Since January, the AP found that at least 5,186 people were killed in fighting between Muslims and Christians, based on a count of bodies and numbers gathered from survivors, priests, imams and aid workers in more than 50 of the hardest-hit communities in this African country.

Did you see Sean Hannity or Rachel Maddow talk about this on prime time TV in the United States?

Could you point out the Central African Republic on a map?

This is a country of 240,000 square miles. For comparison, California is 164,000 square miles. So Central African Republic is a little smaller than California and Arizona combined, or for my European readers, it’s a bit larger than Germany and the United Kingdom together. Yet, very few of us know where that country even is. It must be in Central Africa, duh.

Christians and Muslims are slaughtering each other. Nobody seems to care. There is a token United Nations force there trying to stem the violence.

The United States media has given it very little attention. When Muslims slaughter Christians in Iraq, we somehow learn about it, but if it’s in Africa, don’t bother us. To give credit, however, I must add that the U.S. just now sent 20 people there to help open up the embassy again.

Of course, the Muslims in Africa are not terrorists plotting to blow up buildings in the United States, presumably, so they don’t rate.

Here is another example of why religion is poisonous to human life. These people, in their own vast country in the heart of Africa, with natural resources of diamonds, uranium, timber, gold, oil and hydropower, somehow choose to spend their energy on wars based on religious beliefs. As if those mattered.

The country should be spending its energies on attracting western capital to build up its resources, it needs leadership to run businesses harvesting those resources, it should invest in education for its children, build a workable infrastructure and join the international community, so the people of the world can point out their country on a map.

But their imams, priests and religious whatnots don’t seem to have that sense.

Why doesn’t Dick Cheney clamor for us to send “boots on the ground” to the Central African Republic? What’s the double standard here?

I am certainly not suggesting we do that, to get involved in a military conflict in a country that we don’t know, based on religions that we don’t understand, based on passions that we don’t care about.

So, why then, do we send American young men and women into Syria and Iraq?