Iraqi Soldiers: Do They Count?

Lefti on the News expresses one of my strongest feelings better than I, so here goes:

Iraqi soldiers are human beings Saturday, at the antiwar rally I attended in San Jose, one large banner and at least one speaker reminded people about the 10,000 (estimated) Iraqi civilians who have been killed in the last year as a result of the U.S. invasion of their country. Iraq Body Count has started a more detailed documentation of Iraqi civilian deaths, including names; their estimate ranges from a low of 8,769 to a high of 10,618. But there is another, totally forgotten group - Iraqi soldiers. I have written about this before, but the two events above force me to repeat myself. Iraqi soldiers are just as "innocent" as the "innocent civilians" people talk about, and no more deserving of death. To begin with, most of them were draftees. But whether they were, or whether they joined the army just to get a job, or whether they were simply the kind of people who find a military career a desirable option, all of them were killed in the process of defending their country against an illegal invasion by a foreign power. Not only is this not a crime punishable by death, in every country in the world it is considered an honorable action; indeed, soldiers who don't fight when their country is invaded are almost certainly committing treason or some similar crime. And last, and certainly not least, the Iraqi soldiers who were killed were just as human as the civilians, with mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, friends and lovers. Left I totally rejects the idea that their deaths are any less important, or any less a part of the price the Iraqi people have had to pay for this invasion, than the deaths of "innocent civilians." Nor are their deaths any less a part of the cost of this war than the deaths of American, or British, or other "coalition" soldiers.