't take much for -

-PEACE-

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