It was on page 5A of the Nov. 30th, 2005 USA Today.

There were 3 major stories on the page along with the paper's typical left-hand side bar of news snippets. The top-most story was about some new hostages taken by the terrorists in Iraq. But it was the middle and bottom stories that caught my attention.

The middle headline read, "'Peacekeeping' a struggle in Sudan" The article was about the failure of African Union troops to quell the violence of Arab militias, armed by the Sudanese Muslim government, perpetrated on unarmed southern Christian villages. The AU troops have stood by and watched while some 180,000 people have been butchered and over two million turned into refugees.

Look at a map. Ethiopia borders Sudan on the east. Hurrah! for the valiant efforts of our troops rescuing a couple cheetahs. That's great! But I wonder - did the editor of the USA Today see the incredible irony of placing these artciles next to each other? What does it say about our foreign policy when our our troops can rescue cheetahs but cannot be used to protect hundreds of thousands of innocent people? What does it say about the way human life is being devalued when these two articles can be placed on the same page, and the utter insanity of the contrast doesn't bring outrage?

I'm outraged. I'm incensed that we live in a world were two cheetahs would be deemed worthy of protection while a thousand children a few miles away are ignored protection.

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