London
I went to bed after learning of London's success at landing the 2012 Olympics and woke up to NPR's reporting of the bombings -- two dead, at least a hundred fifty injured. It was strange listening to the reports and climbing death tolls -- and reminder of the attack on New York. I hope that Dale's friends and family are save.
I was impressed with the reaction of the British and their government. The MPs made a point to go on with business as usual, and London's mayor vowed the city would quickly recover -- that's a good thing for us, since we'll be going through Heathrow in a couple of weeks. I wonder how this compares with the IRA bombings from the past?
The one incongruous thing that struck me was how the (western) world reacted to the bombings (me included). Continuous coverage by media, messages of condolence and support from world and religious leaders, etc. That's stuff you'd expect, right? The thing is, bombings with this -- and greater -- number of casualties happen in Iraq on a weekly basis, but we do not really pay attention anymore.
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Personally, I think the reason the London bombings were so horrific is London is a civilized country. On the other hand Iraq is not civilized at all and have 3 to 4 bombings daily. Also, Iraq is a war zone and London should be a place of peace.
I was mentioning to Mother today that it is a good thing Dale and Jonathan are back in the United States right now. If they had been sight seeing in London today, I shudder to think what could have happened.
Yes, we can identify with Londoners much more closely than we might with Iraqis -- but that shouldn't make the deaths of one any more or less tragic than those of others, should it? I doubt that the families of those killed by some senseless bombing in Iraq feel much different from families of people that were killed in London.
Think about it -- the stuff Londoners just went through is stuff that the Iraqi population (after being brutally opressed under Saddam and then having most of their country destroyed by us) now goes through on an almost daily basis (except they don't have well organised EMS teams and fully stocked hospitals, so more of their injured die).
I think it's partly the frequency of the bombings that makes us forget about them. Before the war, there were no insurgent bombings in Iraq and when they started, everyone was paying attention until we became calloussed by the steady bombing news. It didn't help things that the insurgency bombings were preceded by a bunch of civilian casualties from he war. So yes, war "cheapens" the percieved value of life -- especially if it's people we cannot relate to. I really don't think that we should let it.