Getting It Exactly Backwards

An Army sergeant is upset that the VA Tech shootings received a ton of press and half-staff flags for a week, while the deaths of America's soldiers only get mentioned in the ticker at the bottom of the television screen. This guy wants to blame it on the "shock factor," but it's hard to see how 75 deaths on 4/16 or 313 deaths two days later (140 in a single incident) in Iraq are any less shocking. In fairness to the solider's argument, he is not requesting that all flags be lowered at the death of an American solider, just at "the base where the fallen service member was working and in the states where they hail from." He probably realizes that a broader half-staff plan would mean all flags at half-staff, all the time.

Interestingly today there is also a story about a much-higher-ranking Army official telling us that Iraq just have to learn to live with these sensational [shocking] attacks. Oh, and so far in Iraq today (as of 1:25pm Eastern time) there have been at least 78 Iraqi deaths attributable to the violence. But no American deaths (yet), so no need to lower the flags. And hey, Iraqis, get used to it.

The problem, of course, is that the sergeant is getting it exactly backwards. Lowering the flags for fallen soldiers is most closely analogous to lowering it for the VA Tech shooter. Lowering the flags for murdered Iraqis would be more appropriate, but some reason I don't see that happening any time soon.