Grief in Any Race (x)

A coin has two sides. So does the world we live in. We watch CNN and BBC and we see updates of lives lost in Iraq, Afghanistan, Thailand, Africa. More significantly we are bombarded with images of Americans and the British mourning the loss of their own in this rather senseless war.

All for the simple fact that they wanted to take out Saddam Hussein who murdered 5,000 of his own people and represents a threat to "global security". To date, America has lost more than 1,000 of its patriots in this war, but no one bothered to count the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who died - innocently or due to to the war. No one is being held accountable for the death of innocents, not a single apology.

Let me ask this, who will mourn the death of 76 Muslim Thais forced like cattle into trucks? Who will grieve for the 70,000 people massacred in Darfur by the Sudanese Government and ethnic Arabs? Who will give solace to hundreds of Palestinians and Israelis suffering in a battle that has gone beyond reason? Whose heart breaks when we see children screaming in terror and pain in a school in Russia? Who cares when Hindus burn and pillage a Muslim mosque and in the process kills innocent believers in India? Who will suffer in silence for the thousands of soldiers and volunteer civilians who have died in Iraq serving a purpose that is increasingly becoming more absurd?

Violence begets violence.

I wonder... who will show the world the other side of the coin?

Note: The image in this article is one that was taken months after the Americans invaded Afghanistan and leveled a country already torn by poverty and strife. The picture is of an old man, teeth gnashing and tears glistening in his eyes. We don't know his story, but like him, nameless people have lost loved ones in a war that is waged against humanity.

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This entry was originally posted November 2004 in response to the war in afghanistan and iraq. since then a lot has happened but the same reality exists, innocents suffer from the madness - cacho

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