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Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
Of course we're more interested in those from our own nation who might have perished. Such a reaction is natural - you may know a neighbor or co-worker on holiday over there.

What is insensitive is the fact that we separate Americans from the rest as though we're exotic creatures of higher value. Whenever any of this shit happens, the number of dead Americans is listed, as though we're all celebrities. Where we get this higher value I don't know. My guess is its partly a symptom of the fact that we control a lot of media, so info regarding our losses is always easy to obtain.

But it remains pretty strange that bad things that happoen to foreigners don't usually make the front page, whereas whenever these things involve Americans, its a huge multinational story. The Saudis slice the heads off Pakistanis and Somalis like they're cutting grass and no one cares, but when the British nurse stood trial for her life in SA a few years back, it was a huge story everywhere. Two planes full of Russians go down due to terrorist bombers and they get about three days of coverage. Imagine if that were two planes of Americans.

I think we expect people to stop what they're doing when som,ething happens to us, but are not too interested when similar things happen to others. Sure, we'll send aid and some missionaries will ship boxes of food and run rescue missions, but the everage American on the street won't really care or even read up on what happened. He'll be too interested in his life, his bills, his kids and his next administrative or consumptive conquest.

Sure -- on some level, we "care" more about our comrades than foreigners -- but for crying out loud, it's FORTY-FUCKING-FOUR THOUSAND PEOPLE! The fact that there were eight Americans doesn't really seem newsworthy when we're talking about the decimation (or more!) of entire populations. It's absurd and insulting to point out there were single-digit deaths of Americans. While their deaths are no doubt horrifying to the friends and families of those killed, where is the horror for those people who have lost everything in the devastation?