Mintvis weighs in on the London attacks

Consider the following:

(note that this list is anything but comprehensive, just a few snapshots of "terror" in the world)

February 24, 2004: 100 Iraqis die in two suicide bombings in the Baghdad area.

January 30, 2005: 16 Iraqis die in a series of suicide bombings and rocket & mortar attacks on polling stations in and around Baghdad.

February 25, 2005: 30 Iraqis – mostly civilians – die in a series of suicide bombings throughout Iraq.

May 1, 2005: 25 Iraqis die in two suicide bombings in Baghdad, 20 at a police academy graduation ceremony and 5 at a nearby police station, bringing the death toll for that day and the previous four to 90.

May 5, 2005: 29 Iraqi policemen die in a series of suicide bombings in and around Baghdad.

July 7, 2005: 52 people die in suicide bombings in London.

July 13, 2005: 27 Iraqis, mostly children, die as an SUV explodes in a suicide attack in Baghdad. 25 more were injured in the attack.


Now think about this...

How many of these attacks have you heard of? Or, more importantly...
How many of these do you actually give a shit about?


I'd like to start off by saying that the attacks in London werdespicablele acts of violence that only primitively-minded people would resort to. There is simply no excuse for the indiscriminate killing of civilians, who play no direct role in the fighting of wars. Everyone, all around the world, should feel safe while riding the bus, train, or subway to work on any given day. We should all have the right to go about our lives without fear of being targeted by a governmental, religious, or ideological "opponent" that might wish harm upon us.

That said, we have to look at the London attacks objectively if we are to learn any thing at all from them. After all, if we look at things subjectively, we might as well point the finger at all of our Middle-Eastern neighbours and friends. Those guys killed my countrymen, lets kill them. An eye for an eye, right?

As far as I've learned (and in all honesty, I assume) the attacks were co-ordinated by an al-Qaeda linked group.

And while some Westerners think, "How could this happen in England, in the mighty West?!?!", one only needs to understand the following statement made by Osama Bin Laden: "IF YOU BOMB OUR CITIES, WE WILL BOMB YOURS."

It doesn't get much simpler than that.

So why are we so shocked that it happened? It happened in Spain, and the desired effect was achieved; the Spanish withdrew from Iraq. It happened in the U.S. on 9/11, which eventually threw the world into this mess. And it will happen again, no matter how secure our governments claim that we are.

Naturally Bush and Blair used this tragedy as a fresh log on the fire. They claim that this attack only strengthens their arguments that the world should continue on the current path of fighting terror, blah blah blah. What they fail to realize is the most logical of things: the war on terror breeds more terror.
Terror for Iraqis, for Afghanistan, for the Chechens and the Russians, for soldiers, for children.
East, West, North, South!
Terror terror terror!
I'm fucking tired of hearing that goddamn word.


But back to the London incident. Why do you suppose we care so much about that attack, and so little about the others listed above? Are those people any less dead? Do their lives hold less value than the Brits? Do we think to ourselves, "Well gee, that's terrible, but it's so far away, don't ya know"? Or maybe our apathy comes from the media, which spoon-feeds us certain details, and ignores the rest. (It's no secret that most of us buy into whatever we're told to buy into. That holds true for a great many things, such as fashion, movies, or even your favourite beer.)

Maybe in the end we just don't give a shit. We think every Iraqi name printed on the list of casualties looks the same. We think we're better than the rest, and deserve all that we have. They deserve what they get too, those stupid people from the desert that speak some stupid language and believe in some inferior God or ridiculous principles.
We're too lazy to investigate why things happen (9/11 in particular). We'd rather watch our mindless TV dramas than read the newspaper. And we'd rather change the channel when we see footage of a kid missing his leg, because an American missile hit his school.


I've got a sea of thoughts in my head right now, and none of it's coming out right in this post, so I'd better stop for now.


Oh ya, does anyone remember that "Live 8" thingy, or the "G8 Summit" meeting?

Didn't think so.