On Sat, Nov 14, 2015 at 09:41:31AM +0100, Dr. Nikolaus Klepp wrote: > Hosea 8:7 "For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind" -- spoken of Israel's punishment for having turned away from the demands of their petty and cruel god. Whatever the sins of the French government, and there are many, or even of individual French people, the victims did not deserve to be murdered or injured like this. Two wrongs do not make a right, and I think that it is contemptible to suggest that the victims in Paris deserved their fate for turning away from god. This sort of medieval religious hatred is one of the reasons we're in this predicament: we blow them up, they blow us up, which gives us the excuse we were looking for to blow them up some more. I wish I could believe that the cycle of violence would end some day, but I doubt it. So-called Homo sapiens is a nasty, violent, tribal chimpanzee with pretentions of grandure, and greater power hasn't brought on greater wisdom. We commit inexcusable acts with vengence and retaliation for crimes (real or imaginary) as the excuse, but the real reason is that "we" want something "they" have, be it oil or power or just the joy of seeing strangers dead for the unspeakable crime of fighting back. For those sending their thoughts and sympathy to the 100 or so innocent victims in Paris, whose only crime was to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, perhaps you can find a drop of sympathy to spare for the multiple thousands of innocents we have blown to pieces for exactly the same crime. High explosive doesn't discriminate, and the fact that we talk about "surgical" strikes and "precision" bombs is a grotesque and self-serving lie, as bad and as ridiculous as the one about the 72 virgins waiting in heaven. (For every militant killed by drone, an average of 37 non-combatants, including women and children, is also killed.) Until both sides are prepared to acknowledge their crimes, AND change their behaviour, the cycle of violence will just continue. -- Steve