Last Wednesday a suicide bomber in a truck crashed through the gates of an Italian base in Nasiriya, Iraq and exploded his payload. Eighteen Italians and at least eight Iraqis died in the blast. As attackers wage bloodier campaigns, the method of bombing – especially suicide bombing – is becoming more prevalent in Iraq. It is shrewd and effective, and unless the army finds a way to curtail bombing occurrences and stop insurgents’ strikes, deaths will increase drastically as the fighters become bolder. We will become a nation cloaked in mourning.
With the exception of the car bomb at the Imam Ali mosque in Najaf, the suicide bombings undertaken by the anti-coalition forces have been the most deadly attacks in Iraq. According to Time magazine, the hardcore insurgency in Iraq is made of about 5,000 people, mostly former Baath Party officials, Saddam loyalists and a few foreign fighters and terrorists. As they organize and adjust to U.S. military strategy, the number of suicide bombings increases.
If the United States is unsuccessful at uprooting the terrorist ring, it will have to prepare for a great number of casualties. Let’s be generous, and say 100 of those 5.000 – 2% — are willing to be suicide bombers. If we count all of the bombings since the August 7 bombing of the Jordanian embassy, that leaves around 11 bombers and 217 victims dead, with a ratio 20 victims per bomber. If all 100 of those suicide bombers succeed, we can expect to see somewhere around 2,000 victims in the coming year or two, notwithstanding other coalition casualties such as sporadic trip-bombs aimed only at killing a few.
It’s probably safe to say that many more people will die before the United States leaves Iraq.
It’s also safe to say that we will see many more observations of respect for the war dead in Iraq. For Italy, the suicide bombing last week was a vile disaster. Not since World War II has the country seen so many of its citizens die in a military mission. Italy’s authorities asked Italians to observe a national day of mourning, marked by national flags in windows, the brief closing of shops, a 10-minute pause observed by all workers, the reservation of a minute of silence in schools and the darkening of the Colosseum’s lights.
And that’s for their first suicide bombing.
The extent of the services recognizes the exact human catastrophe that occurred: 18 people were simultaneously murdered. If America paused to that extent every time it lost 18 soldiers, it would be unable to function as a nation.
But perhaps we should recognize the lives lost in a more open way that we do now. It would add gravity to the situation and give due respect to the dead. It would also allow us to do a little soul-searching.
Perhaps we should take a few lessons from the Italians. Instead of holding private military funerals, Italy laid the bomber’s victims’ coffins in the center of Rome for all to see. It then held a public funeral Mass which thousands attended. It allowed the nation to push its suffering out of its belly, to come to terms with the horrible way – suicide bombing – its citizens were murdered.
Some of those queued in line to view the caskets were interviewed by Associated Press reporters as they waited. Like most others waiting, 21-year-old student Valentina Angelone was in shock. “They were angels bringing peace,” she told reporters. “To die like that is not fair.”