feed is available 
Shrugs for the Dead (Nick Kristof - The New York Times)
August 10, 2006 2:26 PM
An excerpt of an excellent Kristof column.
Copyright The New York Times
Three weeks ago, with President George W. Bush supplying the weaponry and moral support, Israel began bombarding Lebanon. The war has killed hundreds of people, galvanized international attention and may lead to an international force of perhaps 20,000 peacekeepers.
Three years ago, Sudan began a genocide against African tribes in its Darfur region. That war has killed hundreds of thousands of people, and it is now spreading. There is talk of UN peacekeepers someday, but none are anywhere in sight.
The moral of the story? Never, ever be born to a tribe that is victim to genocide in Africa.
Arabs have often argued that Americans have a double standard in the Middle East: We are more solicitous of casualties in Israel than in Gaza or Lebanon. I think they’re right, for a variety of reasons. (One is that terror attacks are particularly newsworthy; another is that journalists are more likely to live in Jerusalem than Gaza).
But if we have double standards, so do Arabs. I sympathize with their horror at what is happening in Lebanon, but I wish they were just as outraged when Muslims slaughter Muslims in Darfur.
Even the world as a whole has double standards. The United States and European countries are working frenetically on a UN solution in Lebanon, and there is talk of rapidly sending European peacekeepers to stop the bloodshed. In Darfur, there is nothing like as much interest in what is often considered the ultimate human crime: genocide.
The Tyndall Report, which monitors television network evening news programs, says that since the bombardment of Lebanon began, the crisis there has received more minutes of coverage on average each week than the Darfur genocide has received in total since it began in 2003.
Posted at 2:26 PM
