Things can seem so unfair and unrealistic to me sometimes. Some people see things in the way 95% of the planet sees things, yet only the remaining 5% have the grasp and overall view of how things really are, or should be. It's sad how it takes a large scale act of war, large scale by way of casualties, to get people to see things in the real light. What I mean is that you would likely be totally silent if the 125 dead Iraqis died in 125 different incidents. And you say it's just the number. Well, I have to inform you that "just the number" represents real humans with real emotions and a newly broken home for somebody.

125 reasons for one side to mourn. 125 reasons for another side to celebrate.

1 more opportunity for the rest of us to decide on which side we identify most.

Some people see things in the way 95% of the planet sees things, yet only the remaining 5% have the grasp and overall view of how things really are, or should be.

Reiki-House -

This seems a rather arrogant view to me.

And I don't think InfoGeek intended that comment to be callous, as your subsequent comment suggests, but rather to indicate that he/she was moved by the magnitude of the loss. What caring human being wouldn't be?

There is an ingrained human tendency to view a single event in which many die (9/11, tsunami, anyone?) differently than thousands of events in which only one or two die. Aircraft accidents kill the tiniest percentage of passengers, and air travel is without question the safest mode of transport on earth, but a plane crash killing 300 gets front page 72-point bold-type headlines on the same day that 1100 die in automobile crashes around the country. Just the way it is. So a fanatical homicide bomber who kills 125 innocents gets noticed - it's what they count on, after all, or they wouldn't do it. May the scumbag rot in his well-deserved hell.

Sadly,
Daiwa

Sorry but I've seen this route before and it's still a rotter. Comparing death statistics between the number of dead in Iraq and the number of people who get killed slipping on a banana peel. Besides, I'm speaking from the lowly 5% of realists. I judge by necessity and not by lame assumptions. Joe blogger got killed driving to work. Well, he needed to get to work somehow. Steve Blogger got killed in Iraq while providing military protection to the oil tankers moving into Iraq from Kuwait. Not necessary. Joe's brother Jim got killed while constructing a hospital building. Well, he needed to work somehow. Steve's sister Maria, however, got killed by an IED while driving an unarmored Humvee through a tough 'insurgent' area of Baghdad. Not necessary when the reasons for sending her to Iraq were based on (disputably known) lies and even more lies. That's why I think you can't compare statistics, but I do chuckle at the fact that many Americans, while trying to defend an illegal war, feel they need to use more death as reason for these deaths. Always saying they don't do body counts yet they always seem to resort to them for their confirmation of righteousness. Death death car death more death some death tons of death aircraft death pedestrian death a touch more death died die death dead accidents blood dead death dying crashes total death more dying death die dead death more more death more dead more more even more death....it gets under my skin.

I judge by necessity and not by lame assumptions.

Well Reiki-House, I've witnessed death in all sorts of its incarnations. Unless the ex-person in question was an old person with failing health anyway, someone, somewhere usually makes the astute observation... "what a waste".

Jim was killed on a hospital contruction site... and you explain his life away with a quick, "he needed to work somehow". But what if "Jim" was a SeaBee and the hospital was being built in Baghdad? Both had a job to do, both died doing it, and "lame assumptions" are all that seperate the two.

I judge by necessity and not by lame assumptions.

Sorry, but it seems your lame assumptions are talking so loudly, I can't hear what your "judgement" is trying to say. ;~D

What I was basically trying to say, was that most of the insurgent attacks kill about 3-10 people or so. This one took out over 100 in one explosion. So, either this was just "luck" (bad/good whatever) or these poeple have found a serious weakness in the defenses and the next attack could number more fatalities.

IG

IG -

It appears from news reports that this was a bit of a breakdown in security vigilance - the driver allegedly managed to talk his way past a checkpoint that should never have let him through. It's going to happen, sadly.

Like I said, it's the news impact they are looking for (along with the perfectly human and understandable response of folks like Reiki-House) and as long as it can be assured they will get it, it will continue.

Cheers,
Daiwa

Had to post anonymously rather than log in and redo it - sorry. JU autologon is busted via SDC, at least here.