Does it Matter Who We Kill?

Remember back to the last wedding you attended. Who did you go with? What did you wear? What did you drink? Did you dance? Did B-52 bombers drop munitions and AC-130 aircraft fire 20 mm Gatling guns and 105mm howitzers upon the wedding party killing 47 people, 39 of them women and children?

I know there are mistakes in war (are we officially at war in Afghanistan?) But do we ever hear of the mistakes we make that kill scores of innocent people (and by 'we' I mean every US citizen as we are a government by the people for the people)? Why does our corporate media report on "puppies and kittens" before the deaths of innocent civilians?

Today, the day after this event took place, this story is #2 on the Guardian Unlimited International News site (British) and story #3 on the BBC.com (also British). Both of these news organizations are non-corporate owned.

It is story #9, the last International story, in very small print without a photo, on AOL World News and #16 on FOX World News, again, small print without a picture.

On the FOX site, it came after these stories:

'Cage of Death' Lowers Tourists Into Crocodile's Tank
400-Year-Old Shakespeare Recovered After 10 Years
Dutch Woman Dies From Bat Fever Caught in Caves
Chew on This: Dog Meat Off of Olympics Menus

This from AOL News:

The U.S. military blamed the claims on militant propaganda and said its missiles only struck insurgents.

U.S. spokesman 1st Lt. Nathan Perry said the military has repeatedly seen militants falsely claim civilian were killed.

"Whenever we do an airstrike the first thing they're going to cry is 'Airstrike killed civilians' when the missile actually struck militant extremists we were targeting in the first place," Perry said. "At this time we don't believe we've harmed anyone except for the combatants."

Neither the AOL story or the FOX story mention that the bride was killed.

Why are these top stories in British news outlets and near the bottom, if at all, in USA news sources? Is it corporate influence? Are the British more interested in hard news verse fluff? Is our government pressuring or corporate owned news outlets to stay away from 'bad' news about our wars and covert operations around the world?

Click here for video of the event on BBC (could not find video on AOL or FOX)

This is the beginning of a longer conversation.

But my biggest questions are these: Do Americans care? Can a country with a majority of white Judio/Christian citizens have empathy with similar humans who are dark skinned Muslims? Jews, Christians and Muslims all believe in one god so we all came from the same creator (according to these three major religions). If 47 innocent civilians attending a wedding in New York were bombed yesterday, would it be 'front page news' on AOL and FOX? Would they just quote a military person who says "the missile actually struck militant extremists?" Where is journalism? Where is our humanity?

85,865 - 93,675 Documented civilian deaths from violence in Iraq since the American lead invasion as of 1pm Eastern Time, July 11, 2008 according to Iraq Body Count

* could not find civilian deaths from violence since the American lead invasion in Afghanistan *

4,118 US military deaths in Iraq since the American lead invasion as of 1pm Eastern Time, July 11, 2008 according to iCasualties.org.

544 US military deaths in Afghanistan since the American lead invasion as of 1pm Eastern Time, July 11, 2008 according to iCasualties.org.