The Terror Continues: Civilian Killings Rebound

Like most Americans, I was brought up to see human life as most precious. We mourn all who die from the stillborn child to the elderly grandparent. Even today when touring a Civil War battlefield or cemetery, I am appalled at the carnage. Yet, even that enormous loss of life in military battles makes infinitely more sense than when truly innocent people are killed for political reasons.

Yet I wonder if we are becoming desensitized to the senseless destruction of human lives in Iraq and other venues of the Middle East. Last week we read about 35 civilians, including children, who were blown away by a terrorist bomb. Although the body count from such bombings is somewhat less than it once was, it should still rock our senses. There seems to be not a whit of regard for each innocent life taken by those committing the acts. One must wonder about the value that the local culture places on life when those members of their society see fit to kill people because they happen to be of the wrong Islamic sect.

Looking more closely at the news features after a bombing in the shopping area, I notice that there are people, relatives and friends, who seem to be as distraught as one could be over a senseless death. Women beat their chests, men can be seen weeping openly and cannot even stand on their own because of the overwhelming grief they must feel. So I again must reassess and realize that their culture does indeed value life. So these terrorists must be the most inhuman and inhumane beings on the earth. They must be true savages, true sociopaths, who see nothing wrong with advancing their cause by committing serial and mass murders. No God of any religion would truly abide those terrible deeds.

But we, in the relative safety of our homes, see these news stories, shake our heads and go on with our lives. I suppose it is because we are helpless to do much about it. Our surrogates, the soldiers and marines, are doing their best to stop these atrocities.

Every thinking American must, at once time or another, have thought about if such things were to happen in the U.S. If a terrorist bombed an ice cream social in Lebanon, Kansas and 35 cone eaters were killed, our hearts would not only go out to the victims and survivors, we might even attend their funerals.

We Americans would certainly mark the date of the massacre and may even put up a stone monument to commemorate the tragedy. Prayers would be said by tourists who passed the site for many years to come.

Unfortunately there isn't enough marble in the world to honor the innocent in the Middle East.