Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall: February 29, 2004 – March 06, 2004 Archives:
So, to get a feel for the impact of these attacks on the country, the number of people who lost loved ones, know others who did, and so forth, multiply that death toll by 11 or 12 times in order to get a feel for the number in American terms.
A good ballpark point of comparison is what it would be like to have around 2000 people killed in one day in this country. And, of course, that’s not that different from the 3000 who were killed here on September 11th.
So multiply each victim of the current instability by 10 or so to get a sense of how painful their liberation is proving to be. And picture how it would play out in domestic newspapers, to have 2-3,000 worshippers killed in places of worship on a religious holiday.