Counting the numbers- to "Armageddon"

Submitted by Peter Hanbury (Australia), Dec 26, 2005 at 17:03

I wish to thank "Armageddon" (despite the decision to hide behind a pseudonym) for the impassioned response to my article. Sadly, passion is not always accompanied by logic.

There are many different causes for riots in various parts of the world. I do not accept that Muslims are resonsible for riots here in Australia. On the contrary, after 9/11, anti-Muslim prejudice was fuelled by the USA administration, and peace-loving Muslims were certainly vilified here in Australia, just as they were in other parts of the world. The irony is that this racial and religious prejudice is promoted by "Christians" who seem to have forgotten that Jesus said "Love your enemies," not "Kill your enemies". Have we forgotten that for the past 1000 years or more the greatest slaughter of Christians has been perpetrated by other "Christians"?

If anyone feels that I have minimized the 9/11 tragedy, I suggest that they count the numbers. In the so-called "war on terror", the United States bombed to death an estimated 10,000 people in Iraq, a Muslim country that had not attacked America, and brought about a conflict that has now claimed a further 30,000 lives, including over 2,100 young Americans. Is this really justified by the death of 2,800 people in New York?

A similar disparity is seen in the Middle east. After the Nazi holocaust, it was not the Germans who were displaced in order to establish the state of Israel, but the Palestinians. Certainly Israel was justified in its pre-emptive strike in the 1967 6-day war, but that conflict was provoked by Nasser, not by the Palestinians. In the ensuing Israeli occupation, far more Palestinians have died than Israelis. Is a human life less valuable because the individual is a Muslim?

Killing innocent people is never justified, regardless of whether the killers are Muslims, Jews or Christians. Blaming one religion for all the world's complex troubles is an easy option, but easy options seldom lead to a solution.

Peter Hanbury

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