Trying to make sense of the Paris massacres

The Internet is full of like-minded, peace-loving people trying to come to grips with what happened in Paris. Here are some to the best quotes I found:

• “As a Canadian Muslim woman, I know that my faith is rooted in peace, in sacrifice and in charity. A vision shared by millions around the world. Millions who shudder at the thought of their faith being hijacked by the select few who choose to pervert it into a vehicle of propaganda, hate and violence. It’s become commonplace to spread hate speech about Muslims, to make up stories of our beliefs and practices, all in the guise of free speech. While we all share a sense of anger, sadness and disbelief that such a large-scale coordinated attack took place in one of the main metropolises of the Western world, we should all be allowed the freedom to mourn. In the aftermath of these horrible atrocities, it is everyday Muslims around the world, particularly in the West, that brace themselves for the aftermath for the hate speech, instances of racism and inevitable discrimination that follow.”
• “I am British, living in Germany and we just want the bombs to stop, the hate to end, and, above all, the need for revenge to be forgotten. We feel sadness and regret whenever something happens in the Middle East or elsewhere and lives are lost. For the attacks in Paris, we do not believe that the refugees are to blame, and will not stop helping them. We also know that drone strikes in retaliation are a cause, not a solution. We can do nothing to stop them, we have no voice, our leaders do not listen. They are too invested in war.”

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump was quoted as saying that the terror attacks in Paris would have been “a much, much different situation” had the victims been armed with guns. Sadly, there will be many that agree with Trump, but as of Oct. 1, in the country he hopes to lead, the total of mass shootings this year – incidents where four or more people are killed or injured by gunfire – was 294 in the first 274 days of 2015!! Does Trump think more guns would have been a solution for these mass killings as well?

Did you know that a pair of suicide bombings struck southern Beirut on Thursday, the day before the Paris massacre, and that 43 people were killed in Beirut and at least 239 others were wounded?

“When my people died on the streets of Beirut on November 12th, world leaders did not rise in condemnation. There were no statements expressing sympathy with the Lebanese people,” one person said following the Beirut attacks. “Obama did not issue a statement about how their death was a crime against humanity; after all what is humanity but a subjective term delineating the worth of the human being meant by it?”

I was ignorant of the fact that Arab countries are taking in refugees. Lebanon has taken in 2 million plus refugees from Syria. Saudi Arabia has also taken a huge influx, to name but a few Arab countries. Some will say that the root cause of all this suffering is all to do with many years of western intervention in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, etc. It’s all about oil and natural minerals. You only need to Google these countries and see for yourself what natural riches they have.

Finally, here are some facts that I was sadly also unaware of. President George W. Bush was quoted as saying that “Saddam Hussein has killed 50,000 Iraqis. We must go there and stop the killings now!” So they went and ended up killing as many as 200,000 Iraqis! There were also 4,500 dead and another 32,000 injured American soldiers as a result. Our neigbours, as a result, will owe as much as $6 trillion over the next 40 years.

Still trying to make sense of it all, I’m at “bdeefox@hotmail.com”.