Terror in London vs Terror in the Middle East

It's too early to know what the total counts for dead and injured as well as the financial cost of damage to the London subway at this point. The reason this is and was headline news here in the United States was because London is not typically under attack. Many in London felt safe, it's one thing to see terrorism in another country, something different when it is your own.

In the Middle East, suicide bombers and car bombings have become common place. They still cause terror for those that live there but the rest of the world seems to treat most of these incidents as a mere byline. Today some of the newspapers report:

Thirteen people were killed and 30 wounded late on Wednesday in two almost simultaneous car bombings in the central Iraqi town of Jbeila, some 100km south of Baghdad, police said.

We shake our heads and move on to the next news article. In June CNN reported 8,175 people were killed and another 12,000 wounded since January 2005 in Iraq by terrorists or insurgents however you prefer to label them. This number has grown since January. Interior Minister Bayan Jabr said on June 2 of this year that 12,000 Iraqis had been killed during the past 18 months. Yet the total numbers aren't often talked about. If 8,175 people were killed all at once it would be a huge situation that would demand immediate action and comment from all of the world leaders.

There was no outcry or demand for action on June 2nd when those numbers were announced. Nothing changed from the release of that information and Iraqis have died since, almost daily.

London however is treated differently because that hits closer to home for us. They are a civilized society not some spot in the Middle East. England joined with the US in the whole "war on terror" so some view this almost the same as if it were an attack on the US.

So, as I feel sorrow and sympathy for those who have lost loved ones in London and pray for the recovery of those injured in today's bombings I wonder when we will stop placing such a high price on US or British lives versus others. The families of the over 12,000 victims in Iraq mourn their dead. To each one of them their loved one was an important part of their life taken away from them before their time by violent means.

I pray for us all that a day comes soon when no one has to find out they've lost a loved one because of a bombing. That someday a life has the same value no matter who it is that has been killed. If police here in our country killed innocent children because criminals were in the same house there would be an outcry. An investigation, a demand for action to prevent similiar repeats of loss of innocent lives. In Afghanistan or Iraq, it's "unfortunate" but "necessary" and blamed on the victims for being there.

I can't help wondering if we do not place any real value on their lives, how can we expect them to value ours?