Another bombing ...

[minsue]

Another phone call from mom: It was "just" in Jerusalem. (said with a sigh of relief)

Now WHY do I find this statement just as disturbing as the act itself?

I don't know, but it's not the first time that statement has been made and surely not the last. I don't understand it at all.

 

[cheerful_deviant]

I don't know, but it's not the first time that statement has been made and surely not the last. I don't understand it at all.

I hate to admit it, but I sometimes think the same thing. It's not to belittle the horror of it all. It's just that they come with such depresssing regularity in that part of the world, your mind kindof becomes numb to it all after a while.

 

[SummerMorning]

I'm sorry Summer. There is noting ordinary about someone who can do this. It shows a complete disconnect with any higher function in the brain. At least a disconnect to any of the better instincts and emotions we are all supposed to share. No pity. No compassion. No concern for the lives you are destroying. That isn't ordinary.

I can't make myself believe that's ordinary. Or that an ordinary person could make themselves go blow up people innocent of any wrong doing for no reason.

I can't call them animals, beacuse most animals don't kill for no damned reason at all.

I don't think it's within us to become like them. At least, it's not within me. I don't think it's within Lou, or Rob or anyone lese I know personally.

I can hate with the best of them, but I can't do away with my humanity. No matter what the cause.

No, you're right - what they do is completely extraordinary. Statistically it is a miniscule percentage of human beings that suicide bomb. But alas, the people who do it are (or are least, up to this point, were) ordinary.

1. *they* believe that those innocent people are in fact culpable.

2. *they* kill for a reason, distasteful as that reason is.

3. I fear very much that it is within *all* of us to become like that given the right (wrong) circumstances.

This kind of shit (terrorism) is one more beautiful and dreadful example of the road to hell and the good intentions that pave it. In the name of a transcendental and cosmic good we humans are capable of the vilest evil. The sad part is that both good and evil are contingent and dependent on P.O.V. in large part.

 

[SummerMorning]

I hate to admit it, but I sometimes think the same thing. It's not to belittle the horror of it all. It's just that they come with such depresssing regularity in that part of the world, your mind kindof becomes numb to it all after a while.

It's a defense mechanism.

 

[TheEarl]

Hey, I'm Irish. (not that it matters...)

You live in Ireland/born in Ireland?

From there it was escallation: The bigger boot of the British empire stomped and stomped every more traditional means of fighting that they (IRA) had available. Again, only what I've read, but wasn't it the thugs sent by the British that started targetting family members of IRA? I remember hearing about a footbal stadium being quarantined and civilians being shot as well. The bombings is what was left to them. If England had sat down with them day one and worked out the eventual political change that did happen, do you really think the IRA would have existed past 1920 (or whenever the heck it was)?

The point here is not to argue who's right and wrong. It is to see the series of cause and effect that leads to these things, because only by understanding cause and effect can you really solve any problem.

Very true that the British started it. We whopped Ireland in a war and took the 7 counties as our reparations.

However, you are suffering from a massive lack of information and a misinterpretation of what you do have. First of all, a united Ireland is not wanted by a majority of people in Northern Ireland. They do not want to be part of Eire; they consider themselves British. The 'bigger boot' of the British army has been protecting that democratic wish of the people of Northern Ireland over the last 20-odd years. The 'thugs sent by the British' were generally not sent by the British. They were part of the UVF (Ulster Volunteer Force), who were the opposition to the IRA. In other words the mass-murdering fuckwits from the other side of the fence.

A lot of 'Irish' people in America seem to have this fundamental misinterpretation of what was happening during the Troubles, seeing it as a straightforward fight - the evil Empire of the jackbooted British Army on one side and those plucky little oppressed rebel freedom fighters on the other. Kinda like Star Wars. What was actually happening was that the IRA bombed innocent people. Then the UVF bombed innocent people. Then the IRA bombed the British Army. Then the UVF bombed more innocent people. The Army was there trying to keep the peace and to allow the democratic choice of the people of Northern Ireland to be enforced.

This kind of knowledge gap was the reason behind Noraid and the reason why American citizens paid for the deaths of innocent Britons.

The Earl

 

[Op_Cit]

You live in Ireland/born in Ireland?

That was me being ironic. (what's the emoticon for that?) That is, many around here do the, "Hey I dated someone who's been to China, so I know all about the Tang dynasty." And I was making a play on that...

Now, if your point is to refocus the original source of the IRA problem as British Empire building of centuries past, you get credit for citing a macro scale cause...

But it seems you missed my main point because I'm terrible at explaining things. Maybe if those terrorists could explain themselves better...

 

[erise]

I don't know, but it's not the first time that statement has been made and surely not the last. I don't understand it at all.

And in other news, 27 people were killed in a sucide bombing in Iraq the other day.

Did anyone even notice?

to innocents everywhere.

 

[moonlight elf]

And in other news, 27 people were killed in a sucide bombing in Iraq the other day.

Did anyone even notice?

to innocents everywhere.

 

[erise]

And now this.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationw...ry?coll=la-headlines-world&ctrack=1&cset=true

Sigh. I've got to stop reading news, or I'll just depress myself beyond control.