I was absolutely horrified when I heard of the Virginia Tech shootings. Working just up the street from the University of Wisconsin campus in Madison, my first thought was how this could just as easily have been at UW. And my eyes welled up as I stood in silence with co-workers in our lobby, watching CNN.
It's now wall-to-wall coverage time. I listened to a man berate Ed Schultze for not supporting the idea that everyone carry guns. NPR ran special coverage and had heart-wrenching interviews with professors at Virginia Tech. The cable networks are looping the same footage.
This is a terrible tragedy, and the President will soon be reading what his staff wrote for him.
When 30 people die in Iraq, it's just another story.
It would be naive of me to ask why that is. OK, I'll be naive. Why is it when we lose a dozen soldiers in a week, it barely gets more than a mention? When a crowd of Iraqis get blown up, it's nothing more than a passing dispatch.
Of course, we're so focused on this heinous crime because this was so unexpected. This is the worst campus shooting in the nation's history.
Here's what's sad... really, truly sad. When 30 Iraqis get blown to smithereens, it's kind of expected. The people who were killed may not have literally expected it, but they knew it was a real possibility. Others in Iraq weep for these losses of life, but they know all too well that scores more will die the same way next week. And the week after that. And the week after that.
Along those lines, we're numb to the reports of another soldier or five being killed in Iraq or Afghanistan. It's part of war. Those soldiers know the risk. They made the ultimate sacrifice, though to little notice.
I kind of doubt someone at the White House is going to write out statements for the President to read for those people. Of course, the dead Iraqis are not US Citizens. But responsibility for their deaths is, at least in part, ours. We started this mess. And we've taken it to the point where 30 people in Iraq killed in a single event is, well, predictable. And while I imagine the President or Vice President will travel to Virginia for the memorial service that will surely be held for these lost students and teachers, one must note that neither pay much mind to the private but no less agonizing funeral services of our lost soldiers.
So what's my point? Damned if I know. I guess it's just that I wish more Americans could muster even one tenth the national outcry and mourning -- or at least recognition -- of those dying in this needless, foolish war in Iraq. Those people, Iraqis and Americans alike, are people whose lives all have the same value.
I'm preaching to the choir here, I know. But today, I just had to say it.