The More Iraqis Die, the Less We Care

Does an inverse ratio exist between Iraqi deaths and American compassion?

The new study by Johns Hopkins study revealing 600,000 Iraqis have died from violence may not cut a lot of weight with Americans. Bad enough that there are 500 violent deaths a day, but they're often preceded by torture and rape, including of children.

It's not only that the American public is tuning this out because it's too numbing. It's also because the worse it gets many of us think: Americans would never do that. Just because a country is invaded and occupied, we sniff, doesn't mean its inhabitants have to comport themselves like savages.

Judgmentalism sucks the oxygen right out of the soil that compassion needs to flourish in.

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