"What kind of people are we?"

George Lewandowski of Yellow Times wonders why Americans are so distraught over the 7 deaths from the Columbia disaster, and yet show little apparent concern for the hundreds of thousands that will likely be slaughtered in an upcoming assault on Iraq.

Is it possible for Americans to be so compartmentalized in their emotions that seven deaths by fire will trigger an appropriate human outpouring of grief, but a man-made catastrophe intended to consume thousands of human beings amid the ruins of one of the world's oldest cities is eagerly anticipated as a cause for national pride? Can the same people who shed genuine tears for seven fallen eagles really feel nothing but contempt for whole flocks targeted for annihilation in another of America's temper tantrums?

What kind of people are we? What kind of heart is it that grows heavy with the news of seven brave adventurers lost in an accident of experimental technology, but that swells with hubris over news of the technological prowess that will soon enable our button-pushing technicians to sit at their remote control consoles and condemn thousands of men, women and children to a painful, flame-broiled death?

What kind of people are we? What can we be thinking? What kind of mind, having just witnessed our technology's limits in the face of great unforeseen forces, arrogantly dismisses the probability that the war we are so eager to launch might unleash forces which our technology cannot control?