Now Do You Understand? By-Larry C Johnson

[kpete]

Now Do You Understand?
by L C Johnson
Mon Apr 16, 2007 at 10:53:54 AM PDT

Breaking news! At least 22 Virginia Tech students gunned down. Cable news channels are wild with activity as they pump up the coverage a focus on the latest "crisis". The media is commenting that this shooting is overwhelming the local medical facilities. Crisis is in the air. Well, at least it ain't Iraq.

Okay. Big deep breath. This is horrible and this is tragic and this gives us an idea of what it is like to live just one day in Iraq. Consider the following:

04/15/07 Reuters: 19 bodies found in Baghdad on Saturday
Police found the bodies of 19 people in various parts of Baghdad in the past 24 hours, police said.

04/15/07 Reuters: 20 Iraqi troops and policemen abducted
A group linked to al Qaeda said it abducted 20 Iraqi troops and policemen and demanded the release of all Sunni women held in Iraq's prisons, according to a Web statement

04/15/07 Reuters: 4 killed by suicide bombers in Mosul
Four people, including two Iraqi soldiers, were killed and 16 wounded when two oil trucks driven by suicide bombers exploded outside a military base in the northern city of Mosul, police said.

04/15/07 AP: Suicide bomber kills 5, wounds 11 in northwest Baghdad
A suicide bomber blew himself up on a minibus in northwest Baghdad, killing at least eight people and wounding 11, police and hospital officials said.

04/15/07 AP: 37 die as car bomb hits near Iraq shrine
A car bomb blasted through a busy bus station near one of Iraq's holiest shrines Saturday, killing at least 37 people, police and hospital officials said.

Let's total the score: at least 65 Iraqis dead in four attacks vs. 22 Americans shot at Virginia Tech. Whoops, forgot the 20 kidnapped policemen. Can you imagine?

The next time you hear Dick Cheney or George Bush blame the public attitude regarding Iraq on the media's failure to report "good news", examine carefully our reaction to the shooting at Viginia Tech. Look at our collective shock. Our horrified reaction. The public sorrow. Yet, in truth, this is an exceptional, unusual day in America. It is not our common experience. But we cannot say the same about Iraq.

more at:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/4/16/134740/977

[durtee librul]

1. Glad to K & R this thread

gives all of us something to think about.....should send this to Cafferty and see if he has the balls to ask it on one of his hourly questions.....

[PDJane]

2. Yep. Me too.

There's that little matter of perspective...and some hidden racism.

[Karenina]

7. Hidden?

:kick:

[WiseButAngrySara]

3. Oh wow. What stark comparisons. k(pete)nr. ....n/t

[formercia]

4. And there are over 10 Americans for each Iraqi

so as a percentage of population, the effect is greater. The tribal aspect of society in Iraq makes just one death affect many more people.

What happened at Virginia Tech is a terrible tragedy but it pales to what is happening in Iraq every day.

[The Backlash Cometh]

5. And to think we had Tenet's book ready to pull Cheney into the limelight,

and the son of a bitch slipped back into the shadows, again.

[EFerrari]

6. Johnson states the obvious and does nothing to illuminate it

as far as I can see.

What are we supposed to feel or think after reading that? Guilt? That's low hanging fruit.

This isn't a common experience in America? That's because we have very little common experience. If we had "common" experience, that shooter might have been identified as a high risk individual -- or at very least, someone would be able to IDENTIFY his body.

Who are the people in your neighborhood?

Johnson buries the lead: We don't have common experience in this culture and that's lethal.