A truck has plowed into a crowd at a Bastille Day celebration. Reports suggest about 60 casualties.
This is a tragedy.
It is not any more of a tragedy than the US attack on an MSF hospital in Afghanistan.
It is not more of a tragedy than the deliberate targeting of the Iraqi sewage system during the Gulf War.
The blood and pain of people who are not like you is not one whit less important than the blood and pain of people who are like you.
The number of people hurt and killed is important. Less death and pain is preferable to more death and pain.
Every single person killed or harmed by ISIS is the responsibility of George W. Bush and Tony Blair, along with the governments and militaries who backed them. There is no ISIS without the Iraq war. (It’s unclear if ISIS will claim responsibility, but the point remains that this terrorism is the result of the Iraq war.)
Causality is important when dealing with ethics. The consequences of invading Iraq were forseen by everyone with even the slightest amount of sense. Even the CIA and British intelligence called the consequences correctly.
Until people get their ethical reasoning straight, they will continue to create hellscapes.
I feel great sympathy for those in Nice who have lost someone. I feel no more sympathy for them than for all the Iraqis who have lost someone.
We are either all human, or we aren’t. A world where we aren’t is Hell.
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