I have read a lot of posts on this forum since the terrible...

I have read a lot of posts on this forum since the terrible events of yesterday in London, some that show a lot of maturity, but also lots of those from very hateful individuals. Somehow, tragedies of this type bring out the worst in people, and that's when you see all sorts of strange solutions suggested like - "nuke them now", "throw out all Muslims", "stop all immigration", etc, etc - the usual cliches which will never ever solve any problems.

What is sad about this war on Terror (I sometimes wonder if its a War of Terror ??) is that while the leaders of both sides of this conflict live in safety, and wreak war and misery on others for their own purposes, they send us out as soldiers and combatants, to go out and kill. Numbers do no worry them. The sad part is that its always the civilians, the meat in the sandwich so to apeak, who always end up the losers.

One thing I have not understood to date is how people in the west are very calmly able to rationalise that the killing their side is carrying out is humane and painless. Is it because we in the west consider our lives as more valuable than that of another civilian, say in iraq, who gets shot by a nervous and trigger-happy 19 year old recruit for no reason that the soldier became scared.

I do not see how it can be humane to level whole residential districts in towns from aeroplanes and bombers. Every iraqi civilian killed by the coalition in Iraq has a brother, sister, parents, family, relatives. These people are also human beings, have human emotions and want to live their lives in peace, just like we do. When they get treated badly, trodden down on, arrested at random, locked up, brutalised, tortured, etc, the mainstream western press for the most part looks the other way. An occupying army may have a short memory, but the memory of victims is very long. A small proportion of those people will go out for revenge.

I feel very deeply for the victims of yesterday's attacks, just as I feel for the countless tens of thousands of innocent iraqis that have been killed in a conflict to satisfy one man's ego. Do we in the west grieve for them ?

I suspect this post will draw out a whole heap of vitriol from those who cannot tolerate a view opposite to their, but this tragedy has two sides to it.