8 Days: 714 Dead Iraqis

BAGHDAD, Iraq — The numbers are staggering: In the past eight days, 714 Iraqis have fallen victim to the country's sectarian bloodbath. They've been beheaded, tortured and blown up while looking for work. They've been shot, kidnapped and felled by mortars.

The number of killings in the past eight days is more than all but a few U.S. states see in a year. Iraq's death toll has reached at least 1,319 already in November, well above the 1,216 who died in all of October, which was the deadliest month in Iraq since The Associated Press began tracking the figure in April 2005.

At least 111 people were killed nationwide on Sunday, following a week of appallingly high daily death tolls: 134, 90, 119, 106, 49, 52 and 53.

The actual totals are likely considerably higher because many deaths are not reported. Victims in those cases are quickly buried according to Muslim custom and never reach morgues or hospitals to be counted.

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Can you imagine the outcry if 700 Americans had been killed in Iraq in 8 days?

The numbers trickle out every day - 50 here, 27 there - and when we get the monthly totals from Iraq these days, the numbers are so high that they almost defy imagination. Maybe we're too used to numbers. I know that as I've followed the statistics coming out of Israel, Palestine and other war torn places all of these decades, those faceless numbers just seem to be par for the course. That's just the way it is over there, we tell ourselves. We need to start bringing those numbers home in a way that actually means something.

If only we could post pictures and stories of all of the dead Iraqis, coalition soldiers, Israelis, Palestinians and all who die in wars on every street corner. Maybe then, we'd give more thought to the lives of those who have been snuffed out in the name of military supremacy, hatred, power, greed, fear and indifference. Maybe then those numbers would really matter. Because, when we simply see people as numbers, we have no concept of their humanity and without that connection, wars will go on without end.