It’s September 11th again – the day we’re supposed to set aside to remember the tragedy of 2001. As if any of us who were alive on that day five short years ago will ever forget the shock, horror and fear that permeated the world. And yet the politicians will get their photo ops, and the survivors who refuse to move on with their lives will get their interviews, and the media will replay endless footage from news clips and home video of that awful day to made-for-TV movies and docudramas, where facts are an afterthought.

Some political and media segments still try to link the 9/11 attacks with the war in Iraq, specious as that link may be. So look at these facts:

• About 4 times as many Afghans and 85 times as many Iraqis have been killed in these wars and occupations than the 2,973 people who were killed in the ghastly attacks of September 11, 2001. More than six times as many people have been killed in these wars and occupations than the 43,122 people killed in all terrorist attacks worldwide since 1968. ~ http://www.unknownnews.net/casualties.html
• On 31 August 2006 it (Iraq Body Count website) put the total number of civilian dead at 39,171 to 43,846 and the number of police dead at 2,409. ~ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4525412.stm
• The announcement Sunday of four more U.S. military deaths in Iraq raises the death toll to 2,974 for U.S. military service members in Iraq and in what the Bush administration calls the war on terror. The 9/11 attack killed 2,973 people, including Americans and foreign nationals but excluding the terrorists. The 9/11 death toll was calculated by CNN. ~ http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/09/03/death.toll/

When will the killing stop? Violence does not result in peace, only in more violence. A crushed, defeated, humiliated enemy will only simmer underground until a charismatic leader pushes the right buttons and the next opportunity to strike back arises (remember Germany after World War I).

Until the United States stops trying to impose a western brand of democracy on an eastern nation whose culture cannot yet begin to understand such concepts, the Iraqi insurgency will have a cause around which to rally the militants, the terrorists, the blindly misguided few who will die gladly. And more will die – Iraqi and American (and other coalition nations), civilians and soldiers.

And until all those deaths are mourned equally, and the leaders of the world come together to stop the cycle of violence with diplomacy, respect, and compassion, I will shun the public displays of mass grief and mourn silently, every day, the senseless loss of each life.