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Come play with us under the blanket, Mama.” I don’t have to be asked twice. I set aside my work, civilian casualty figures for the Iraq war, and join the kids under the tent they’ve made of my grandmother’s afghan. “Tell us again about your grandma,” they ask, and I oblige.

“Your great-grandma was small, but she was very strong,” I begin. Being twerps themselves, they appreciate this. “Mary Isabella Cusimano left school after the fifth grade to work to help her family. She cooked and laughed generously, and crocheted constantly, the work of her hands warming us still, wrapping her great- grandchildren in this cozy crocheted hug….” The wiggling and giggling stops. The kids fall asleep under the trance of a story and the warmth of a blanket. I tuck the afghan around them and return to work.

Unexpectedly, the kids have clarified this grim task for me, counting dead Iraqi civilians. Everyone’s family deserves to be remembered. There are three sets of conflicting, contested numbers. U.S. Gen. Tommy Franks infamously said at the start of the Iraq war, “We don’t do body counts.” This is not true. Every U.S. military death is carefully counted and publicized. Iraqi civilian deaths are not so carefully counted by each military service, and are kept secret. The This article appears in November 19 2007.

Dr. Maryann Cusimano Love is an Associate Professor of International Relations in the Politics Department of The Catholic University of America in Washington, DC. She is also a Fellow at the Commission on International Religious Freedom. She teaches graduate and undergraduate International Relations courses at Catholic University and the Pentagon, such as Security, Just Peace, Terrorism, Globalization, and The Problem of Sovereignty. Her recent books include Beyond Sovereignty: Issues for a Global Agenda (4th Edition, 2010), Morality Matters: Ethics and the War on Terrorism (forthcoming at Cornell University Press), and "What Kind of Peace Do We Seek?" a chapter on peacebuilding to appear in Notre Dame University's volume on The Ethics and Theology of Peacebuilding. She serves on the U.S. Catholic Bishops' International Justice and Peace Committee, the Advisory Board of the Catholic Peacebuilding Network, and the board of Jesuit Refugee Services.

Dr. Love lives on the Chesapeake Bay outside of Washington, DC, with her husband Richard and three young children, Maria, Ricky and Ava, who inspired her New York Times best-selling children's books, You Are My I Love You, You Are My Miracle, You Are My Wish, and Sleep, Baby, Sleep.