I was late getting to work yesterday. The freeway I usually take to get to the office was closed. Turns out a car had overturned and resulted in a fatality. I don't know who the victim was, but my heart nonetheless goes to their family and friends.
The scene that resulted was almost surreal. An entire freeway was completely closed to rush hour traffic. As I drove - very slowly - onto to the off-ramp, I could see there must have been a dozen patrol cars on site. Multiple officers were taking photos and video of the scene. Other officers were collecting pieces of broken glass and other debris. Others were taking measurements. Senior officers were overlooking this whole undertaking. And I thought wow, what a level of effort expanded to determine why this life was lost, to make sure justice is done.
Then my mind wandered to places like Iraq and Afghanistan. Where a long, brutal war kills blindly on a daily basis. Where many innocent victims will die needlessly just in hopes we might hit a bad guy, whatever that is and whoever gets to determine what that is. And it seems that rather than expand energy and resources to investigate and shed light on things that go wrong, to make sure justice is done because after all a life is a life, energy is instead expanded on covering up and keeping the truth from coming out.
The parallel struck me. That as a society we expect exact answers on things like what caused this car accident and who will be held accountable for the damages. But that when we learn our government - or its private contractors - indiscriminently kill and main and destroy private property in another country (or sometimes in this one!), we do not expect they should be held to a similar level of accountability and transparency.
Why is that? Are we saying a human life over there is worth less than a human life here?
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