Values of lives

There's a substantial disparity between the amount offered as a token of practical compassion to those who have lost loved ones in Iraq, and the amount offered for the continuation of one American life, currently spent in a coma...

Is it the difference between nationalities and cultures that makes the difference, or or that between a wealthy individual donor and the Department of Defense (not known for tight control of finances in Iraq) -- or that between retrospective evaluation of an already completed life and evaluation of a life while the person involved, albeit in a coma, is still among the living?

Another in a series of DoubleQuotes concerning the monetary values assigned, one way and another, to human life...