What Price Slaughter?

by Tom Engelhardt

"What value has a human life?

We usually think of this in terms of sentiment – of memories, grief, love, longing, of everything, in short, that is too deep and valuable to put a price upon. Then again, is anything in our world truly priceless?......

So there we have it. In the modern version of "child slaughter," the U.S. government has indeed offered the world an evaluation of what price slaughter should exact in the deaths of innocents everywhere:

The value of an innocent civilian slaughtered by al-Qaeda terrorists on Sept. 11, 2001, to his or her family: $1.8 million.

The value of an innocent civilian slaughtered at Haditha, Iraq, by U.S. Marines: $2,500.

The value of an innocent civilian slaughtered by U.S. Marines near Jalalabad, Afghanistan: $2,000.

Never say that the U.S. government is incapable of putting a price on the deaths of innocents."