Tag: bomb
Irony …
The Israeli blockade of Gaza makes life hard for the people of Gaza. It’s a bad thing … ask anyone in Gaza.
On the other hand it makes it hard to import rocket building materiel into Gaza, which means that folk in Israel can go about their business with a reduced risk of being blown up. That’s a good thing … ask anyone in Israel.
Some British aid workers felt sorry for the people of Gaza and decided to take aid overland. If the aid got there the people of Gaza would have a truck load of stuff that they wouldn’t otherwise have had, if it didn’t get there the effort would at least highlight the plight of the Gazan people. They made it as far as the Libia Egypt border where they were turned back, subsequently they were kidnapped. Theirs was a noble and compassionate impulse …
Awad al-Barassi, the Prime Minister of Libya, visited at least two of the victims in hospital before they were able to fly home. He told media that three women had been raped and that two of them were sisters. He said the sisters had been raped in front of their father.
Noble, compassionate and naive. Now forget noble and compassionate, hang on to naive. In the face of the horror that was the bombing of the World Trade Centre one of our worthy opinion makers, paid by the Aussie taxpayer to serve up one side of political thought, had this to say on how to deal with Osama bin Laden …
“What if that involved bringing him somewhere, absolutely safely, sitting down with him, treating him like a human being and talking about it, and then Osama bin Laden going home again, not bombing the hell out of bin Laden?”
Quite so, Virginia Trioli of their ABC.
In the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombing, the Tsarnaev brothers hijacked a car with a “Coexist” bumper sticker. They come in a number of flavours but this one is typical …
If it wasn’t for the first letter we wouldn’t need the sticker.
But, saving the best for last.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s former brother-in-law points to the Boston bomber’s possible motivation …
He was angry that the world pictures Islam as a violent religion.
Why … ?
I awoke this morning and turned on the TV for the news.
The Boston Marathon, horror and confusion, casts yet another shadow over our notion of civilisation. How could anyone think this an appropriate thing to do?
A few hours later and some of the confusion has been replaced with the early assessment of the damage. Three dead, including an eight year old boy, at least 141 people injured, limbs lost, shrapnel wounds from ball bearings, packed into the bombs to do maximum damage to soft bodies. The Boston Marathon crowd, a soft target … was the eight year old there to cheer his mum or dad at the finish of the race? My mind rails against the injustice, my sympathy goes to those who suffer.
How could anyone do it? What is wrong in their sick heads to justify it? There will be people celebrating this travesty. Sick.
Having an absolute certainty of your cause, an absolute belief in your religion, an absolute loyalty to some dogma must make it easier. Thinking of the people you aim to bombard with shrapnel as something other than human must make it easier, as well. I feel sorry for the victims, but I also feel sorry for people whose brains are so distorted that they think wounding and killing will do some good for them or their cause.
Sorry, but not so sorry that I would excuse them a punishment that makes them feel very sorry for themselves.
Understanding why such things happen defies me, but clues may be found in such phrases as “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter”. In 1984, seven tons of arms, ammunition and explosives were seized by the Irish Navy. They had been shipped from Boston. Men went to prison on both sides of the Atlantic. In 1986 the FBI foiled a plot to fly rifles, missiles and bullet proof vests from Boston to Ireland. In 1990 a group of IRA supporters were jailed in Boston for trying to smuggle a home-made missile system to Ireland. The group is also believed to have supplied detonators from 1982-88. How many Bostonians dropped a few coins into the can for the IRA?
No eight year old kid deserves to be blown up, anywhere, any time.
How long before it happens in Australia?
bobmcgee 