According to a report published by the RAND Corporation, victims of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States have received $38.1 billion dollars in compensation, with insurance agencies and the United States government making more than 90 percent of the payments. The 52 victims of the 7/7 attacks in London have also received a total of over five million British pounds in compensation. Similarly victims of the Madrid bombing in Spain received compensation both from Spanish and EU authorities.

Nearly 200 people have been killed in suicide bombings in Pakistan since 2002 and there is scant evidence that the families of these victims have or will receive anything at all in terms of compensation. The families of the 27 victims of the latest suicide bombings at the Marhaba Hotel in Peshawar are equally unlikely to receive any assistance.

Indeed, marking the disparity between the accolades and commemorations awarded to victims of terror in Western countries begs a question increasingly forgotten by those perpetrating the "war on terror" across the globe: are Pakistani and Muslim victims of terror less innocent and less worthy of mourning than western victims of terror? Are the stories of fathers, brothers, wives, daughters and children that perish on the streets of Karachi or the bazaars of Peshawar somehow less tragic than those of stockbrokers in the World Trade Centre and commuters on the London tube?

These questions are uncomfortable and cumbersome and tragically few in western countries wish to ask them. One reason for this reticence may simply be the inability of the West to acknowledge the reality and tragedy surrounding non-western victims of terror. When a terrorist attack occurs in the western world, immigrant Muslim groups immediately confront an onslaught of scrutiny, with western news media counting the minutes and seconds until condemnations are issued and recriminations posted on Muslim newspapers and websites. At these crucial moments, all Muslims, especially those living in the West, essentially have to disprove the presumption that they are complicit in these horrendous crimes.

Yet when terrorist attacks take place in countries like Pakistan, and the victims are all Pakistanis and Muslims, few non-Muslims in the western world take the trouble to issue condemnations or organise vigils and rallies in support of the innocent victims. At best, a few tersely worded statements are issued by the US State Department that make little pretence at empathy and reek of condescension.

News of suicide attacks in countries like Pakistan is often relegated to one-line dispatches in national news broadcasts across the western hemisphere. The "terrorism experts" that have become a regular feature of Western television news channels do not bother to analyze the dimensions and details of attacks occurring in Peshawar or Karachi. While Pakistan may be incredibly useful as an ally in the war on terror, Pakistanis, who are victims of terror, receive scarce attention and none of the empathy western governments offer to their lost citizens and their families.

Because Iraqis, Afghans and Pakistanis share a religion with the perpetrators of the senseless violence, their deaths are considered less urgent, indicative of an internal problem within Islam that makes the victims, if not as culpable as the perpetrators, then certainly not entirely innocent in the bargain. It is this damning assumption - one that under-girds so many western debates on the ravages of suicide terror and venerates the western victim as more important and more worthy of sympathy - that lies at the crux of the world�s inability to deal with terrorism as a pressing and grotesque disease afflicting the world community.

The culprit is the framing of the war on terror as a conflict between the enlightened West and the progress-averse Muslim world. Reductionist and completely misleading, this construction does incredible disservice to both sides. On one hand it allows the western world to languish in the lie that Muslims only perpetuate terror and are never victimised by it. On the other it allows Muslims to live in the rationalisation that religious extremists are battling only the West and have no qualms or enmities against their fellow Muslims.

The grotesque reality of the deaths in Peshawar is the most recent incident that must lead the world to question the dangerous lies behind both of these assumptions. Seeing religious extremism, and the terrorism it spawns, as a problem that afflicts only one or the other side of the world is to deny the universal human cost being imposed by those for whom human lives, western or non-western, are ultimately meaningless and expendable.

Pakistanis need to realise that when they see horrendous acts of terror such as those carried out on 9/11, they are witnessing not some anti-imperialist victory that is finally bringing an arrogant United States to its knees but rather the unabated death and carnage of thousands of innocent and hapless victims not any different from the scores dying of suicide attacks on the streets of Peshawar and Karachi.

The suicide bomber in Peshawar reportedly had the following message emblazoned on his legs: "This is what happens to American spies". Yet the people he killed were unassuming diners who simply had the misfortune of being at the wrong place at the wrong time. If anything, the tragedy of their deaths should expose the absurdity of a quest that sought to obliterate innocent civilian lives to avenge ideological hatred.

At the same time, westerners need to descend from the secure bandwagon that paints terrorism as a problem deserving attention only when it claims their lives. In doing so, they need to acknowledge the reality that the tragedies afflicting families who lose members to terrorist attacks in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq are just as afflicted, grief-stricken and worthy of the empathy and compassion as those dying in their own countries.

In acknowledging the humanity and common suffering of all victims of terror, perhaps the world can come to realise that the real war is between those who believe in the ultimate sanctity and value of a human life and those who do not.

"Comments like that serve no purpose except to fan the flames of hatred."

Not at all. It serves to illustrate the easily verifiable fact that Americans views the Iraqi people and Middle Easterners in general, as less then human.

It's well-documented that many Americans, perhaps even the majority, opposed the war before it began and continue to oppose it. Many churches, most notably the Catholic Church, spoke loudly against it. And you're obviously not aware that many Americans are, in fact, Middle Eastern. For you to suggest that they see themselves as less than human is absurd.

If you hate Americans, just say so. There's no point in trying to justify your hatred, because hatred cannot be justified. Every religion teaches us that the peacemakers will be rewarded. The hateful will perish. As we say in America, "It's time for you to get right with God."

Thats simply not true, Marcello. A majority of Americans supported the war against Iraq(65-70% at the start), it has declined after more then 4 years. Thats the effect of body bags and not being showered by flowers from a population you starved for a dozen years.
Middle Easterners are a tiny minority in the US, just like the Moslems who barely make up 3% of the population. Americans do view them as less then human, its written all over the political establishment and mainstream culture.
I am not "anti-american," but anti-criminal. So please refrain from rewriting history and pretending to be something you're not. Keep God out of this. The American Christian has become so twisted by living a double standard and so believes the Prince of Peace will return to take these preachers of war and death to paradise that thinking they must sacrifice Muslim children to bring back the era of true peace.

I was reading on today's CNN website, that in the current Condomlisa Rice trip to the Middle East, the US Government is providing a $30 billion 10-year "military assistance" package to Israel. Which is supposed to counterbalance a similar albeit actual sales of $30 billion in so-called defensive military hardware to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries.

So the stupid Arabs pay for the defensive hardware in order to defend themselves against free offensive weapons being provided for free to their neighbour Israel. Sort of a choice between a rock and a hard place I suppose.

I would like to ask our American friends, what kind of peace they hope to maintain by shipping $6 billion of weapons into the Middle East every year???

I dont necessarily agree with BushFartBereftofGloriousAtoms or whatever about Americans viewing others as being less than human, I just think they are a nation of war mongers that depend on building these weapons of mass destruction and supplying friends and foes alike overseas as a sort of business.

Which is fine, who are we Muslims to hold Christians accountable for moral degeneration, their whole religion is built on failing and forigiving. Man is afterall born in sin, he can only go South from there, I imagine. But then why the pretentions of being peacemakers???? That is what I do not understand. If you are shipping $20 billion or so in arms overseas every year???

I would say Americans, unlike Europeons, are more hypocrites not racists. A subtle but important cultural difference.

> The US would have never attacked
> Iraq if Americans felt the people
> who lived there were anything
> other than ‘Sand n*****s’.

This is a gross over-simplification of Americans' views of Middle Easterner people. The majority of ordinary Americans have been horrified at the atrocities committed on ordinary Middle Easterners by people like Saddam Hussein and militant religious fanatics like the Taliban.

grace,

If Americans are horrified by death why did they allow the United States to help Saddam Hussein gain power? THe United States then supported Hussein, strategically and financially, when he was committing his worst atrocities.

Why didn't Americans do anything when the United States recruited and trained Muslim extremists to fight its proxy war against the Russians?

When the Russians were defeated this contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union. THe United States became the number one super power in the world. In the meanwhile, Afghanistan was left in ruins and millons were killed.

grace,

Were Americans horrified by the millions of Iraqi deaths the United States is responsble for when it bombed the country in two invasions, when it destroyed the infrastructure of the country, when it led the campaign to place sanctions on Iraq, when it used depleted uranium and chemical weapons that caused deformed babies, contaminated land and a rise in deadly diseases?

RandallJones,

Which Americans "allowed" the US to help Hussein gain power? Do you seriously believe that the news media give us the whole truth about anything at all? The only support I'm aware of for Hussein was the Oil for Food program (Oil for Palaces) which was an opportunity for graft for the people running it. It made some of them quite wealthy.

The US is responsible for "millions" of Iraqi deaths? I am aware of civilian deaths in Iraq and Afganistan caused by misinformation, terrorists hiding behind civilians, so-called friendly fire, and religious extremism--civilians of many nations. Where is your basis for "millions?"

You are lumping together all the people in our country and over-simplifying a diverse population as a single body.

Why do you say the US destroyed the infrastructure of the country?
Who kept bombing the oil fields in the country while the Allies were trying to keep the oil flowing and the country's economic base intact enough for future rebuilding?

I believe you may be letting partisan emotionalism lead your thinking. Where are your facts?

grace,

Here is an article about
"Regime Change: How the CIA put Saddam's Party in Power"
http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/51/217.html


Here is a history of the relationship between Iraq and the United States, inclulding the fact that the U.S. sold Saddam Hussein chemical weapons, knowing that Saddam Hussein had used them before.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17891.htm

Here is a film on YouTube made by Barry Lando (former "60 minutes" producer) about the relationship between the U.S. and Saddam Hussein.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UeY05iS5iv0

Here is an article about how the United States sold weapons and gave false intelligence to both sides of the Iran-Iraq war.
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=15&ItemID=2292

Here is a list of some of the United States' war crimes against Iraq.
http://deoxy.org/wc/warcrim2.htm
#3, 4, and 5 talk of the bombings, destruction of infrastructure, and resulting deaths and this is from just the first invasion.

By the way I happen to think that the Democrats are just as bad as the Republicans. No politician will make the right decision unless the public demand from the government and the media the truth about U.S. foreign policy, not only in the Middle East, but also in Africa, Asia, and South America. For now, Ron Paul is the closest thing we have to an honest politician and he happens to be a Republican.

Religious selves being spiritual are never born and never die. Tribal people are born and they die. So, not a single Hindu, Sikh, Shia, Sunni, Jew, etc is born or dies but the sons of Adam, the tribal people.

This Dark Age, is dominated by Al-djmar al-aksa, the Mullahs, Popes and other religious leaders who have no position in Islam of Allah where you go by INSHALLAH and give your own account to God.

Kashmiri people are Emperors of Darkness, the best quality Al-djmar al-aksas and no one can beat them but Allah is grinding them between the two countries. India and Pakistan.

So, if you want Peace be faithful to your tribal selves that are the inhabitants of this Planet.

KUFFARS are sweeter than honey but they bring in destructions as you see in India, Iraq, Israel, etc

RandallJones (and others like you), I hope you are fairly young to be so ignorant and yet so certain of your opinions. If not, you're beyond hope. You appear to have a grade school education with a PhD. in popular internet crap, and almost no common sense.

Every significant action taken by any government in world history has negative and well as the hoped for positive aspects, as does every decision in an individual’s life. There is no point finding and decrying all the negatives in the actions when you don’t know or pretend not to know the major reasons for those actions. It’s great fun for conspiracy theorists, but only obfuscates the real picture. All the stuff you drag up is beside the point in the context of the times and strategic reasons the US took those actions.

The US has made, and hopefully will always make, the most rational decisions it can in order to protect its citizens, keep the US and world economies from being devastated, and, when possible, aid other countries. Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Panama, the Cold War, World War II, Korea, etc., etc., are easy enough to understand if you have an ounce of brains and look at options available (including doing nothing) at the time they occurred. I could repeat the reasons at length, but they’re obvious (and quite simple) to everyone except those who refuse to see them, so it would be a waste of time.

You are like a kid throwing a tantrum because his parents tell him he can’t have a pony. You are sure your world would be better if you had a pony, but don’t know and don’t care to hear all the obvious reasons why your cruel parents have to tell you no. You’re only interested in the minutiae of the here and now, the easy shots. You live to proclaim how our leaders are evil and stupid because you are unconscious of (refuse to accept or see) the evil and impotence in yourself, thus you project it on those in power. You give no thought to the general realities of the world or what logically will follow in the next ten or twenty years if no one acts. If you want a cause to give your life some meaning, study Carl Jung first and find out why every human being has evil and violence in his own soul, and that to the degree he denies it, and until he become conscious of it, he will see it in others. I’ve met thousands of people like you in my life, and you bore me.

Do us all a favor and go grow up for 10 or 20 years and quit wasting space on the internet.

Dr. BobE,

My age has nothing to do what we are talking about. But if age is important to you, the links I have provided involve people who have many years of experience working in media, government or academia.

I will not be wasting my time reading Carl Jung since he will not proivide my with the truth about U.S. foreign policy and how the mainstream media has failed the American public with its lazy and dishonest reporting.

...westerners need to descend from the secure bandwagon that paints terrorism as a problem deserving attention only when it claims their lives. In doing so, they need to acknowledge the reality that the tragedies afflicting families who lose members to terrorist attacks in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq are just as afflicted, grief-stricken and worthy of the empathy and compassion as those dying in their own countries.

So what should we do about it? Do we treat the affliction the same way we treat it in the West, by establishing the rule of law (not rule BY law), enforcement, using force against those responsible, education, increased police activity, and so on? That, since these decolonized states cannot do the job themselves no matter what, that Westerners themselves should descend upon them in force to do the job?

Why, that would mean invasion, even colonialism! Is there not some middle way?

Solomon2,

Why doesn't the West stop having double standards? It funds and collaborates with terrorists and brutal dictators when they benefit from it. Anyone the West doesn't like is called a terrorist or is accused of funding terrorism.

Have you ever noticed someone who is quick to accuse others of double standards is also the sort of person who refuses to acknowledge the complexity of a particular situation?

In Texas many inmates are executed every year. The simplistic folk out cry: "Double standard! Isn't the State of Texas as bad as the murderers it executes?" But that, of course, ignores the counter-argument that the living too have rights, namely that justice should be done for the sake of those unjustly murdered. The State of Texas has ruled that the lives of those on death row are not to be as valued as the rest of its citizens.

Not every killer is a terrorist or criminal, not all dictators are equal, not every person is equally good or equally bad, and by extension not every group of people is equally good or equally bad. Most if not all humans have the gift of reason and can distinguish between good and better, or bad and worse, if they bother to examine the evidence carefully.

You may disagree with the fact that I am making such judgments. Then again, you are talking to someone who wears a crown and carries a sceptre! :)

It is sad to see civilized discussions break down into the hate. The finger pointing and blame game is sickining.

The main point to this article, should be, that we are all victims of terrorsim. Muslims all over the world are being attacked in the name of their own religion. This should be a wake up call. You can keep blaming America or whoever you believe to be the cause of terrorism, but that does not justify the killing of innocents.

This article speaks of Muslims that became forgotten victims and all some can talk about is what America did and that the murder of all civilians in the world is all Americas fault.

Muslims must stand together and stop the manipulation of a proud and peacfull religion to justify terrorism.

It is really sad that the Muslim victims are forgotten about, because everyone is so wrapped up in blaming America that they can't see the victims of their own religion being attacked as well. I guess killing Muslims in a market or restaurant will show them Americans, huh?

These people that say there is no Muslim on Muslim violence and that keep spewing the hate need to wake up. Like the Bush Terror Guy, he thinks the CIA is the one doing all the bombing.

voices,

No one is saying there is no Muslim on Muslim violence, but it is ridiculous not to discuss America, when it has bombed and is occupying two Muslim countries. The U.S. has a long history of interfering with the politics of many Muslim countries. It has a long history of collaborating with Muslim extremists and brutal dictators. And if that isn't enough the United States is selectively accusing certain countries of funding terrorism and threatening to bomb them. The United States is in no moral position to accuse other people of funding terrorism.

Why doesn't the Judeo-Christian West set the example by doing something about the Christian Congo, where the most number of rapes and killings have occurred. The West will not be doing anything about this any time soon because the United States, Israel, and Europe benefit from the diamonds, other natural resources, and sale of weapons.