August 15, 2006

How strange double standards can be.

When nearly 3,000 people died in New York, Washington D.C., and a field in Pennsylvania on September 11th, 2001, it was an unspeakable tragedy and one worth launching world wars over and committing atrocity after atrocity.

But when it happens in just one city in just one month in Iraq, it's hardly worth mentioning.

Why is that? And why do we allow it to happen? What makes American lives priceless but Iraqi deaths.. or Lebanese or Palestinians... so acceptable? And no, this question is not rhetorical.

From today's New York Times:

More Iraqi civilians were killed in July than in apparently any other month of the war, according to Iraqi Health Ministry and morgue statistics, despite a security plan begun by the new government in June.

An average of more than 110 Iraqis were killed per day in July, according to figures from the Health Ministry and the Baghdad morgue. At least 3,438 civilians died violently that month, a 9 percent increase over the tally in June and nearly twice as many as in January.

The Baghdad security plan started by Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki on June 14 was much praised by top Iraqi and American officials at the time. It relied on setting up more Iraqi-run checkpoints to stymie insurgent movement.

Those officials have since acknowledged that the plan has fallen far short of its aims, forcing the American military to add soldiers to the capital and back away from proposals for a troop drawdown by the year’s end.

The Baghdad morgue reported receiving 1,855 bodies in July, more than half of the total deaths recorded in the country. The morgue tally for July was an 18 percent increase over June.