Two thousand five hundred ninety two

This infographic from the New York Times is a beautifully rich visualization of something that often gets reduced to a single statistic: the number of soldiers and security officers who died last year in Iraq violence. The stark small multiple of little people--one for every casualty--calls out the thousands of individual tragedies and shows how each died: some in firefights, some in bombings, still others by torture. The other thing that grabs you is how many of these deaths aren't even Americans--the American media tends to focus only on the 901 U.S. troops who died last year. Iraqi soldiers and police officers seem to be bearing quite a burden themselves.

Whether or not you believe the Iraqi war serves some greater good, it's hard to look at this and not be in awe at the sheer scale.