What Dale writes is quite correct but it is just another manifestation of American ‘liberal’ media racism. When eighteen US Army Rangers dies that is horrifying because eighteen American lives are valuable. As Somali lives are irrelevent, who gives a damn if one thousand Somali irregulars got smoked? The important fact was that here was a chance to dwell on the negative aspects, namely American deaths. Regardless of the fact the US soldiers gave a fine account of themselves before being overwhelmed, why not just use this as an excuse to point out the US military are the bad guys yet again?
Whilst I do think the whole mission to Somalia was a noble but naive mistake from the outset, is it too much to expect the US media to realise it was actually a far from ignoble episode in US military history? I guess so.
Another example of US ‘liberal’ media racism was the reporting of the 1998 US Embassy bombings in Africa. It as widely reported that twelve Americans died and almost as an afterthought, oh yes, about 300 or so Africans were killed plus nearly 4000 wounded. This need to be repeated again and again to people across the world who claim Al Qaeda only want to kill Americans.
Similarly as commented on by Opinionated Bastard (now is that a great name for a blog or what?), once it became clear most of the people on Flight 587 which crashed in Rockaway were not from the USA, media interest tailed off rapidly (no pun intended):
This is infuriating because the passengers on Flight 587 were almost entirely from the Dominican Republic. We get ’round the clock coverage of whatever civilian casualties may or may not have actually happened in Afghanistan, but when poor folks in our own hemisphere are suffering, it’s shuffled off to the back page.
I guess those people just did not count for much.
