TERRORISM: ‘THEIRS’ OR ‘OURS’?

What’s the difference between delivering a bomb via backpack that kills innocent civilians and delivering a bomb via drone that kills innocent civilians? Well, if it’s a bomb delivered by backpack that kills innocent civilians in the West then it’s an act of ‘terrorism’, but if it’s a bomb delivered by drone that kills innocent civilians in Yemen or Pakistan or Afghanistan or Somalia or the Gaza Strip or the West Bank then it’s part of the ongoing ‘war on terrorism’ and the deaths of innocent civilians is simply ‘collateral damage’. The bottom line, however, is exactly the same – innocent civilians have died and been injured, families are torn apart and the lives of survivors shattered forever. In short, all have been terrorised.

But here’s the difference. In the West, each and every one of the innocent civilian casualties of a bomb blast will be eulogised throughout the Western world via the mainstream media. Faces will be given to the names of the victims as they become known, film of mourning loved ones will be shown to the world while, at the same time, the perpetrators are hunted down and treated mercilessly once cornered or captured.

Meanwhile, for most of the people of the West, those innocent victims blown to pieces and maimed for life by a bomb delivered by a drone will remain anonymous and the perpetrators that delivered the bomb will be protected and remain just as anonymous as their victims. The mainstream media will barely give the event a mention other than to perhaps say that the administration has officially apologised – yet again – for the ‘collateral damage’ caused.

And then there are those others that are killed elsewhere via backpacks (or car bombs or truck bombs or whatever). They are the ones in Syria, Iraq or Afghanistan or in other far off places that most in the West really couldn’t care less about. The Western mainstream press won’t give them same cover as they do the victims in the West. Only the Western victims, or so it seems, are important enough to have so much media attention lavished on them. But do they really? Is the media really interested in the Western victims? Or are they simply fodder for the governments propaganda machine that feeds the continuing ‘war on terrorism’?

Does anyone remember the names of the three victims of the Boston Marathon bombings? No? But I’d be willing to bet that, if you didn’t actually know the names of the two accused of being the perpetrators on account of them being too difficult to pronounce, then you’d certainly recognise their names if you read them. And you’ll know where they came from. And I can all but guarantee that most of the Western world by now knows that they were Muslims.

Terrorism, contrary to Western media opinion, isn’t committed just by Muslims against the West; it is committed by Westerners against Muslims, it is committed by Muslims against Muslims, and it is even committed by Westerners against Westerners. The survivors of the Sandy Hook School massacre will attest to the fact that they were terrorised by what happened just as those that survived the Boston Marathon bombing were terrorised or, indeed, anyone else that has survived bombings and shootings.

The West doesn’t have a monopoly on victimhood by terrorists – though you’d think so judging by the way the media handles it. But it does suit the propagandists who are keen to perpetuate the ‘war against terrorism’ even if it does mean terrorising other people around the world.