London "got off easy"???

Listening to an NPR radio report about today’s terrorist attacks on London, I was surprised to hear that statement. “London got off easy…” Now I understand that the scope of the London attacks does not approach that of 9-11. This reporter was comparing London’s attack to that of Madrid, Spain in 2004. Well, in Madrid, 190 or so people were killed and today in London, so far 37 people are dead. I don’t really see this as too much of a difference. So, my point…

I see real danger in saying that any city or group “got off easy” simply because of the number of casualties in a terrorist attack. Isn’t this like issuing a challenge to Al queda??? Well this isn’t terrible enough, we got off easy! I am SURE that the people who are mourning lost loved ones or those in hospitals, with missing limbs or massive burns, do not feel they got off easy. This isn’t even what bothers me the most about this reporter’s comment but the fact that we now have a barometer of comparative recent terrorism. Easy, London…Medium, Spain…Super Awful, 9-11. We now live in a climate where this type of warfare is scoreable. This is the climate in which my children are being raised. When I think about the climate of war and terror in the last 100 or so years, though, I suppose it is just a different type of horror, rather than a different severity of horror. Hitler did not go around the world, sneakily planting bombs and killing people; he created a massive following, groomed an army, invaded, attacked and did it out in the open…still equally as horrible. War and terrorism do not seem much different in my mind. Both include the killing of innocent people, both include some sort of cause (justifiable by those who perpetrate it), both include horror and terror that changes the participants forever. Soldiers returning from war, victims returning home after witnessing terrorism, I am sure feel very similar. Body parts strewn about the street in London or Iraq…I do not see much difference.

So to London’s people who are mourning, recovering, nightmaring:
I do not think that you got off easy and I am truly sorry that you have been made to suffer today at the hands of those who would take away your peace.

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