Two minute silence

[ciphergoth]

At 12:00 BST today, London and many around the world observed a two minute silence for the 48 people who died in the terrorist attacks on London on 7 July.

During those two minutes, approximately 42 children worldwide died due to poverty.

We are not going to let terrorists cause us to lose perspective.

Comments

[ajva.livejournal.com]

The death of those 20 Iraqi children was indeed evil and wicked - but could have been avoided if the U.S Military hadn't been performing a public relations exercise by giving out sweets to them.

I hope this is meant somewhat sardonically? I mean, I'm sure you don't mean to imply the soldiers were at fault. It's just that it's easy to infer it from your comment. For me, it gets uncomfortably close to "He could have avoided his girlfriend getting raped if he hadn't given her a short skirt to wear as a present".

Please tell me I'm overreacting; it has been known.

[redcountess]

I'm not too sure about the meaning of sardonic, but what I meant was those soldiers shouldn't have been there (putting aside whether they should have been in Iraq in the first place). I did not mean to imply it was those soldiers caused those childeren to die, but it really smacked of a public relations exercise (or even PsyOps) gone wrong.

[ajva.livejournal.com]

Sure; I guess I just mean that the suicide bomber could have chosen *not* to kill the kids, but instead wait until all the sweets had been given out and the soldiers had pulled away before attacking. I think it shows how little respect the bomber had for the children and their lives (and, incidentally, for Iraqi lives in general) that he quite deliberately detonated where it was likely many would be killed or injured, probably knowing that many people both in the Arab and Western worlds would blame the US soldiers for being there in the first place. A PR coup for the bomber, in fact.

At least, that's how I see it. YMMV. In any case, I think it's a bit harsh to lay any culpability on the soldiers for this particular incident (I know you're not blaming them - just saying). I think giving out sweets is actually a decent thing for them to be doing, PR exercise or not.

[redcountess]

That bombing was actually a drive by, and perhaps they thought that the children would be admitted to paradise, which is horrible, but it's how extremists think. As I said, it was an evil thing to do.