Okay, I give up ... you go figure!

I happened to pass by the row of newspaper stands as I was walking in Walmart to pick up a turkey baster to feed Sweetheart (another story!) when I saw two prominent headlines: "War Still Red Hot!" and "War in Middle East Shows no Sign of Letting Up after Four Weeks." Looking more carefully through the plastic window, I saw that the stories dealt with the Israeli-Hezbollah (Lebanon) conflict and that the first month was drawing to a close with more than 500 civilians dead and about 75 Israeli and Hezbollah fighters.

Okay.

When I got home and looked through my local paper -- also highlighting the Israeli-Lebanon situation on page One, but not headlined at least, I noticed that the Iraq War was in the second section. It was basically a story that suggested that the "civil war" was ongoing as ever and that US military deaths were down to under 50 over the past month. The total number of Iraqi civilians killed in July was estimated to be 1150 plus about 200 Iraqi military.

How is it that our own losses and the carnage ongoing in Iraq lands in the back section of the paper, whilst the "big news" seems to be a war (terrible yes, but let me make the point here!) with roughly half the losses and within which 135,000 American soldiers are knee deep in sand?

If I were a conspiracy nut, I'd think there was a deliberate attempt to push our own slaughter to the back of our minds. Maybe that's why we aren't too eager to see a ceasefire in Lebanon/Israel ...

Is it just me?