On Monday, this entire nation was properly horrified at the events at Virginia Tech, in Blacksburg, VA, where 33 people (including the troubled young gunman) were killed. The situation was considered dire enough for the Governor of Virginia to fly back from Japan for a memorial service for the victims, and for the President of the United States to attend the memorial service and order that flags all across the country be flown at half-staff for the rest of the week.
In one of the more chilling ironies of this week, the Associated Press is reporting that 33 people also died today in Baghdad (perhaps even more, once the final figures are in), and dozens more were injured in a series of three bombing attacks. The difference, of course, is that this was just another normal day in Baghdad.
In the deadliest of the Baghdad attacks, a suicide car bomber crashed into an Iraqi police checkpoint at an entrance to Sadr City, the capital's biggest Shiite Muslim neighborhood and a stronghold for the militia led by radical anti-U.S> cleric Muqtade al-Sadr.
The explosion killed at least 18 people and wounded 37, police said. At least eight vehicles among a jam of civilian cars stopped at the checkpoint were incinerated.
Earlier, a parked car exploded near a private hospital in the central neighborhood of Karradah, killing 11 people and wounding 13, police said. The blast damaged the Abdul-Majid hospital and other nearby buildings.
A third explosion was from a bomb left on a minibus in the northwestern Risafi area, killing four people and wounding six others, police said.
And the article, which I strongly recommend, goes on to point out that violence was also flaring across much of the rest of Iraq. And Iraq only has a population of about 26 million (probably less now if one considers the number of refugees who have left), whereas the United States has a population of over 300 million.
Just think of what the reaction would be in this country if, virtually every day, we were suffering mass casualties in one of our major cities that rivalled the carnage at Virginia Tech on Monday. What would WE think of the nation that brought us that tragedy? Would we be more or less likely to think that terrorism against that nation was justified?
Tragically, the carnage in Baghdad is every bit as senseless as that in Blacksburg. We entered into an unnecessary war that, predictably, unleashed long-simmering sectarian tensions. We did it without having remotely close to the number of troops that the experienced generals said we would need to effectively occupy Iraq. And now, we and the Iraqi people are paying the price.
If there is any justice at all in this world, George W. Bush lies awake every night, seeing in his mind's eye the faces of the Americans and Iraqis who have been killed, maimed, or orphaned by HIS war that HE decided to fight when there was no need to do so. And in that quiet time, he thinks about the generations of Iraqis and Americans who will never be born because their parents were killed before they could have them. If there is any justice at all, this man who strutted so proudly on the aircraft carrier that day under the "Mission Accomplished" banner will realize that the only mission that has been accomplished by his war is to kill and maim countless innocent people. And, however belatedly, he will finally have the decency to be ashamed.
UPDATE: Sadly, as several of the ocmmments point out, while I was out at an appointment, today's death toll in Baghdad has gone up radically. AP is now reporting that there were FOUR large bomb explosions in Baghdad today, killing at least 160 people and injuring scores more. In other words, today's death toll among the Iraqis of Baghdad was nearly 5 times Monday's horrific death toll in Blacksburg, VA.