The Difference Between Tragedy and Not

Today, Christianity taught me the difference between a tragedy and an ignorable event: Christians!

Chuck Colson, Out of Sight, Out of Mind, Dead

I am personally outraged over the media’s inattention to what’s really happening in Iraq. And you ought to be as well.

I am outraged! All those dead Iraqis, it's shameful we in America aren't hearing more about it. There have been 1,421,933 Iraqi deaths as a result of our invasion. When was the last time you heard that number on the nightly new- wait, that's not what Chuck's outraged about? Oh.

On Sunday, October 31st, Islamic terrorists set off a car bomb and then took dozens of worshippers hostage at Our Lady of Salvation Catholic Church in Baghdad. A few hours later, at least fifty-eight people were dead.

Oh, 58 Christians. Well, I'm certainly not in favor of killing Christians, but, Chuck, that's not even half a percent as many Iraqis as we've killed. I suppose maybe Chuck's upset that nobody's heard about these deat- oh, wait, we have?

Most of the news reports, at least here in the United States, treated it as just another instance of Iraqi-on-Iraqi violence. It wasn’t, and we shouldn’t permit it to be interpreted that way.

Iraqi on Iraqi violence is fine, really. Who cares if the Muslims kill one another? Who cares if we kill Muslims? Muslims killing Christians, on the other hand, is a tragedy and we better all be weeping.

What is also clear is that if all you knew about the attack was based on American news sources, you wouldn’t know that Christians were being specifically targeted. As columnist and media critic Terry Mattingly noted, news reports, at least initially, didn’t even identify what kind of Christian church had been attacked.

Even when they named the church, they missed the part about Christians being in the crosshairs. They used words like “standoff” and “hostage crisis” as if they were describing a bank robbery gone sour.

First of all, "standoff" is an appropriate way to describe a standoff. And if someone's taken hostages, it's a hostage crisis. There's not some separate set of words to describe violence done to Christians, though clearly Chuck would like there to be- you know, so we're aware people who matter are being killed as opposed to those vermin who can die any way they like for all Chuck cares.

And what the fuck difference would it make what kind of Christian church was being attacked? My guess would be because Chuck could sleep just fine if it were a Catholic church, but I fail to see what difference it would make to the rest of us.

So, just to be clear, Chuck, 1.4 MILLION dead Muslim Iraqis is no big deal. 58 dead Christian Iraqis is a tragedy of epic proportions. Good to know.