Enough already!

The way the news keeps talking about the Virginia Tech killings, you’d think it was the only thing going on in the news. Did everyone forget about Darfur, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, missile defense in Poland, Russia, Chinese bootlegging, the failure of Windows Vista, etc? I mean, yes, it is extremely tragic that 32 people died who are, at most, only five years younger than me. They had their entire life ahead of them. If my kids died before me I’d be devastated. But put this into perspective!

Every month 60-100 US troops die in Iraq. Why don’t we focus on these people and interview their families and get all the background. I know more about each of the kids who died in VT than I do about any soldier save Jessica Lynch. (And they’ve recently debunked her story as war-time propaganda!) Ok, so the soldiers signed up to kill and be kill so you don’t feel sympathy? Fine….. What about the innocent Iraqis? More than 32 of them die every day. They didn’t ask for this fight, we brought it to them. Why aren’t we examining the minds of their suicide bombers like we’re doing with this Cho guy? Because they just did it because they’re Muslims? Because they’re Arabs so we don’t care? Or perhaps it’s just that, like Cho, they have nothing better to live for. Perhaps we should be working to make Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan a paradise on earth so they have no incentive to kill. To paraphrase Scott Adams, “Once they have plasma tvs and Lexuses and other luxuries they may wonder why someone else doesn’t blow themselves up this time. Afterall, they have 40 episodes of their favorite Saudi show to catch up with on their TiVo because the’ve been busy terrorists.”

But that’s besides the point. My point is why do we stop the entire news cycle for these 32 deaths and not the ones happening in the middle east on a daily basis.