1人1人顔のある米軍の死者たち

9/8、アメリカのイラク攻撃開始以来の米軍の死者数が1000人を超えたことが、アメリカ国防総省から発表されました。
「イラクで5人の兵士が死亡」 など、アメリカ兵にしろイラク人にしろ、死者はほとんど数でしか伝えられません。
しかし以下の記事で死者ひとりひとりの写真を見ると、そのひとりひとりに人生があり家族があり、愛する人がいたのだということを感じます。
アメリカ人でこの顔なら、ホントに 「男の子」 というかんじの若い兵士が多いです。

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/091004W.shtml
The Faces of 1,000 Soldiers
t r u t h o u t | Statement
Thursday 09 September 2004
（1000もの写真を取り込むので、接続環境他によっては表示に時間がかかるかもしれません）

イラクの米軍死者、１０００人超す＝国防総省
　【ワシントン８日時事】米国防総省は８日、イラク戦争開戦以来の米軍の死者が米東部時間の７日夕までに１００１人になったと正式に発表した。
　開戦した米東部時間の２００３年３月１９日から大規模戦闘終結宣言前の４月３０日までの米兵死者は１３８人。同年５月１日から現在までの米兵死者が８６０人。これに米軍関係の民間契約者３人を加え、計１００１人になったとしている。　

（時事通信） - 9月9日1時1分更新

※米軍の死者数は本当に1000人だけなのかという意見については
平和な南の島、ヤップ島の若者たちが、米軍のリクルートでイラクへ。
をご参照下さい。

記事全文は以下；

　　The Faces of 1,000 Soldiers
　　t r u t h o u t | Statement

　　Thursday 09 September 2004

　　Michael Allred and Richard Torres. Kenneth Souslin and Gregory Sanders. Brandon Rowe and Alyssa Peterson and Nathan Brown. The list goes ever onward. One thousand names, one thousand faces, one thousand folded American flags.

　　The editors and staff of t r u t h o u t offer our deepest and most profound condolences to the families of the men and women who have fallen in Iraq. We offer to our readers the names and faces of these men and women, with deepest respect, so that all within the reach of our arm know who they were, how they smiled, and what they did in the service of our country.

　　We believe George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Colin Powell and the members of this administration have much to answer for. Defenders of this invasion point to the casualty rate of Operation Iraqi Freedom and compare it to the casualty rates in other wars. "1,000 deaths is nothing" compared to Normandy, we hear.

　　To be sure, this is true. But the invasion of Normandy, for one example, was undertaken to destroy a regime that had ravaged much of Europe, slaughtered millions of innocent people, and was determined to spread its darkness across as much of the globe as they could reach. The threat was as real as the bricks that formed the gas chambers at Dachau and the steel of the tanks that had roared into Poland. The men who died putting and end to that gave their lives in a cause that guaranteed the liberty of millions.

　　Iraq was not a threat to the United States, or to any of their neighbors. The sanctions put into effect after the first Gulf War had turned that regime's conventional military into a large collection of paperweights. There are no weapons of mass destruction of any kind in Iraq. There were no connections whatsoever between Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden and the attacks of September 11.

　　The men and women whose faces fill the page below were not told this. They were, in fact, told the exact opposite. They raised their hands and took the oath, they donned their uniform and picked up their weapon, they boarded a plane and flew far from home, and they died. They were doing their duty, and they believed their President.

　　George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Colin Powell and the members of this administration have much to answer for.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/091004W.shtml