Is an explosion in Baghdad materially different than one in London?

[NNadir]

I have great sympathy for all people killed by terrorism, but all war - whatever the means of atrocity racheting - is terrorism.

People are killed by explosions in Baghdad every day. Sometimes there are explosions in Iraqi cities because of explosives dropped from publicly financed aircraft.

How is it that the world is so outraged by an explosion in London, or an explosion in Madrid, but an explosion in Iraq that kills as many - or more - innocents solicits only a yawn.

Am I the only person who sees this?

[mike_c]

1. yes-- when civilians are murdered in London...

...it's called "terrorism," but when they're murdered in Baghdad we call it "spreading democracy." No wonder they hate us for our freedom.

[Zhade]

41. They hate us for imposing our "freedom" through violence.

There is little difference between a suicide bomber killing innocents in London and a C-130 doing the same to innocents in Iraq.

Well, except that the guys in the C-130 don't usually die, of course. And they don't see their victims up close, where they might feel some remorse.

(Not fun to write that, btw - my dad was Special Ops, flew in AC-130s for two decades, including Panama, Grenada and the first Gulf War.)

[teach1st]

2. You're not the only one...

...I've been haunted by this all day. I mentioned it to a Bush supporter and he said, "But England is our ally."

"But Iraq is our ally, too."

Bush supporter changed the subject.

[HuckleB]

3. No.

"Is an explosion in Baghdad materially different than one in London?"

NO.


"Am I the only person who sees this?"

NO.

[shraby]

4. No you're not. In fact,

the other night we had a real banger of a thunderstorm and while watching the lightning, it made me think of how terrified those people must be when the bombs light up the sky around them and how very lucky I am that it's just lightning.

[wtmusic]

5. 138 brown-skinned civilians died in Baghdad last week alone

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=4037011&mesg_id=4037011

[illflem]

6. No you're not

Will Pitt said it best,

"I am a little wiser nowadays, and perhaps a little more callous because of that wisdom. My first response was horror, and my second was a sense that the British people have the strength to endure this. My third response was to marvel at the news coverage. Four bombings, more than thirty dead, hundreds more wounded? In London, it is a terrifying, enraging, appalling act of despicable violence that must be immediately avenged.

In Iraq, they call events like this "Tuesday."

Tens of thousands of people have been killed and wounded in Iraq by way of deadly bombings that have been taking place every single day. These Iraqi people are no different from the Londoners who perished today. Their skin is darker perhaps, and they pray to a different God, but they have families and children and dreams and they die just as horribly as their British counterparts. Yet they earn perhaps a few sentences on the back page of the paper, and virtually no comment from the members of the international community which ginned up the invasion of Iraq in the first place."

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/070705A.shtml

[The Straight Story]

7. At the risk of being kicked off DU or flamed, I will answer this:

I have seen many such threads since yesterday about this. I would like to answer this using something really close to home.

DU'ers whom have recently passed. People die everyday in America (and the world) yet most don't get a mention here or long threads. Why? To me it is because some deaths hit home more then others.

Should we ignore the deaths which mean the most to us personally because there are others out there in the sake of 'fairness'? We have more in common with some people, and groups of people, then others. We relate more to the people of London then Iraq.

We care when one of 'our own' passes on because they meant something to us - even if we never met them in real life. And the same goes to those in London - we may have never met them in real life but we 'know' them and their style of life better then those who live in a country far different then our own.

It may not be fair, but to me it is logical and human nature.

[wtmusic]

8. 'We relate more to the people in London'?

That's the root of the problem.

[The Straight Story]

12. It is though, to me, quite understandable

We 'know' those most like us because they share common bonds to us (tv shows, shopping, and so on, etc). May not be right, but I can't see how it is terribly wrong either.

[wtmusic]

19. tv shows yes...life and death-fundamental needs no

I don't feel any difference in my ability to relate to an Iraqi who fears for their life, or who has lost a loved one to senseless violence, vs. a Londoner in the same predicament.

The fact that there is scant press coverage of Iraqis and the language barrier is all that really prevents us most Americans from relating. This is completely deliberate on the part of the administration and is what they used to justify their war.

[manic expression]

33. It is terribly wrong in every way

There is not a common bond between the average American and Briton. NONE. There is only a superficial bond created by race and perceived culture (need I remind you that British culture, TV and just about everything else is completely different?). The only thing which makes people value lives in the UK more than in Iraq is bigotry, plain and simple.

If a bomb went off in my own state, I would not value the lives lost any more than those lost in Iraq or anywhere else, and I would treat them accordingly.

I cannot see how it is NOT terribly wrong.

[maxsolomon]

16. well, if that's the problem, then its humanity's problem

xenophobia is in our DNA. it is one of the loftier goals of religion is to overcome this, & foster brotherhood with those unlike ourselves. so we may understand intellectually that there is no quantitative difference between an iraqi terror death & a british one, but it is not an innate reaction.

the british speak english. we have history in common. we have culture in common. we have religion in common. and many of us have british ancestry. far far fewer americans have any arab ancestry.

i wish we related to iraqis as much as we do to the british, but we don't. of course, i write as a caucasian-american.

[NNadir]

18. It is NOT a goal of religion to overcome "this."

It is doublespeak to claim that it is the goal of religion to overcome war. Religion, it seems to me, is just one more mechanism for the dehumanization of the "other."

It seems to me that all of the terrorists from George W. Bush to Osama bin Laden frame their acts of violence in religious terms. Indeed the people who destroyed the World Trade Center did so.

I can think of few places where religion fostered peace. I can think of many places that it fostered war.

I could easily say that, "we have religious backgrounds in common" when speaking of the British.

It is not the case that some people are more human because they are more like us.

[The Straight Story]

21. I am not really sure I would agree with you on this:

It seems to me that all of the terrorists from George W. Bush to Osama bin Laden frame their acts of violence in religious terms. Indeed the people who destroyed the World Trade Center did so.

The reasons I keep seeing we went to war, and have seen other wars, was due to a national reasoning - ie, terrorism could hurt us, we need oil, america has been shafting us and taking our land, et al and so on. Even without religion there would be nationalism and/or a sense of oneness and sticking together versus an opposing force. Religion can frame a reasoning in the debate - but from what I have seen it has been oil (national security they might say), land, expanionsism, greed, other resources, et al.

None of those have to do with religion and everything to do with a sense of security (by removing those things which we percieve to make us less secure). It is an evolutionary struggle where we want to survive and are willing to do so at the cost of the lives of others.

Right or wrong? Well asking that question in and of itself could be seen to be a religious one (or moral one) which seems outside the boundaries of science and survival of the fittest.

[NNadir]

22. The "land...America has been taking" is holy land.

Osama bin Laden wasn't inspired by the need to keep oil or even a particular piece of land. He was inspired by the occupation by infidels in the land near Mecca.

The fact that Americans were able to buy almost blindly into attacking a muslim nation that clearly had nothing to do with the World Trade Center Attacks - as is widely known and widely acknowledged even in the controlled, cowed American Press - speaks volumes.

I don't think that any war is really about national interest. National interests are always subverted by war. War after all always involves the destruction of citizenry and their property in 100% of its instances. It is very hard to argue that such an activity involves a desire for security. Most people are aware that war in an activity in which they can be killed.

Neither can it be said that war actually ever produces security. Within a few years of the most decisively won war in US history - World War II - everyone in the United States was quivering in fear of Armageddon. There was nothing secure in any of this. The war was simply an exercise in atrocity ratcheting, from the bombing of Guernica, to the rape of Nanking, to the fire bombing of Hamburg and Dresden and Tokyo to the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. At the end of the war the world was not more secure, not more safe, not richer, not more beautiful. It was, in fact, less secure, more dangerous, greatly impoverished and ugly with the casts of ruined cities and broken, crushed, burned and vaporized bodies.

People engage in war because of mysticism, not reason. There has never been a single war that was rational ever anywhere at any time. Even if war is not overtly religiously justified at the outset, the psychological state of justification is quasi-religious and, no matter what reason is given for commencing involvement, religious thinking always dominates the activity in the end. One reason for persisting in a war is to demonstrate, for instance, that "the dead will not have died in vain." Implicit in such a notion is a conception of some kind of afterlife, which is a religious and not a rational conception. However the dead are dead and can have no emotions whatsoever about events following their deaths. No one cares about the dead from the Imperial Roman wars anymore, of course, or even the dead from 19th century British Imperial wars. They no longer matter. This is because they were, when all is said an done, merely carbon based organisms subject to the second law of thermodynamics. They were not mystical beings as implied by their successor warriors near the times of their deaths.

The religious nature of war is why flags acquire talismanic significance, why we worship inanimate objects as in "Remember the Maine" or as we've seen more recently "Always Remember the Twin Towers." They are no different materially than crucifixes and are evoked to provoke an irrational response.

To my thinking there is nothing beyond the boundaries of science in describing the etiology of war. It is pretty clear to me exactly what war is and how religious thinking is intertwined with it. One may argue about the origins of religious thinking and its (possibly genetic) causality, but whatever the case, there could be no war without it.

[wtmusic]

26. Interesting discussion

You both argue a great case. To me it's a "chicken or the egg" syndrome--whether religion justifies nationalism or vice versa. Both are hardwired into our natures as possibly alternate (or competing) survival mechanisms.

[The Straight Story]

29. Perhaps my point is that

Religion is a broad topic that does not require a 'bible' - it transcends such things and bleeds well into our beliefs - from democrats to republicans. We believe in a particular view and work to propogate that view through 'evangelizing' others.

Belief is a part of life - and it leads into science. You believe X so you search for a proof of it. Such a search may take many years time during which stretch you act as though such a belief is real (and we can see this in science and how things have changed and continue to do so in it).

If we parlay that into a broader scope involving psychology and mankind we get to a point where man believes X and such people congregate together in areas and then use such beliefs to influence policy (including war). This can happen well out of the range of religion on a personal scale. Many on the right might feel Iraq was a real threat and letting them control so much oil was a long term threat to us. It was a belief based on what they saw as evidence while we saw it as bunk. It had nothing to do with Jesus or the bible and everything to do with our future (and that does not even go into China and their thirst for oil and how letting saddam stay in power could have benefitted China more then the US - people in US want us to be better off first above the chinese, and owning the oil fields helps that, et al).

Religion, politics, idealism, philosophy, and so on all have a common thread of belief - and a more subtle thread of personal survival for one's group over another. This too plays into the recent bombings in England. We feel closer to the English than the Iraqi's because they are closer to us in many ways (from our religions to our lifestyles and tv, et al).

This goes to an earlier point elsewhere I made about Andy - when he passed there were many threads here about him, yet people die every day and no one makes a thread about those people. Why was he different? He was 'one of us' he posted here. Even if you never met him you felt connected to him. Why? What made his life more noteworthy to us then some Iraqi who was bombed? Or some guy in Africa who died of aids?

Andy was 'on our side'. He saw things the way we did, he lived a similar life to the one we did. No one was complaining that we showed so much support for some 'white guy' - whereas many people might say that we have no compassion for iraqi's because they are brown. It is not skin color or locale that makes the difference. It is our personal connection we make with the person affected by X.

Even Jesus showed this trait. When Lazarus died he wept and raised him from the dead - but people all over the world died each day. Jesus had a connection with him. We have a connection with those in London as they are more like us then the Iraqi's.

Is this wrong? What is wrong anyway and who decides? To make a moral quip about religion is in an of itself a moral statement - and what are morals? If we rely solely on science where does that leave us?

The yardsticks by which we measure, to me, are in and of themselves a form of religion - and to bash religion is to me to bash human nature at it's core - and it also bashes our beliefs here on DU that our way is better then the way of those on FR. Who is right, who decides right?

[NNadir]

34. I think there are some very broad generalizations here.

First of all, I am very dubious of arguments that attempt to characterize science as a "belief" on the same level as religion, if this is what you are claiming. There is a distinct difference: Science begins with measurement. There is an element to science that is independent of culture. Every culture, from Asia, to Africa, to Europe to the middle east, for instance, has made a stab at the value of the constant that we now call "pi," which is, of course, the ratio between a circle's diameter and it's circumference. What is transcendently (pun intended) obvious about this constant is that first everyone was looking for the same thing independent of culture, and that, independent of culture, all societies more or less accurately, depending on their technological ability with measurement, approached the same value. There is no "belief" about the value of pi. There is simply the constant itself. Everyone starting with the same abstract information, the existence of circles, will end up going down the same path.

It is not as if every culture in the world simultaneously derived the value of Jesus without the influence of other cultures.

In fact, my view of the matter of Jesus and Lazarus is that it is simply a myth, on the same level as the story of Paris, Helen and the Golden Apple. It may or may not have some psychic or cultural meaning that can be divined (pun intended) generally from one's own weltanschung but such interpretations will not be consistent. I, for instance, believe it's a bunch of crap. Pope such and such on the other hand believes that the story is relevant to all humanity.

I personally have no unique attachment to the matter of Andy, victims of the World Trade Center attacks, the victims of London bombings or the victims of the terrorist attacks on the citizens of Iraq as perpetrated by the United States and British governments - which is of course my point.

Of course, when my mother died, when my father died, this had a more direct effect on me than when Mr. Stevenson died, but because I am aware that Mr. Stevenson was an intimate of many people, it is easy to extend sympathy to them. To do so, I need only evoke my own personal knowledge of death. There is a fundamental difference, of course to the matter of Andy - about whom I know nothing and about whom - up until now, I have said nothing. Mr. Stevenson was not killed through the direct action of other people. The victims of the terrorist attacks in London, New York, Baghdad and Falluja on the other hand were killed through the actions of other human beings - all of whom made a deliberate choice to kill. Moreover the people making these choices must necessarily devalue the lives of their antagonists over their own assertion of what they believed to be "moral" - I call it "religious" - value.

When I am made aware of the deaths of any individual, it is a natural inclination to feel sympathy, of course. I am sympathetic - and empathetic - to the people who were killed in London, as well as the people killed in New York, in Madrid, in Belfast, in Sarajevo, in Falluja, for that matter, in Hiroshima. I however do not make a distinction between them. When I look at my own children - I can immediately understand what it might mean to be the victim of violence and it is certainly worse for the survivors than it is for the killed, as those who are killed are necessarily devoid of emotions because they no longer exist. Because I can extend my own humanity to others who may suffer violence at the hands of other human beings, I simply generally abhor violence. Hence - in spite of your specific generalization about all posters to DU - for me the bombing in London is not materially different than the bombings in Baghdad - any more than the death of Andy Stevenson is materially different than the deaths of my own parents.

Moral reasoning is often derided as casuistry, particularly by those - typically on the right - who claim moral universals. Most people who assert moral universals are by nature religious, of course, and they wish to assert a right to determine what I may or may not do with my own body, for instance, independent of my own preferences. However, if we think carefully about it - certain culturally independent moral universals have begun to evolve. The religious philosopher Elaine Pagels asserts in her work, "The Origins of Satan" than the Western - Christian - viewpoint about the value of human life has conquered the world. She claims, for instance, that the conception stated in the American Declaration of Independence that "all men are created equal" is a religiously determined conception derived from the Christian notion of the sacredness of all human life.

I am not so sure I agree. It does seem to me that there is one moral truth that has been discovered or asserted in many different places and cultures - similar - if not as readily apparent - as the value of pi. This is the notion that people should treat other people as they wish to be treated themselves. People will of course assert that this notion is consistent with the teachings of Jesus, but it is also consistent with the moral teachings of many people who had no idea of whom Jesus was, who never cared about Jesus and who never absorbed any of the other clap-trap that accompanied a belief in Jesus - bits about miracles, water and wine, raising the dead, healing the sick and beating up money changers in temples.

The notion that one should extend one's own humanity to others in determining what actions are moral and what actions are not is not the claim - like that made the morally primitive among whom I include most dogmatic religious adherents - that other people should have the same values as one holds for one's self. It is merely the claim that all human beings are equal in their right to conduct their lives in peace, that no other human being has a moral justification to commit acts of indiscriminate (and the word "indiscriminate" is an important word here) acts of violence against other human beings. The point I sought to make in originating this thread is that all of the actions in which high explosives are deliberately detonated in the presence of other human beings are - for me at least if not for everyone at DU - morally equivalent. It makes no difference whatsoever whether the people victimized by these acts are like me or not. It makes no difference whether or not I am personally connected or aware of the details of their lives or whether their lives are lived in the same manner as I live my life. Every child in Baghdad is my child merely because every child in Baghdad is a child.

[The Straight Story]

35. I would agree insomuch as

we are discussing pure science. But alas, that seems elusive in this world at times. From global warming to even math there seems to be a taint of politics. But let us scale down for but a moment to examine this:

Windows, Linux, Solaris, Apple, et al - which is best? I suppose one could argue that that is subjective. But one could also say it is objective if we take some common baseline and measure them. Even if we do so though, I am afraid, there will be pundits who profess to be of a scientific nature, who will 'spin' the results.

So how one measures science and it's results is up for grabs - as the measurements we are checking can be spun or changed to get us the results we wish to have. There is even politics, if you will, in the field of mathematics which quashes research into some fields.

We do not, and will not, live in a world purely driven by some science that is totally objective. That is simple reality.

I do, however, note well your posts and enjoy them on this topic.

Every child in Baghdad is my child merely because every child in Baghdad is a child.

I agree with this mostly. Where I would see differently is that we are affected less emotionally as people when those we see on the news are not close to us. I do not see this as wrong or unnatural. Let me use myself as an example which hits close to home.

My mom died on 12/31/2004. Around this same time there was the Tsunami. Thousands upon Thousands killed. While I felt for them my heart was a wreck over my mom mostly. It affected me more on a personal level then anyone over in those areas dying. It is not that I did not care or that I felt no pain for them, just that they were not as connected to me. Their deaths, on top of mom's, hurt me very deeply. I felt for them, but I wept for my loss. The death of one woman hurt me more personally then the death of thousands of people I never met. Is this wrong?

And that to me is the question in some ways I suppose. And even that question goes back to whom defines right and wrong and on what basis they do so.

[Career Prole]

10. "It may not be fair, but to me it is logical and human nature."

That would be a problem with human nature, Straight Story...not with us.

I'll leave logic aside, because to me it's logical to realize that the world is diminished with every meaningless death and not just those with whom I share a common bond.
:shrug:

[The Straight Story]

11. I would agree

but I see it here at DU as much as anywhere else (from MSM to other boards). So if we call out others on it, we should ourselves as well.

[Career Prole]

20. Point taken.

:thumbsup:

[manic expression]

32. How have you seen it on DU? n/t

[manic expression]

31. A few things

It is NOT natural to put one group of people before another. If you got a 4 year old who has no prejudice and has a clear and innocent view of the world, s/he would weep the same for 5 Iraqis as for 5 Brits as for 5 Balinese as for.... It is the ignorance and bigotry of people that is unnecessarily accumulated throughout their lifetime that is the problem. To say it is human nature is mistaken.

Secondly, you do NOT have more of a common bond with those in London as with those in Baghdad. What, since you might've seen "The Office" once or twice and share the same skin tone, you now have a "common bond"??? That is completely wrong.

(this post is also for Straight Story to address)

[Career Prole]

36. Earth didn't always have borders on it.

"It is the ignorance and bigotry of people that is unnecessarily accumulated throughout their lifetime that is the problem. To say it is human nature is mistaken."

The Earth didn't always have borders on it delineating where each group should stay, but once humans got their hands on it they started drawing them in and they haven't stopped yet.
Tribalism is by no means a recent invention, M.E., it didn't have its birth in the American South.
It's been around since the dawn of recorded history and to this very day we're still trying to rise above it...or at least progressives are.

"Secondly, you do NOT have more of a common bond with those in London as with those in Baghdad. What, since you might've seen "The Office" once or twice and share the same skin tone, you now have a "common bond"??? That is completely wrong."

Actually, the group "friends and acquaintances I have in London" outnumbers the group "friends and acquaintances I have in Baghdad" by about a hundred to zero, which is the "common bond" to which I referred. I've never even seen "The Office".
:shrug:

[manic expression]

37. Ultimately, there are NO borders at all

Borders serve only to separate powers from one another, but they can do nothing to separate humans, or any group, from one another. Realize that everything is connected equally, no matter how many imaginary lines are drawn between them.

These problems arise from ignorance and jingoism, and if you just observe a young person who is naturally free from these ill influences, you can clearly see that the nature of living beings is to see across the insignificant lines of race, religion, gender and nationality; this is the way the world TRULY is: formless, unbound by mere appearance, unified yet individual throughout all superficial aspects.

I do not have any real acquaintances in Baghdad, but that does nothing to make their suffering any less important than the people I know in London. Any life is worth the same as any life, and no amount of false excuses can change that. If anything, the US directly caused the deaths of Iraqis, and so we should mourn them MORE because of this.

"The Office" is a British comedy that has been shown in America, I used it as an example of a meaningless "common bond" that most people would cite to hide their wrong sentiments.

[manic expression]

30. I think you are brave for posting that

However, I disagree with that sentiment to the highest degree. There is no difference between a Londoner, an Iraqi, my neighbor or myself. If my entire town was destroyed due to an attack tomorrow, I would prefer that people recognize Fallujah just as they recognize that (Fallujah more, since it's MUCH bigger).

That is the fundamental problem with our country. We care not for the people we trample on and kill, but if those with fair skin perish, it is as if they mean more to us.

We care about Andy (it's not as personal for me, I didn't know him so well) because people KNEW him on a personal level. We don't KNOW many people who die from similar circumstances, and so it does not strike us on the same level, but I feel that many people would care strongly about those people just as much if they were to look into the case. A real analogy would be if an Arab DUer died of cancer, but we gave TONS of attention to Andy, while giving almost NONE to the Arab.

The vast majority of Americans who are obsessing over this attack do not know any of the people affected; they probably have never been to London. They cannot claim "personal attachment" as do people who knew and loved Andy (sorry to use the example but it was given to me and I'm working with it). It is racism, subliminal bigotry, and I hate it.

[G2099]

9. No . . .

And no . . .

[El Fuego]

13. I'll explain the difference...

Unlike the MSM and redstate types, we here at DU care deeply about deaths of Iraqis caused by *. But we are in the minority.

The thing about the London attacks is that the MSM and ignorant bush america actually give a damn, so it gets more coverage.

[Hippo_Tron]

14. "Why is a Kundaneese life worth less to me than an American life?"

"I don't know sir, but it is."

Those who watch the West Wing will know exactly what I am talking about.

Of course in the drugged up crack world of the West Wing, the President changes his mind about that and decides that all life is equal. In the real world, the President doesn't give two shits about the lives of anybody but wealthy Americans.

[BlueStateGirl]

15. I actually saw MSNBC do a story on this earlier today. The reporter

said that there are an average of 8 car bombings a week in Iraq. He interviewed an Iraqi who said he feels bad for the victims in London, but this is what daily life in Iraq is like. He asked why no one cares about them.

I was actually kind of shocked to see the story. I didn't think that MSM would go there.

[efhmc]

17. Now that is amazing because it is so real and true.

[susu369]

23. Thank you for reminding us of Madrid

where 191 people died. Was there non-stop coverage of the horror that happened in Madrid?

[tocqueville]

24. Iraqui IEDs in London ?

Military explosives in London bombings...

the devastating damage done by very small charges (< 10 pounds) according a military expert, shows that it was high-tech military explosives according to an expert talking to AFP...

If true, it reminds me that exactly that kind of explosives were stolen from the Al Quaqqa facility in Iraq, due to a major SNAFU from the US forces. The fact that the terrorists gave no indication of activity previous to the bombings, make some experts think that they are of the latest generation, completely unknown from the UK intelligence... because trained in Iraq.

All that might be a sign that there were "last generation" IEDs used in London. So was the CIA right when saying that Iraq would be exporting terror to Europe soon (CIA memo in June) ????

Thank you, George...
________________________________________________________

http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0@2-3214,36-67099...

EXPLOSIFS D'ORIGINE MILITAIRE

L'explosif utilisé dans les 4 attentats de Londres jeudi était probablement un plastic d'origine militaire, estiment plusieurs experts en comparant la petite taille des engins à l'ampleur des dégâts.

"Vu la petite taille des bombes", moins de 5kg, "seul un explosif à très haut rendement a pu faire des dégâts de cette importance. Il s'agit probablement d'un plastic de haute qualité comme ceux qui sont fabriqués par les militaires", a précisé à l'AFP un expert militaire spécialiste du démantèlement de l'arsenal de groupes clandestins.

[leesa]

25. I see it very clearly and it sickens me.

[theoldgeezer]

27. I don't see it as different in any way

Both are targeted to kill ordinary people, not to effect a military outcome.

Both cause pain and grief to family and friends.

Terrorism in Baghdad is motivated by and calculated to achieve the very same as in London.

both are intended to foster strife among those opposed to the wishes of the terrorists.

THe citizens of Baghdad are targeted to try to get them to explode in civil war.

The citizens of London are targeted to ty to get them to act on emotion - and the hope is that emotion is fear - and xenophobia.

There is ONE major difference... The blasts in London... are a hope to get the people of London to stop supporting the people of Baghdad.

[leftofthedial]

28. but, but, but

they're WHITE people! Can't you see the difference?

:sarcasm:

[geek tragedy]

38. To raise a counterpoint: Why do DU'ers get more outraged at the US

when its actions kill Iraqi civilians in Iraq than when the insurgents do it in Iraq?

If the US military kills innocent civilians, the most common response is to express anger and outrage at the US government and Bush.

If the insurgents kills innocent civilians, the most common response is to express anger and outrage at the US government and Bush, with an occasional comment condemning the insurgents as well.

[Catrina]

39. I think there are some complex reasons

for that.


One, we feel responsible when our side kills innocent Iraqis, as we should.

Two, we want this war to end, and maybe we realize that Bush et al will use the killing of Iraqis by 'insurgents' to extend it, so for that reason we may subconsciously not want to play into his hands? I know I feel the same way about it, the deaths of innocent Iraqis, not matter who is responsible, but do attribute part of the blame to this administration because had they not started the war, those 'insurgents' would not be killing Iraqis.

Iow, maybe we are putting the blame where it belongs for the most part?

To the original question, the answer is 'no' and 'no' for me too. I do not relate more to people in Britain who are victims of terrorism than people in Iraq ~ in fact, the intense coverage of the London attacks, made me realize that the deaths of Iraqis pass without notice by our media.

I think if we were to be given names, and pictures etc. most people would identify with them. Remember how they identified with the little Iraqi girl on the side of the road, screaming, after her parents were killed? She was everyone's child ~ and it happened on Inauguration Day, and was the picture the world saw, rather than Bush's big military party! So, media coverage has a lot to do with it, imo.

I have been talking to an Iraqi man on another forum, and he asked this question also. He wasn't angry, just puzzled because as he said, his people are being killed like that every day. The attention given to those attacks is causing a lot of people to ask that question. Maybe the mood is different in the world now, than after 9/11 ~ too much carnage has taken place ~

[NNadir]

40. The US is the aggressor. They came to steal. US responsibility is

therefore special and unique.

The US government caused the war through (a long history) of deliberate lies, inconsistency and manipulation. The US appealed to war, indeed it was the latter day American Ribbentrop, Colin Powell, who lied to the entire planet, notably with one of the great symbols of the need for peace - the tapestry reproduction of Picasso's Guernica behind the podium at the UN - deliberately covered over. If there is a more graphic depiction of an obvious appeal to the overt criminality of war - the mealy mouthed dark secrecy and obfuscation by which war thrives - in recent history, I can't think of it.

While all participants in a war - defenders as well as aggressors - deserve approbation, the two situations are not identical. While the fire bombing by the allies in World War II of Hamburg and Dresden were both crimes, they are not morally equivalent to the German bombing of Warsaw or of Rotterdam. One set of acts preceded the other.

The US coddled, supported, and ran clearance for Saddam Hussein for many years. The US clearly flaunted world opinion and international law to commit a crime, to permanently destabilize a country of whose culture, history, and future it had no knowledge and no respect. Now that the United States is paying an enormous price for its stupidity and its criminality, it suddenly makes the morally outrageous claim of decency.

The United States can undo its moral culpability by simply leaving the country and accepting the world's contempt for its actions. Afterall, no asked the Germans to stay in Poland to provide for Poland's stability after the 1939 invasion. It is true that Poland unjustly suffered as a result of the German invasion, and did so for several generations afterwards. But the solution that was ultimately found for the tragedy of Poland was a Polish solution - initiated by the hero Lech Walesa who used peaceful means to defeat the enemies of the Polish people.

That said, I think that the bombers in Iraq - American, British, other foreigners or Iraqis themselves - are all criminal. Peace and violence are mutually exclusive always at all times.

[Zhade]

42. Kick

Kick

[NNadir]

43. For instance....

The headlines from the website at the propaganda bureau at CNN this morning:

Major story: Hurricane Dennis.

The headlines:

MORE NEWS
• Suicide bombers kill 30 in Iraq | Special report

• Al Qaeda 'targeting UK recruits' | Watch

• Fresh security threat as Britain mourns | Watch

• Londoners comb hospitals for missing | Watch

• Reactions polarized as G8 ends | Watch

• N. Korea to rejoin nuclear talks | Special report

• Astronauts arrive early for launch | Watch

• SI.com: Rodman runs with real Bulls -- again | Watch

• Giant panda born at National Zoo



Let's see, 4 stories about Britian, 1 North Korea, 1 giant Panda, 1 Dennis Rodman, and 1 where thirty people are killed by a bomb in Iraq.

Iraq bomb = Rodman = Panda.

That sounds about right.